Chi

A Complex Concept

Igbo culture is quite complex, and the concept of Chi stands in the middle of that complexity. In fact, the person, according to the Igbo, is composed of three parts: the Chi, the reincarnated ancestor, and the personal will. The chi is considered the core element in the person because it is the energizing aspect of the person. In many senses, it may be like the idea of nyama in the Mande culture because, like nyama, it is pervasive and therefore is found in every living thing. The physical form of a person has three separate parts: ist, afo, and ukwu la aka. Each of these parts has a counterpart in masculinity, femininity, and Chi, respectively.

One of the abiding philosophical questions in Igbo epistemology is where is the Chi in a material sense? Of course, this issue has been dealt with by the ancient philosophers of the culture, who [Page 160]have argued that Chi is in the extremities of the physical body and has no materiality. You cannot see it; you can only see its evidence. Indeed, the Chi is the nonmaterial aspect of the person, which is different from the material aspects that a person inherits from the mother and father. One can say that it is invisible or hidden, yet the evidence of its existence is real.

Of course, this means that one is able to have a specific identity because of this material inheritance, which marks one as distinctive. The Chi gives people features and forces, however, over which they have no control whatsoever. The Igbo believe that what makes one person different from another is choice. Alongside choice is behavior; therefore, a person must go through the process of reasoning, decision making, and behaving to be a complete human being distinctive from another human being. Thus, the idea of choice is at the center of distinguishing features between one human and another.

Chi and the Individual

However, in the reincarnated ancestor, the complete cycle is more completely revealed. One has to follow the Igbo philosophical reasoning to see how this concept figures in the person. In the first place, the idea of reincarnation in the Western sense is called properly in Igbo, ilo uwa, meaning “returning again to the world.” Among the Igbo, it is believed that this process occurs when a new baby comes into the world. This infant is not a duplicate of a deceased person, nor is this child the deceased coming back in material form. Rather, the Igbo say that the child is unique. It is through the umbilical cord that the ancestral traits are transmitted, and consequently the umbilical cord must be ritually buried within the boundaries of family land.

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