IJAW DIETIES AS MOTHER AND SUPREME CREATOR AND THEIR CONNECTION TO THE IJAW ENVIRONMENTAL ECOSYSTEM

Abstract

The deities in the Ijaw cosmology in Southern Nigeria, Woyingi, Tamarau, Ayibarau and others, embody the creation of the ecosystem within the region, from the water to land. These deities guide the religious and environmental aspect of the society, with their links from divine motherhood to the earth’s regenerative capacity. Their roles as mediator of man to the spiritual are linked through man’s understanding of the environment through which the deities protect their people. This research shows the environmental degradation in the Niger-Delta region through environmental exploration and pollution, its effect and relationship in the eco-cosmological symbiosis such that the belief system of the Ijaw people informs the eco-conservational strategies that creates a balance between the physical ecosystem and the spiritual. Through Ikechukwu Kanu’s African Eco-spirituality theory, the research posits that the physical environment reflected in lands, rivers and societies as well as belief systems and ideologies functions as an extension of the spiritual, also showing that ecological and socio-cultural disruption could lead to filial disrespect as well as cosmic imbalance in the Niger-Delta ecosystem. Using selected Ijaw communities in Delta state as the scope, this research shows that the ethical environmental management is a functionality of the matrilineal creativity that transcends from the spiritual to the physical and vice versa, creating a healthy balance in the cosmic experience as well as within the communities.