HUMAN-SPIRIT SYMBOLIC COMMUNICATION IN THE IGBO CULTURE

Abstract

In communicative practices, non-verbal forms can be interpersonal and symbolic, in which case non-verbal communication is between individuals and exclusively by the use of instruments as symbols, and the relationship between the symbol and the information passed is arbitrary. Aside from being interpersonal, that is between humans, it can also occur between humans and spirits. This paper examines the symbolic communication between individual humans and individual spirits in the Igbo culture.   Data were drawn from oral interviews, participant observation, and, introspection (the author being a native Igbo and trained in the culture) as primary sources, while secondary sources were library materials and the internet. Findings indicate that the form of non-verbal communication that involves symbols and is exclusively inter-personal can occur between individual humans and individual spirits. In the Igbo culture, individual humans communicate with individual spirits symbolically by using various instruments, while individual spirits communicate with individual humans through ominous signs and events, using animate and inanimate objects as agents that operate through various channels.  In each case, we state the information communicated and the instrument involved as a symbol. The study concludes that inter-human and spirit symbolic communicative practices could be used as tools in understanding more of the interesting and complex relationship between humans and spirits that constitute a basic component of the Igbo worldview.