THE RESURGENCE OF FETISH PRACTICES IN IGBOLAND

The indiscriminate placing of articles of sacrifice on major roads of communities in Igbo land has become a common sight and worrisome. This aspect of the people’s traditional religion and culture was drastically affected by the inception of Christianity and western ideals. Many scholars have condemned the manner in which early Christian missionaries in Igbo land consigned all they could not understand about Igbo culture and traditional religion to the garbage bin. Also, new converts treated some aspects of their culture with disdain, as Christianity took root and flourished. However, with maturity in the faith, the Igbo people realized that Christianity has a lot in common with traditional religion and that again Christianity should be practiced from an African perspective. There are now concerted efforts to inculcate aspects of Igbo culture into the practice of Christianity and ensure the preservation of the indigenous culture. Some of these efforts include the inculturation programme of the Catholic Church. Is the present patronage of deities and consequent placing of sacrifices on the road done in the spirit of the preservation of the peoples culture or otherwise? This paper, using Durkheim's Cultural Adaptation Theory attempts to examine the reasons for the resurgence of the patronage of deities and general fetish practices as well as their implications. The paper suggests that the different deities in Igbo land are being patronized for very negative reasons and should be discouraged.

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