“Love”.
Ifunanya literally translates to, “to see through the eyes”. The full version of the name is Afurum Gi N’anya, “I have seen you through my eyes”.
“Love” does not technically exist in the Igbo lexicon. This term is deemed a sentimental or emotional feeling which sooner or later ebbs away with time.
For the Igbo, love is much deeper, more important than the emotional feigns. Love is not motivated by physical beauty only, it is the sum total of the physical, genealogical, economical, social and moral attraction between the betrothed, the extended families and wider community.
In the days of our ancestors, one thinks of courtship and marriage with the "eyes" only and whatever one "sees" after many filial investigations can make or break a potential marital courtship. A marriage can only take place once the “eyes” of both families and kinsmen have done enough roving and emerge satisfied. Hence the proverb, “"anya na ebu onu uzo eli", “what you see with your surface eye is not always all you can eat”.
This is what the Igbos of the past and today generally understand by "ifuna-anya".
- Subject Matter: Portrait
- Created: May 25, 2018
- Collections: NWA AGBO: Entering Adolescence