HUMAN BEINGS ARE DYNAMIC, THEREFORE CULTURE CANNOT BE STATIC, IT BENDS TO THE WILL OF TIME.

As against Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, Death Not a Redeemer goes against the theme of the former text. Hope Eghagha writes the text from the point of view that, there are some cultural and traditional practices that should go into extinction because of the arrival of civilization and because they are barbaric in nature and dangerous to humanity.

Unlike Death and the King’s Horseman where the horseman is supposed to die alongside with the king but refused to die which drives his son to perform his father’s duty who eventually dies after his son’s death. Death Not a Redeemer’s concern is different, here culture is being viewed from different binoculars that nobody should die.

The text centers on the horseman - Chief Karia- who is supposed to die immediately after the death of the Oba of the community, but refuses to die because of the believe that: it is against the rule of his new religion, it is against nature’s plan for humanity to die at one’s prime time when it is not due, also it is barbaric in nature.

His wife Avbero (the daughter of the Oba) who is being married to the horseman by the king to strengthen the relationship between the king’s family and the horseman’s family wants her husband to die. Immediately it is announced that the Oba is dead, she starts to mourn two people’s death, her father and her undead husband. Sad that her father has died but happy that her husband is eventually going to die.

Avbero gets happy because she does not love her husband because she was being forced into the marriage by her father and because she has found a new lover –Jolomi – in which they are both planning to get married immediately they phantom a way of taking the husband out, which the death of her father did for them already.

The horseman’s son –San Karia- who has travelled to England to study hears the news and immediately write to his father in order to strengthen him that he is not going to die. He travels back home so as to implement his plan with his father and make sure his father does not die. San already has it in mind to stop the barbaric act of dying whenever it comes to his own turn to die unknowing that his father also is not ready to die despite enjoying all the luxury of being the king’s horseman .

San therefore files a case to the court against the elders of the land to make sure that his father is being saved by the ‘power’ (court) and end the ritualistic act of dying out of free will. This caused different argument in the community, some supporting the act of self-mayhem and other not in support but both sides wait patiently for the court’s verdict.

The court after two sittings eventually rules that the custom of suicide should be stopped. Since there is no written contract between the king or the community and the horseman’s family and even if there is any, the horseman was not present when such agreement was being reached, therefore the horseman is free to go home without any threat or compellation by anybody to him to die.

Also, the judge supports his verdict that unwilling suicide is an act that is against Universal Declaration of Human Right, such act should have been abolished long time ago, therefore the horseman should not be compelled to commit suicide. Chief Karia goes home free but eventually dies of fever a year after. The villagers claim that it is the act of the gods, the priest and the Christian society claim that it is God’s will death not the work of anybody or gods. The wife immediately after the verdict elopes with her lover to another town.

The text unlike its hypertext tackles cultural and traditional believe that are anomaly and dangerous to humanity, and concludes that such culture should be abolished in order to make the community safer for everyone.

Also, religion and western education is seen as an agent of enlightenment, civilization and growth in the community. Unlike its hypertext -Death and the King’s Horseman - in which religion and western education is seen as barrier and catastrophic devices in the society that breaks culture and tradition apart here, education helps to enlighten the knowledge of the elites in the community to see the dark sides of the tradition and to clean it up while Christian religion brings salvation to man’s soul, whereby everyone has the right to move freely without the fear of being sacrificed either indigene or non-indigene as it exist in the Yoruba tradition.

The text also lays an example for those who are upholding the law to follow. It shows that the judicial system of every society can be free of corruption if every judge and law enforcement agencies are ready to be corrupt free. The judge before giving his verdict says:

       I want to seize this opportunity         to warn all those who believe

       that the conscience of all                     judges  is for sale. I will not be           bought over. As long as I                     occupy this seat, my judgments         shall be in consonance with the          letter and spirit of the Law. 

        Pg. 77

The text strongly send the message that human is dynamic, and since human beings are dynamic, culture cannot be static, it bends to the will of time. Since culture is made for man and man is not made for culture, therefore human should rule over culture and not allow culture to rule human being. Any culture that seems out of time should be abolished. 

    But culture itself is a creation of        society, of human beings, and            because human beings are                dynamic, culture itself cannot be      static. Pg.78

Death Not a Redeemer has the theme of religion, cultural clash, education versus traditional believe, cultural validation, and twist of fate.

Hope Eghagha consciously and deliberately pass the message across that culture changes with time and such should be respected in every society. And death of one does not bring salvation to the society, rather it creates chains of blood spilling in the community. 

© Joshua Temitope OLADEBO 2022