Kwenu -- the Premier Igbo Salutation

Kwenu! 

The Signature Salutation of the Igbo People

(Copyright © 2004 by T. Obinkaram Echewa)

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What is offered here is personal, the product of one man's experiences and observations.  The writer hails from the Ngwa area of Igboland, and does not intend to suggest that his essay represents the totality of Igbo practice and culture, with regard to the topic of the essay.  Readers are encouraged to submit comments or questions.  Please address comments to Webmaster@Amadipress.com. 

At a future date, we hope to feature a detailed analysis of a set of funeral euglogies (Itu aka n'eseh), together with authentic  eseh music performed in situ, as a demonstration of  formalized  Igbo oration.    

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    One of the most common expressions in Igbo oration is  the hortatory ejaculative Kwenu!  It is heard repeatedly in formal orations every kind.  At the beginning of a speech, it is most often used as a ritualized greeting, frequently accompanied by gestures, flounces and wags of a fan or whisk.  But Kwenu can also serve as a call to order, or a request by the speaker for acknowledgement. In the middle of a speech, it may be used to re-awaken flagging attention, or as marker denoting a change in the subject matter or direction of the oration.  Most importantly, though, Kwenu is an exhortation to unity and consensus.  Through it, a speaker invokes a spirit of solidarity between himself and the audience, and among the members of the audience with one another.

   The word has a pleasantly ambiguous meaning.  In one sense, it means "Agree" (as in ikwe-ekwe, nkwenye), while in another, it means "Greetings" (as in ikwe ekela).  Therefore, a speaker who opens his speech with Kwenu is simultaneously greeting the audience, as well as inviting the audience to "agree" with him.  (Agree here has to be understood in terms of accord or affirmation). And because the underlying aim of much Igbo oration is to weave a consensus rather than to defeat an opponent in argument, Kwenu plays a very important role as a rhetorical knitting tool. 

    When used by a speaker who is well known to his audience, Kwenu is simply a standardized or ritualized greeting -- an instantly recognizable refrain or anthem which marks the user as an authentic and knowledgeable member of the group.  Traditionally, Igbo people  carry "tribal marks" on their faces and other parts of their bodies.  (The okanja among the Ngwas is an example).  Such marks identify a general community or titled groups.  Special handshakes, hand signals, and marks on the ground (ikara) are part of the repertoire of identification, as are many complex riddles and passwords.  (Again, an example among the Ngwas would be the "Nonsense Riddle" Egbuo nne gi, gbuo nna gi, iga irah n'ole?  If your mother and your father were both killed, where would you sleep?  This riddle leads to a series of illogical questions and answers, which are known only to members of the group). In a sense, therefore,  Kwenu is like a verbal "tribal mark," a verbal touchstone and signal that the speaker belongs to the group.  When it issues from the lips of a speaker who is unknown to the audience, it is that speaker's token of authenticity -- a calling card -- presented to the audience for validation.  A stranger who is given the privilege of addressing an assembly must first establish his credentials.  When the stranger intones "Kwenu!" and the audience responds with "Haah!" they are granting the stranger the equivalent of a diplomatic recognition.  The stranger may then proceed to present the rest of his "accreditation papers," in the form of proverbs, anecdotes and other validating references to established culture and tradition.

   What we have here is comparable to the ejaculative outbursts which one hears during the services of Evangelical or Pentecostal Christians.  A speaker before a Pentecostal assembly may use shouts of "Praise the Lord!" or "Amen!" or "Alleluia!" at the beginning of a presentation or a sermon, both to rouse an audience and to bind it in spirit to himself and to his topic.

    "Amen?" a speaker intones, inflecting the word in a way that makes it sound like a question.  

    "Amen!" answers the congregation, closing the loop  of agreement. 

    Such patterns are common in Igbo oration.  Furthermore, a speaker who senses that his audience is lukewarm or skeptical towards his assertions may use an inflected form of Kwenu to elicit agreement. In this form of usage, the word becomes a challenge or a dare to the audience to affirm the speaker, and its meaning is equivalent to "Obugh otua?" (Is that not so?) or "Obugh n'ezi"? (Is that not true?).  If the audience replies with "Ezi okwu!" (True talk!), or "Obu ihie mere emeh!" (That is something that actually happened!), the speaker has received his validation and the assurance to continue. (In situations, where a speaker is desperate to extract agreement from a reluctant audience, he may resort to a guttural equivalent of Kwenu, Eeh-kwah-nu, for which the common response is Eh!  Eeh-kwah-nu is usually grunted with great emphasis).

    At the beginning of an oration, Kwenu is usually preceded by an invocation of the name of the group to which it is addressed.  Thus, we may have: 

    "Igbo kwenu!" (addressed to an assembly of Igbo people);

    "Amala kwenu!" (addressed to a town or village assembly).

    Often there is the invocation of nicknames or praise names:

    "Umu Okorobia kwenu!" (addressed to a group of  young men);

    "Ndi mara izu kwenu!" (addressed to a group that considers itself wise).

    Often, the name or nickname of an audience is itself preceded by an animated guttural or ullulation: "Teeh!",  "Cho-cho-cho!" and "Krrrrh!" are common examples.  Depending on the occasion, and on how demonstrative a particular speaker is, there may be an accompaniment of gestures, thrusts, flounces, and ritual steps. (At the formal eulogies of the Ngwa people known as Itu aka na eseh, eulogizers carry ritual objects, approach the drummers on the run from a distance, come to a sudden stop in front of the master drummer, stomp the right foot against the Big Drum, and then give their salutations). 

   A full-fledged formal greeting entails four salutations (at least among the Ngwa people of whom I am a part):

    "Kwenu!" the speaker intones. 

    "Haah!" the audience responds.

    (Sometimes, "Iyah!" is an alternative audience response).

    "Kwenu!"

    "Haah!"

    "Kwenu!" 

    "Haah!"

    "Kwenu!"

    "Haah!"

    Often, and perhaps in an effort to reduce monotony,  all four greetings are not identical.  Typically, the first two greetings are "Kwenu!" but the third and fourth are likely to be "Kwekwasi-nu" and "Kwezuo-nu!" respectively.  (Kwekwasi-nu denotes  agreement on top of agreement, or, in other words, agreement to the highest possible degree, whereas Kwezuo-nu means complete and total consensus). Other variations of the "four salutations" may include "blessings" and "well wishes". "Muo-nu!" (Be blessed with children!") and "Zhuo-nu!" (May your children be well reared!) are good examples of "well wishes", as are "Ria-nu!"  "Ghuo-nu!" and "Baa-nu!" (Eat bountifully!  Drink bountifully!  Be enormously wealthy!)

   A little less formal than Kwenu and more apt to be used among associates are a pair of greetings, Kele-nu! and Nma-nma-nu!  These two are rarely intoned four times by themselves.  Much more frequently, they are used in conjunction with one another and as adjuncts to Kwenu.  Thus, a speaker may offer his four greetings in the form of:

    "Amala kwenu!"

    "Haah!"

    "Kele-nu!"

    "Haah!"

    "Nma-nma-nu!"

    "Haah!"

    "Kwezuo-nu!"

    "Haah!"

    As mentioned earlier, Kwenu has a vital function in Igbo orature, apart from its use as an antiphon and a touchstone. It often serves as a rhetorical keynote -- a device which binds the speaker and his audience as the oration unfolds and moves along.  A speaker uses the expression to ascertain that the audience is still him as the speech unfolds.  It is a punctuation mark. Kwenu in the middle of a speech means "Are you still with me?" And the "Haah!" which the audience utters in response is a token of its reassurance and commitment.  "Yes," it says, "we are still with you!"  The expression, therefore, functions as a feedback mechanism between the audience and the speaker.  (Note: For those who may be inclined to consider this particular use of Kwenu as equivalent to a teacher's asking a class, "Do you follow me?" or "Do you understand me?" it is important to re-emphasize the assumption of equality of status, as opposed to hierarchy, between Igbo speakers and their audiences.  The Igbo orator is seeking validation and ratification from the audience, not teaching or lecturing it.)

    This particular function of Kwenu is especially important because formal orations among Igbos seem to be addicted to a quest for consensus. Unlike Western rhetoric, Igbo public speaking usually aims to weave or craft consensus.  Kwenu and its variants are the  knitting needles, the binding ropes, and the cement between the bricks.  This is especially important because Igbo orature usually advances as a parade of propositions, laid out one at a time by a speaker, each followed by an invitation to the audience to give its assent. 

    "Kwenu" (meaning "Is that not so?")

    "Iyah!" (meaning "That is so!")

    From what I have seen and heard, Igbo formal speech seems to have the following four-part structure:

   a) salutation, antiphon and ingratiation

   b) introduction and preamble, within which the speaker validates and locates himself in an appropriate cultural context as someone worthy of attention

   c) the speech proper

   d) ikha okwu onu -- bringing the speech to a head or "sharp point"

   d) nnwuda okwu -- "coming down" or "coming off the ladder or pedestal of speech" and back to the ground again.