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Abstract

The study seeks to examine death (isu) in Ebira Tao thought system. The Ebira people 
resides in the middle belt of Nigeria. As people they strongly belief that  the tripod 
metaphysical issues of birth, death and hereafter form the most fundamental thought-
provoking phenomena which impact on humankind existential reality. Death generally 
generates expectations, anxiety, fear, sympathy, pain, sorrow and even joy in the 
existential life of the people subsumed into the notion of suspended animation. Logically, 
the ratiocinative spirit behind this line of thought is more of idealistic realism due to the 
pragmatic occurrence of death in man's life experience.In the light of the above the study 
seeks to expose and appraise human existence in the light of birth, death and life-after-
death as transitional odyssey from the physical realm of the mundane world into the 
spiritual enclave of reality. And as well posits that these tripods form the eternal process 
of suspended animation since man lives, die and live in the two worlds of the physical and 
the spiritual. Thus, the paper discovers that a detailed explication of these concepts leads 
to accepting death and life-after-death as fundamentally shrouded in a process of 
suspended reality of an individual who occupies two worlds (physical/visible realm and 
spiritual/invisible realm) at two different times and places.The paper conclude by 
asserting that human life is existential in an experiential world, and that the issue of death 
and life-after-death of the same person is the subsuming the whole process of existence 
into one of suspended animation programme of the Divine Programmer
.
Keywords: Animation, Death, Pragmatic, Ratiocinative, Existential

Introduction
Birth, death and hereafter or life-after-death forms the most fundamental thought-

provoking phenomena which impact on humankind in the physical and spiritual life 
existence. This tripod (birth, death and hereafter) remains the essence as well as mystery 
of divine creation process network and devoid of human manipulation. Death generates 
expectation, anxiety, fear, sympathy, pain, sorrow and even joy in the existential life of the 
people which can be subsumed into the notion of suspended animation programme. 
Logically, the ratiocinative spirit behind this line of thought is more of idealistic realism 
due to the pragmatic occurrence of death in man's life experience.

This study seeks to expose and appraise human existence in the light of birth, 
death and life-after-death as transitional odyssey from the physical realm of the mundane 
world into the spiritual enclave of reality. And as well posits that these tripods form the 

DEATH(ISU): SUSPENDED ANIMATION PROGRAMME 

IN EBIRA TAO THOUGHT

Salaudin USMAN Ph.D and Benedict MICHAEL, Ph.D



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eternal process of suspended animation since man lives, die and live in the two worlds of 
the physical and the spiritual. Thus, a detailed explication of this work leads to accepting 
death and life-after-death as fundamentally shrouded in a process of suspended reality of 
an individual who occupies two worlds (physical/visible realm and spiritual/invisible 
realm) at two different times and places (Mbiti 149).  The paper apart from the 
introduction is divided into five parts, the first examine the notion of human existence, 
section two looks at the universal conception of death, while the third section looks at 
African notion of death, section four looks at Death as Transitional Process in African 
(Ebira Tao) Thought, this will be followed by the fifth section which examines Life-
After-Death as Basis for Suspended Animation Process in African Metaphysics, this 
will be followed by conclusion.  
Human Existence

The creation of man is awesomely mysterious as no one asked the Ultimate 
Creator to fashion out this wonderful enigma called man in the first place. It is only after 
the initial creation process that man decides to besiege the Creator through petitionary 
prayers or “protest” when his aspiration in regard to fertility and procreation suffer 
retardation. Thus man in his existential life often behaves as if he is the master of his life 
only to be caught shut by death. The human existential experience is characterized with 
challenges of facticity as well as possibilities of life. Surmounting these existential 
stumbling blocks leaves man in perplexities, fear, sorrow and sympathy. Awesomely, man 
stumbles and wobbles his way through the odds from birth to old age, if he is “lucky” or 
has his life terminated in his prime without attaining the status of an elder of the family, 
clan, tribe, or community. Fundamentally, the African frowns at this unpleasant scenario 
which is seen as impinging or disrupting the ontological harmony of the society. Be this as 
it may, man is at a loss as to the early exit from the physical world. However, the Ultimate 
Planner informs man in one revered religious books that “And the life of the world is only 
amusement and play” (Quran 29:64). Confounding questions resonate more often within 
the reflective minds: are human beings really the master of their lives? What are the 
implications of life and death? Or does human being really have a choice whether to 
perpetually live on earth or to eagerly long for death? These are potent questions that 
confront humankind in the context,  as Lenrie Peters in his poem “The Fence” summates:

Here where the dim past and future mingles, there nebulous 
hopes and aspirations… There where truth and untruth struggle in 
endless and bloody combat… There where time moves forwards 
and backwards with not one moment's pause for sighting… There 
where the body ages relentlessly and only the feeble mind can 
wander back… open-souled amazement. There where all 
opposite arrive to play the inner senses (113)

The Notion of Death
It usually takes a philosophical impulse and inspiration to write on the issues of 

death and life-after-death as it provokes as well as it illuminates the mind and heart of man 
in order to bring out the clear vision of the varied complexities therein. Man is the centre 
of the universe as well as the measures of all things therein in the universe. Invariably, all 

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discussions on existence become meaningful if the subject matter revolves round human 
existence. The philosophical and moral perception of death often portrays it as dreadful. 
Human beings talk less about death but consciousness reminds them that the unity of 
purpose that exist between mind and body sooner or later shall come to an abrupt end. 
Ogungbemi posits that discussion on the concept of death and the living-dead often 
provoke sympathy and fear. Thus, Ogungbemi, contends “It is not palatable subject. It is a 
common belief that being born into this world is an entrance and you cannot have an 
entrance without an exit. Therefore, death  necessarily the exit of man on earth” 
(Ogungbeme,2007p.12).

The issue of death is a commonly acknowledged universal phenomenon. No sane 
human being can claim ignorance of this most-often discussed aspect of human essence. 
Steve Job, the Founder and CEO of Apple Computers in United States of America 
expresses his belief thus:

Make every day count. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the 
most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big 
choices in life. Because almost everything all external 
expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--- 
these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what 
is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the 
best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something 
to lose (17).  

The notion of force or being is a core aspect of African cosmological and 
ontological belief-system. In essence everything has force or everything is imbued with 
vital energy or vital force in African metaphysics (Mbiti). For death to be able to affect 
man, it invariably connotes that it is a force capable of discharging the lethal 
responsibility of dismembering man by removing the soul from the body thereby 
disrupting the ontological harmony in man and the society. If it is true that death is force 
and has the capacity and capability to influence and affect man at any point in time, then, 
death is a higher force in the hierarchy of forces in African ontology and rank among those 
forces capable of inflicting damage to man. Death can also be termed as “spirit” which 
“refers to either a special mode of being or an entity existing in that mode” (Horton 181); 
for, the ontology of any “distinctive African world-view is replete with spirits” 
(Idoniboye 83-5).

Upon this understanding of the African perception, forces or beings are 
differentiated in African ontology into species according to their vital power or their 
inherent rank in a pyramidal or conical form. Through the interpretative understanding of 
the African mentality, forces are designated as both visible and invisible which is 
elucidated in African (Ebira Tao) perception of hierarchy of forces. 

Furthermore, Tempels contends that the Ultimate Creator of the universe and its 
contents is at the apex of the hierarchy. “Above all forces is God, Spirit and Creator. It is 
He who has force, power, in Himself. He gives existence, power of survival and increase, 
to other forces. In relation to other forces, He is “He who increases force” (29).  All other 
forces depend on God for sustenance and are believed not only accountable for their 
activities in the different realms of existence but serve as servants to Him. 

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It is important to note here that death as a force takes directive and order from the 
Ultimate Creator in the execution of its activities on living things (including man) (   ). It is 
in the light of this fundamental notion that death as a force can be likened to an intelligent 
emissary who does not disobey or fail to carry out its ordained responsibilities of snuffing 
life out of living things without prior notice of the time and place and who the next 
victim(s) (  ) would be. In this regard, death can be seen as an overbearing force capable of 
transversing the whole gamut of the universe in order to fulfilling its apportioned tasks. 
Hence, death is not bounded by spacio-temporal boundaries.

One is bound to ask the question that: Is man destined to die? The answer to this 
question is that man has been destined to die right from the abode of the Creator. Death is a 
fixed destiny  which man must pass through. It cannot be altered transferred or evaded as 
death is a necessity in order to fulfil the pre-ordained or pre-destined choice that each 
individual had already made before his Creator (Makinde, 1988,p.57). This is vividly 
explicated in the Yoruba concept of person and choice of inner head (Ori). Here one is 
made to believe that one has the free choice of his destiny and as such assume 
responsibility for the consequence. Similarly, it is common African (Yoruba) perception 
that death is a creation of Olodumare (God), according to Idowu, (1962,p.187). It is apt to 
note that God not only create the two worlds according to His wish but He owns and 
sustain the worlds in an egalitarian manner where one cannot fault Him (Awolalu and 
Dopamu,  208).

But there is a problem with the above view that God creates death as a means of 
removing man from earth. This problem did not indicate why man dies prematurely 
without attaining old age where man can meaningfully contribute to the ontological 
harmony of the bond between the living and the living dead. This notion cannot be 
sustained because God did not discuss His plans with man before creating man. Hence, 
He cannot be seen as insensitive to the above notion. The goal of God is eternal process for 
humanity whereby man needs to transverse the physical world before entering the 
everlasting spiritual world. The bridge as an equipoise between the physical world and the 
spiritual world is dead which must be crossed by all living things, including man. 

To the African, the natural change that occur as a result of death indicates that 
human being has a goal relative to it, which in most cases is an ultimate goal common to 
all thing. The reason for this perception of the African is the fact that every change is an 
attempt to achieve another state, status or form (   ). This is in consonance with 
Aristotelian idea of change and form. Hence, change is a continuous process for object 
composed of matter and form since the object still has the potentiality to receive another 
form, until it reaches the state of immutability and immobility (which is a state of 
complete rest) where no further acquisition of form is possible. In human context, 
therefore, this state of immutability and immobility can only occur after death when man 
tries to attain immortality. 

It is important to note that, in death man transits into the invisible world that is 
invisible to the senses. Thus, Edeh is of the view that:

The place is completely different from the material 
world in terms of imperceptibility to the senses and 
… entirely different world of its own, a world where 
the human beings who have left this material world 

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remain until they are able to be reincarnated. Hence, 
there must be two worlds in existence- the visible and 
invisible worlds (75).

An intriguing aspect of life-after-death is the aspect of the role of the ancestors and 
the issue of reincarnation. One is bound to ask the question: what are the roles of ancestors 
in the reality of African existential life. Since we cannot equate the ancestors with God, 
then the onus placed on man is, according to Kwame (1996, p.168) to give “the greatest 
reverence we, the descendants of the ancestors, can show to them is to let them rest in 
peace. The critical assessment of the belief in the theory of incarnation and the ancestral 
world poses apparent contradiction as well as incompatibility. Why some would hold to 
the fact that reincarnation in African thought does not mean that the ancestral spirit that is 
born again but that the child that is supposed to come under the influence of ancestor and 
thereby receive part of the ancestors' vitality and qualities. To many other people, there 
are basically three facets of human personality viz, the first holds that one transforms into 
an ancestral spirits. The second goes into the spirit world. The third reincarnate to be born 
again (173). In this regard, there is this belief that the process of reincarnation goes 
beyond one time. There are several rounds that the soul of a man makes after death in the 
process of reincarnation. Those that have completed their reincarnation trips stay 
permanently in the ancestral world, while the reincarnating ancestors are those still to 
complete their number of rounds.

Furthermore, if we go by Plato's explanation of the nature of reality, the real world 
has the characteristics of Parmenides' realm of being; but Plato's real world contains 
multiplicity as well as permanent entities. Thus, Plato's metaphysical theory emphasizes 
the ideal intelligible reality as the important and significant realm of the universe; it at the 
same time tries to give some account of the world of appearance. A life directed in terms of 
the ultimate goal of contemplating reality (though in physical context) should as a matter 
of fact, be one in which the soul soars upward to the perfect world of idea of the body. In 
this context, if the soul lives a direct harmonious life with the body, this could be leading a 
human being to liberation from the sense world into the real world .  Egbeke (2001, p.21) 
posits from the Aristotelian angle that, every natural object is always undergoing change. 
The changing nature of the visible world must be a fundamental characteristic of reality. 
The changing natural world is intelligible if we know the actual constituents and how they 
operate.

It is common knowledge that Africans subscribe to the causal axiom that 
“whatever begins to exit must have a cause of existence” (Flew, 262).  Sodipo asserts that 
the Supreme Being is identified in Yoruba traditional thought as the ultimate cause of all 
visible causes in the world while the activities and clan of lesser gods are recognized to 
constitute important secondary causes. It is also believed that chance occurrences in 
nature, society or in the life of an individual person has no basis in African ontology. To 
the African all events have causes, whether natural or supernatural, which presupposes 
that the belief in chance occurrences will only amount to betrayer and ignorance of the 
real cause of the event. From the above view, the African believe that God cause death but 
still regard premature death as act of malevolence. To the African, man should attain full 
maturity of eldership where he lives life fully in the physical world and transits to 
immortality in the spiritual world of the ancestors through death. 

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Death as Transitional Process in Ebira Tao Thought System 
The Ebira Tao believe that the process of birth is the first visible rhythm of a new 

generation which is accompanied rite of birth performed in order to accord the person a 
corporate social being of the society. Death on the other hand, is an inevitable episode of 
demise which occurs within human existence. The destination of man's life journey 
extends into the netherworld in spirit form as a delayed experience. It is in the light of this 
that Mbiti (1969) opines that the African life cycle is embedded into an ontological 
rhythm fundamentally momentous in the life of an individual. According to Mbiti:

Human life has another rhythm of nature which 
nothing can destroy. On the level of the individual, 
this rhythm includes birth, puberty, initiation, 
marriage, procreation, old age, and death, entry into 
the community of the departed and finally entry 
into the community of the spirits (25).

Mbiti's position to some extent explains the Ebira Tao notion  of death and life 
after death. However, the Ebira Tao has a holistic approach to life existence in accordance 
with the cosmo-ontological foundation of the people's belief system, Rotimi, substantiate 
this by contending that “death is not always seen as evil especially when the individual is 
of age, it is seen as a welcome development since the individual is seen as entry or 
transiting into another stage of his existence” (1998, p.76).  in essence, death is a 
necessary qualification that permits the aged death to join the community of the spirits of 
ancestor ship.     

This reflection on the issue of death and after-life has its loci in Ebira Tao cosmo-
ontological perception. The cultural, environmental, politico-episteme, mythico-
religious and ethnic-linguistic perspectives provide the Ebira Tao people with  the 
material object for ponder, wonder, questioning as well as responding to the over bearing 
challenges occasioned by the reality of death which is ever present in man's experiential 
existence (Onwuanibe,1984,p. 183).

Sharing similar perception with the Igbo, the Ebira Tao thought mourns their dead 
with grief and sympathy; they remain resolute and hopeful that death is not an end in itself 
but a process of transition. In essence, the dead is reborn into another life which is 
completely different from the visible world that the departed individual had left (John, 
1989,p32). It is on this note that we can sufficiently place the ancestors or the living dead 
who duels in a new life with new status and rank. In this abode of the living dead, the Ebira 
Tao believe that the ancestors have influence on the life existence of the living on earth. 
This view is succinctly occasioned during the annual festivals such as the Ekuechi (night 
masquerade festival). In his analysis, Rotime believes that, this masquerade cult festival 
is embedded with certain significant connotation unique to the Ebira Tao belief system. 
This involves the transmogrification of the ancestral spirits into the realm of the living 
felicitating and admonishing the home stead of the essence of maintaining the ontological 
balance and harmonious living within the family and the community (41).

This group of nature spirits though freely navigates both the spiritual and physical 
realms with utmost ease but inferior to the power and force of God who either strengthens 
or diminishes this group's power, if necessary. Thus, Ebira holds that the universe presents 
certain coherence in this conical structure where there exist a well ordered pattern of 

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power and authority. For them  the category of the ancestors is believed to be the 
emissaries and ambassadors of God and man. They are saddled with the responsibility of 
carrying information and communicating at all times with man and God. For the Ebira 
Tao: “Ancestors were fathers who founded the different clans”(John, 52). This view was 
amply expressed by Temple, when he asserts that  “patriarchs were the first to whom God 
communicated his vital force, with the power of exercising their influences on all 
posterity” (Tempels 29). It is this chain of authority that the Ebira Tao cherishes the 
importance of the ancestors in the affairs of man. This recognized chain of hierarchy upon 
which the ancestors occupies high rank binds men to God. The ancestors are not regarded 
as merely dead members of the society but has special roles to play in the success or 
otherwise of human existence. For the Ebira Tao, the ancestors are not dead completely 
but alive in a diminished life and reduced vital energy. And that is why inferentially, it is 
certain that the Eku (which is the masquerade cult system) with its mysterious 
manifestations isolated in the domain of the dead as masquerading motif. The living-dead 
are believed to have acquired greater knowledge of life and vital or natural forces are only 
used to strengthen the life of man on earth. The superior forces of the living-dead by 
primogeniture can be employed to reinforce the living posterity. 

Within the threshold of this category of ancestors are ranks; and the spiritualized 
beings belong to higher hierarchy. The occupiers of this position are the first parents of the 
tribes who are already on their way to complete the stage of their immortality. The chain 
they formed is the link with which the forces of the elders exercise their vitalizing 
influence on the living generation. Noteworthy is the fact that there exists a symbiotic 
relationship between the unborn, the living and the living-dead which crystallized into a 
“dome of continuity” (Soyinka 76). The Ebira Tao people believes that those unborn have 
vital forces residing in our loins awaiting the appropriate time to be sprouted out. The-yet- 
to be born are the off springs of the future which must be protected at all cost as they are 
the hope of continuity. The ancestors need the close affinity so that they can enjoy 
constant remembrance through the pouring of libation during festivals and other special 
occasions just as the living needs the service of the ancestors as emissaries to God. It is 
this symbiosis that strengthened the African humanity.  

The people strongly believe that the abode of the non- human spirits envelops the 
universe. Some of these non-human spirits according to Edeh (76) are men and women 
who lived good and purposeful lives while on earth; the bad spirits on the other hand are 
departed souls who live abominable lives while on earth before their demise. In some 
societies, those in this latter category need to be cleansed spiritually with rituals before 
burial in order to be able to enter into the midst of the living dead. In essence, they belief 
that both good and bad spirits interact with the living on earth- with those humans who 
share like minds with either of the two sets of spirit. But in the contemporary epoch, with 
the coming of Islam and Christianity, the beliefs in the presence of guardian angels as 
emissaries of the Almighty God carry out functions such as writing the deeds or actions 
and inactions of men while on earth. To the adherents of the above two religions, this 
function of the angels is for accountability purpose which every human is believed to 
account for on the future date after death and or on the day of judgment in Heaven.  

Furthermore, it should be noted that human existential world is characterized with 
fortunes and misfortunes experienced on daily basis in our traditional societies. Hence the 

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Ebira Tao people  hold that the real success and happiness of man depends largely on his 
good work, righteous living and being in good company of good spirits while on earth. 
Though the good spirits respect the freedom of man to exercise his free will, nonetheless, 
the guidance of good spirits is a necessity in order to maintain ontological harmony within 
the  cosmo-ontological order of the Ebira Tao people.

In traditional and contemporary societies, family members have tasted the 
sorrows of losing members to death; this sorrow is not born alone. According to Mbiti 
(118) “they are sorrows of the community and the African societies at large”. Hence, there 
is usually the rite of passage for the departed soul in order to sympathize as well as bade 
the soul good bye till we meet. It is in this regard, that the African tends to perform all 
necessary rituals that will clear any encumbrance or inhibition against the soul getting to 
the abode of the ancestors.

In other words, the goals of rites of passage in Ebira Tao perception are to achieve 
an objective and subjective outcome which in essence binds the ritual issues of socio-
cultural transitions in human life. This above view instructively and significantly tends to 
consider the cultural rite of passage of an individual member of the society as having 
corresponding effect on the society itself (Iroegbu, The Audacity of Ibi Ebibi 22). This in 
effect is a transformational effect railed into a patterned, repetitive and symbolic 
enactment of the people's cultural belief whose goal is to align belief system of the 
individual with that of the society. Thus, the symbolic essence of the processes of the 
Ebira Tao rite of passage of an individual member of the society lies in the cultural system 
whose performance is ordained by both the tradition and the religion of the people. As the 
case in most societies in Africa, rite of passage “is one which is usually ordained by the 
religion or by the tradition of a group. A rite of passage will essentially succeed in moving 
individuals from one social state or status to another” (Iroegbu The Audacity of Ibi Ebibi 
22). In essence one is bound to hold that both individual's perception of themselves and 
society's perception of individuals are concentrically interwoven and mutually 
transformed together.

The major significance of a rite of passage involves three essential stages of 
experience (Iroegbu The Audacity of Ibi Ebibi 22). The first is a “period of separation” 
from the present social state of seclusion. This transition includes movement from 
homeland to foreign land, life to death, pregnancy to childbirth, peace time to war time or 
vice versa where one social space or state necessarily gives way for the other. The second 
state is the “period of transition” in which one is located between two states of social 
being. In this regard, the individual is captured in neither one thing nor the other, and such 
a moment provides for a change in one's body and psychic framework. The final stage is 
the “integration phase” which embodies various rites of metaphysical incorporation 
whereby the individual in question is absorbed into a new social role. Such as becoming 
an elder, or dying and assuming a venerated identity of an ancestor. This integration phase 
in particular accord and a affirm reunification and re integration into the society and world 
order of this mundane world and the other world.

According to Opoku, (1978, p.137) the ancestors play significant role in the 
communal life of the African. This is an indication that the ancestors are not cut off from 
the living, for they may still reveal themselves in dreams or appear to their living relatives 
to guide or correct them in their daily affairs on earth. Thus, in different part of Ebira Tao 

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in particular many people have claimed to have encountered their departed ones 
especially if the living was not aware about the departed soul's demise. Such claims and 
believes have great influence on African belief in the intermingling of the living and the 
living dead. Most importantly, in African rite of passage, participants are place in a 
transitional realm that has few of the attributes of either the past or coming – to – state, and 
by existing in such a non-ordinary realm which facilitate gradual psychological opening 
of the initiates to profound interior change (Turner and Tambia 123 - 166). 

Traditionally, dead bodies are buried in graves. Graves in Ebira Tao thought not 
serve as the abode of the dead but as the fulfilment of the divined to return back to earth in 
the cause of rites of separation disconnection from the human world but also ensure the 
process of transition and integration to the other divine world, where the dead person is 
believed to settle down properly. In some instances, elders of the community while alive 
may have directed his/her family members to commit to earth their remains in a specified 
place. The right to make a choice of a specific place was acceptable to the people in the 
past as well as in contemporary period. Thus,  Ebeh (2010,p. 96), argues that death, grave 
and burial ceremonies among the Igala people of kogi state just like the Ebira Tao allows 
the “living persons to suggest how best to handle and bury their dead bodies, however 
with reverence, respect and in well dug-up graves”.  An important tomb site housing the 
remains of Pa Obege in a rock at Eika-Ohizeyin, Okehi LGA of Kogi State provides 
unique information. As one of the strongest medicine-men in Ebiraland in ancient period, 
Pa Obege demonstrated his prowess by instructing that at death, his corps should be laid 
on a chosen site on the rock and behold the body disappeared into the rock leaving behind 
a shape of a grave. This tomb site is now a tourist attraction to the earth-diviners and non-
diviners. Essentially, in most traditional societies graves are considered as the acclaimed 
abode of the dead through which the world of the ancestor is linked. Public cemeteries are 
common sites in Ebiraland and elsewhere in Africa; with differentiation based on, 
especially, religious divides (with the Muslims, Christians and traditionalists having their 
separate cemeteries even within the same village, town or city). 

Life-After-Death as Basis for Suspended Animation Process in Ebira Tao 
Arsing from our understanding of Ebira Tao notion of death and burial rites. The 

Ebira people strongly believe that upon death, one enters a state of after-life where death 
is profound connection with the cosmological forces of the physical and the spiritual 
worlds. The knowledge of after-life serves as comfort when loved ones died as we hope to 
see again. The above view if sustained, significantly reduce the morbid fear that 
characterizes death.

The strong feeling of reunification with the living-dead in future life confirms the 
believe of the Ebira people of life-after death. Thus, the belief that there is after-life or life-
after-death means that there is resurrection as succinctly held by the adherents of Islam 
and Christianity. 
First, the Creator of life and death is still capable of restoring life to the death. Second, 
God has resurrected human in sleep when presumed dead; in coma and trance in 
unconscious state. The concept of life after death is not a monopoly of Islam and 
Christianity religions but a believe strongly held by the Ebira People. The tradition also 
holds that one who gives life to earth after death shall give life to man after encountering 

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death. 

It is in the light of these views that Iroegbu, Pantaleon in Enwisdomization and 
African philosophy writes: 

The most fundamental objective of the philosophical quest is 
the penetration of the being of the human person towards the 
fuller requirements of his being as human-in-the-world 
destined for higher-being in the ontological sense of sharing 
in the continuity of being hereafter… Full being hereafter is in 
view of full being in the totality of the now (155)

Thus, the African strive assiduously to ensuring that,
All his having, knowing and acting as well as all his relating 
have this fullness of being in the present reincarnational, 
ancestral and transcendental world as their terminus ad 
quem. Equally all the other aspects of life, and study-
anthropological, epistemological, hermeneutical, socio-
political and axiological- are ultimately directed towards the 
full ontological realization of being as human both in his 
corporeali ty and in his  spiri tuali ty (Iroegbu, 
Enwisdomization 155). 

Death as transformation of man is a necessary consequence of the appropriated 
materials in the fact that all human existential life experience is dynamically progressive 
or retrograde into the level of the next world or hereafter. It is this regard that death helps 
to reconstruct man from a previously deconstructed, clarified or purified raw material 
(physical human being)

Among the Ebira Tao, the physical world and the spiritual world dovetail and 
inhabited by force or beings that are hierarchically acknowledge. Thus, objects or non-
objects are placed in an ontological order according to their vital ranks (Ajana, 1990, p. 
63). In this regard, the Ebira people believe that humankind is the centre of all created 
forces or beings and as such regarded as measure of all things in existence as posited by 
Protagoras of Abera. Human superiority over other forces or beings stems from human 
individuals possession of intelligence which placed him on a higher pedestal among 
beings in the universe. Writing on the same issue, John, (1961,p.101) believes that “things 
stand at the disposal of  muntu or 'at hand' for man”. Man's intelligence gives him an edge 
and control over spiritual life-force. However, the magnitude of an individual man's 
sovereignty is a function of that individual's ontological vital rank or superior/higher vital 
force with which he can use to influence other forces.

The idea of reincarnation in Ebira Tao ontology presupposes the coming back to 
life of the erstwhile departed soul in such a way that the major traits and characteristics are 
well noticed in the reincarnated being. The Ebira Tao rite of reincarnation remains an 
indelible practice among the people, even in the present period.  To buttress this view 
further, Ibrahim,  believes,
“The Ebira Tao hold the notion that the living-dead are reincarnated in totality” (108). 
Unlike in other cultures as stated by Mbiti,  who contend that aspect of their personalities 
of physical characteristics are re-born in their descendants.(133) 

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During the reincarnation process of a child, the Ebira Tao besiege the Ultimate, 
the ancestors and the earth  to ensure that the new initiate fully participate in the 
harmonious and prosperous living on earth just like his/her forbearer that he reincarnate. 
This idea that man can live again through reincarnation succinctly supports the assertion 
that the issue of death and hereafter is suspended animation program of the Ultimate 
Creator.

Conclusion 
Existence in Ebira Tao thought system is viewed  holistically, this is because it is 

interwoven and held to be integrative, because it considers all the facets of human reality. 
The tripod issues of human existence (life), human transition (death) and life-after-death 
(suspended animation) is in totality the very essence of human personality in both the 
physical and spiritual worlds. It is from the holistic view that this key essence of the Ebira 
Tao thought system as regards the above tripods that one can really understand the 
essence of their ontology. In this paper we have considered, the Ebira Tao and African 
human existence  one whole in which the individual is essential a member of the 
community that transverse the two worlds. 

The study considered death as inevitable and among the Ebira Tao not as agonies 
and destruction. But a stage in life that requires transition to higher life,  And that death 
can be faced  with human courage and the unconquerable spirit of man. The issue of death 
is seen as a composite picture of man's life existence which is to be born today and only to 
die tomorrow and thereafter resurrect in the netherworld. This resurrection only happens 
as a result of the immortality of the very essence of man which is his soul. The 
presentation of death in two different images of reality only subsumed into the process of 
suspended animation as a possible reconciliation with the ancestral world on a higher 
pedestal.

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