Abstract
In this essay, I use “akwa isiagụ” as metaphor to illustrate that Igbos have not done exactly well to preserve their language and culture. I posit they have abandoned their unique cultural symbol.
Akwa isiagụ is the clothing fabric patterned with motifs showing fierce-looking lion’s head and mane. Some designs show a less stern lion’s head, with two or three cow horns besides it.
Since the last 50 to 60 years Igbos have managed to portray this fabric design as their classic cultural emblem. In fact, as something of a totem. Igbo chiefs and nze and ọzọ title holders use it to make their ceremonial gears.

But this is an imported foreign popular culture. Neither the lion nor the lion icon has any significance in Igbo cultural foundations. Indeed, using the descriptor ‘isiagụ’ to refer to a lion’s head motif is wrong use of the word “agụ”.
Incorrect Language
Agụ is not lion in Igbo. Agụ is leopard. Folks have written about this before, and I’ve discussed in other forums on the subject. It is pitiful that it remains a source of confusion to many adult Igbos.
But let’s clear this.
Just as jaguars and cougars are found only in the Americas, tigers inhabit only in Eurasia. They do not belong to the fauna (native animals) of sub-Saharan Africa. Ancient Igbos did not see nor know about tiger, so did not have an indigenous name for it.
Edi or edi abalị is the African civet. One of the 38 viverridae species, it is slightly smaller than the leopard. A carnivore, no doubt, but it is timider, less agile and far less specialised in opportunistic hunting. It has a broadly cat-like general appearance, but its muzzle is more pointed than that of a typical feline.
A nocturnal creature that sleeps for about 20 hours a day, the ancient Igbos knew the edi abalị very well. Which is why Igbos still use “edi” as metaphor to refer to a person who sleeps a lot.
Knowledge of the Igbo language structure will indicate agụ is not lion. Many Igbo words were created from metaphorical use of existing words. To form names for creatures or objects, Igbos often devised a two-word metaphor comparing what is sought to be named to an another named object or creature. For example, ụlọ is house, and school is “ụlọ-akwụkwọ” (house for books), while hospital is “ụlọ ọgwụ” (house for medication).
Leopard – agụ – preys on mammals and has spots on its furs. That is why the wall gecko, that preys on insects and has spots, is called agụ ụlọ (ie house leopard). And the crocodile, that preys on water creatures and has patches that resemble the leopard’s spots, is called agụ iyi
The leopard is Igbo animal totem
Being about 3 times the size of a leopard, the lion is stronger and sometimes even preys on the leopard. The Igbo say “ọdụm na-egbu agụ”. Despite this, the lion has no special recognition in Igbo cultural systems.
A lion can occasionally stray into a rainforest or can refuge there if persecuted in its usual habitat. It must have been in such circumstances that Igbos came to know about the lion. Yet that was not enough to diminish their fascination for the leopard, a beast with which they had contended for thousands and thousands of years.
It should be noted that whilst leopards operate solitarily, lions are the most social of the cat species. Lions operate in close-knit social groups called “pride”. Ethologists (scholars of animal behaviours) have observed that this sociality makes the lion a better communicator than other big cats.
In forest environment, a lion has little chance to fight down the more agile leopard. A lion’s size and weight render it less agile to climb high. But a leopard can climb to the top an iroko tree in less than 10 seconds. Leopard is probably the only big mammal that can descend a tree head first. It uses its long tail to maintain perfect aerodynamic balance.
With top average speed of about 80 km per hour, lion is faster than leopard. But it can only run for very short bursts and needs to be close to its prey before starting an attack. But the leopard can run for far longer stretches, at average top speed of about 58 km per hour. A leopard can make a single leap of over 6m (20 ft) horizontally and can jump up to 3 m (9.8 ft) vertically. And it is a powerful swimmer. Although its vision is sharpest in the dark, it can equally be eagle-eyed in the day.
Incredibly versatile, leopard hunts on land, up on the trees and in water. On the trees it can out-manoeuvre specialised climbers and jumpers, including monkeys and baboons. Leopards have been observed leaping and snatching a monkey with a bite mid-air and regaining grip of tree branches.
A silent predator, when discreteness will give it advantage, it can be elusive. It has a pad of tissue in the flat of its claws that act as silencers when it walks. It can literally hide in plain sight. When it tucks itself in between the fork of tree branches, it just blends with the tree trunk. It can create optical illusion to deceive its prey, including humans.
When persecuted by humans a leopard is more likely to fight back than is a lion. And it does not target one out of a gro
For thousands of years the Maasai people of Kenya have practiced the art of emerging from hiding to scare lions away from their kill and take it home for meet. But a leopard will drag its kill in its mouth and climb a tree. It climbs a tree carrying in its mouth a carcass far heavier than its own size. Animals like bull, giraffe, antelope. In those days, it would attack someone’s goat or sheep and drag it in its mouth deep into the forest and up on a tree.
The lion lacks these amazing abilities. In terms of general efficiency and productivity as jungle hunters, the leopard beats the lion, by many miles! Indeed, scientists have determined that, pound for pound (ie adjusted for differences in size and weight) the leopard is the strongest of all the big cat species.
It was for these reasons that the ancient Igbo revered the leopard as their totemic animal for strength, agility, boldness, and courage. And that is also why Igbo language is littered with similes, metaphors, adages and proverbs that use agụ to illustrate positive energy and abilities. Like “omekagụ”, “agụnwa”, etcetera. And it is why many Igbo families and communities proudly took their names and sobriquets after agụ. Like “Umuagụ, Amagụ Dimagụ, Eziagụ, Duruagụetc.
Today, as urban dwellers we can look down on the leopard. But to the Igbos of those jungle days, a snarling leopard on the loose was literally nature’s force unleashed. Every hamlet had a chant or cry that was used to alarm the community when a leopard was sighted.
And eating a leopard meet was a once-in-a-generation-experience. Till today Igbos use the metaphor “ọ bụanụ agụ?” (is it a leopard meet?) to question the value of a highly priced or scarce commodity. Of course, the leopard skin was dried and kept by the leopard killer.
Very perplexing was this elusive and powerful animal to ancient Igbos, that they even considered it a mysterious creature. A reason many Igbo dialects added the suffix “mystery” or “invisible” (“owo”, “owu”, “owuru” or “awolo”) to its name.
Indeed, ancient Igbo cosmology explained the entire universe as being some mystical leopard persona. The weather system and visible changes in the skies were said to be a leopard, the sky leopard.
This portrayal of the lion as symbolic cultural icon of the Igbos is only recent. It is driven by the influence of modern media and foreign popular culture. We watch a lot of animal documentaries these days and read a lot of books that continue to inform us the lion is the king of the beasts. True! But they don’t tell us about the king of our forests.
Today in global popular culture (eg children cartoons, films, etc) we are taught to be like the lion. Because throughout history and in many parts of the world the lion image has been used in stories, artworks, coats of arms, logos and advertisements to depict strength, ferocity, power, confidence and success.
Yet Igbo folklore is filled with stories that reference “agụ” as the king of animals. First generation Igbo intellectuals had no misunderstanding that agụ was leopard. And they were acutely aware of its significance in the Igbo culture and worldview.
In Onuora Nzekwu’s classic novel Eze Goes to School (published 1963), the ravaging beast which held the people of Ohia hostage, which Eze’s father killed but later died from the wound it inflicted on him, was a leopard, not a lion.
In 1950 Cyprian Ekwensi published a novel entitled ‘The Leopard’s Claw’. Chinua Achebe later published a short story with the title “How the Leopard Got Its Claws”. He narrated an Igbo folktale featuring leopard as the king of the animals. Achebe’s other book ‘Anthills of The Savanah’ narrates the incident when the leopard, the king of the forest, was to kill the tortoise and how the tortoise scattered sand and grass.
These men did not talk about the lion.
Chukwumeka Ike’s novel “The Bottled Leopard” explores Igbo metaphysics in the context of interpersonal strife during primal times. It tells the story of how men acquired metaphysical powers and transformed to leopards to terrify their neighbours or attack their animals.
Wago the protagonist of ‘The Great Ponds’ (the second novel of Elechi Amadi’s trilogy) was revered in the community because he killed a leopard. He was even hailed by the honorific “The Leopard Killer”. What surprised the members of the community was that the brave Leopard Killer later committed suicide, something they deemed an act of cowardice.
Gabriel Okara, an Ijaw man, was educated at Government Collage Umuahia and worked in Enugu for many years. He wrote the famous poem ‘The Drum and the Piano’. Romanticising primal African life, he used the imagery of a “leopard snarling about to leap and the hunters crouch with spears poised”.
If you’ve read the works of late great poet Christopher Okigbo, you will see repeated references to the leopard. In a manuscript drafting the poem ‘Land of Our Birth’ which he intended to be Biafra’s anthem, Okigbo wrote of Eastern Region’s (mostly Igbos) resolve to found its own republic: “This leopard is now unchained”.
Defunct Biafran Armed Forces published and circulated a periodic newsletter/bulletin to engage the masses. It was not for nothing that the brand name of that bulletin/newsletter was “The Leopard”. Indeed, the coat of arms of that republic, which was the same used by Eastern Region, proud
Stay true to who you are
Leopard skin (“akpụkpọ agụ”) was the totemic body-covering material in Igbo cultural foundations. In this modern era, if any fabric should be an emblem of Igbo culture, it is leopard skin fabrics. This lion symbol expresses nothing unique about the Igbo.
Totemic symbols embody and express the spirit, history, character and worldview of a people: what they have been through on their road to civilisation. How they see themselves in the world. The standards and qualities they aspire to, collectively and as individuals.
It is not difficult to see parallels between the leopard’s characteristics and core Igbo character: There is the leopard’s individualism – that Igbo man’s tendency to take his own destiny in his hands. The leopard is vigilant and opportunistic.
No imperial influence has forced the Scots to abandon the tartan. Nor has centuries of persecution swayed Jews to discard the yarmulke. The leopard was also the animal totem of the Zulu. That proud people of South Africa remain proud of it. Why then did the Igbo falter?
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