ALA (ANI)

Earth, morality, fertility

Ala is, in most Igbo communities, the most honoured of the alusi, the deities of odinani. Goddess of the earth, called Ani, Ana, Ale or Ali depending on the region, she feeds the living, gives fecundity to the fields and to women, and receives the dead into her womb, where the ancestors rest before being reborn. She is the keeper of omenala, the whole body of laws and customs: the gravest faults — murder, incest, suicide, the theft of yams — are nso ala, abominations against the earth, which demand purification rites conducted by her priests. The royal python, eke, is held in several regions to be her sacred messenger and must not be killed. Her cult reaches its most spectacular expression in the mbari houses of the Owerri region: sanctuaries of sculpted clay, raised collectively in her honour, represent her seated with a child on her knees, often surrounded by Amadioha and other figures, as documented by Herbert M. Cole and Chike C. Aniakor. The yam cycle, from clearing to harvest, opens and closes with her offerings. Mother and judge at once, Ala unites fertility and morality in a single authority.