Aja — sacrifice

- [T1] Scholarly framings noted: Cardinal Arinze's four ends (expiation, warding off molestation, petition, thanksgiving, + interior sacrifice); Ifesieh's 21 non-communion sacrifices. Umeh's holistic list of key types:
- Ichu Aja — driving away impurities (the general offering)
- Igba Aja
- Ichu Noonu / Ikpochi Onunu — closing a gaping grave; its extreme form Ise Okpa N'onu — pulling a client's feet out of the grave when he has already spiritually crossed over (the clairvoyant sees such a patient walking on air); the Dibia buries substitute ritual objects to close the grave or forfeits his own life, then performs the water-cleansing with the invocation: water cleanses all things, nothing cleanses water; death, loss, spirit-illness and human illness are washed away.
- Ichu Ochuchu — driving away a punitive impurity (with a "romantic double" — the famous love song Ochuchu Nkpokolo Ushie)
- Obo di n'ana — spirit retaliation rooted in the land: any abomination left uncleansed for a year (Ajo ife gba aho, o bulu obo di n'ana) takes root and punishes the culprits' line until ritually removed.
- Aja Chukwu / Aja Eze Enu — direct thanksgiving to God (before planting, after first harvest, or upon great fortune); local forms: Ime Chukwu (Aje, Nsukka — twice yearly at the market-center shrine, officiated by the Oga Ahia market-master, libations of palm wine and liquefied white chalk, a goat immolated), Igba Mkpu Chukwu (Ihembosi), Imanyelu Eze Enu Okuko (tying a white fowl for the King of Heaven), Ido/Idu/Izo Oha Chukwu (planting God's altar), Iruma Chukwu (Oguta riverine).

- [T1] Ido Chukwu altar recipe (p.99): white day-old chick on a raffia frond; white yam chalk-painted, eagle feather implanted; the white Oku Asa bowl holding Ogu Nzu/Nzu Nwafo (the double-pyramid chalk) and first-grade palm wine that never touched the ground; a spotless white cock (ideally four years crowing) sacrificed; the Dibia invokes God four times — and must never be paid in yam or cocoyam for this service. Annual white-cock renewal.

- [T1] Ugbo Aja — the sacrificial boat/vessel (necessary from Uga Chi onward to convey offerings): woven from omu nkwu (tender yellow palm leaves) or matured fronds, banana-stem skin, gourd, or potsherd; plus the spirit-woven category Ugbo Aja Mmuo kpalu (aged Obu Egbe parasitic plant).

- [T1] Sacrifice cosmogony: the moving story of Olisa-Ekezu ("God's uncompleted creation" — the beautiful youth born without genitals) and Anyanwu-Setaoza, the king's daughter who chose him — recorded as the origin-myth of aja. (Scan breaks off mid-story; see your copy pp.88–94.)

- [T2] Ka ana achu aja, ka ikpe n'amah ndi mmuo — "let us keep sacrificing, let the spirits take the blame" — the axiom of transferred liability through sacrifice.

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