This Is the Sacrifice

Language, Ideology and Religious Identity Performance in Erei Personal Names

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5900940
AutoresGod’sgift Ogban Uwen (0000-0001-5472-9110, University of Calabar, autor de correspondencia), Edadi Ilem Ukam
Año2024
Volumen9
Número10
Páginas326
Fecha de publicación2024-10-09
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguages (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages9100326
OpenAlexW4403249927
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas24

This paper examines personal names derived from traditional religious beliefs and practices among the Erei people in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State in South-South, Nigeria while utilising insights from the multidisciplinary inferences of socio-onomastic theory to account for the cultural, social and situational contexts that create the religious content of the names. Data were obtained by means of participant observation and semi-structured interviews during six months of fieldwork involving 40 participants who were the name-givers, name-bearers and name-users. Our findings highlight the socio-onomastic tradition of Erei people in which personal names are bestowed through a conscious application of symbolic linguistic resources to express and perform ideologies and identities that are rooted in the traditional religion's foundations and sociocultural practices that represent Erei people's indigenous beliefs system and spiritual worldview. Focused on the ideals of African traditional religion, religious identities are constructed through the use of personal names related to idol worship, the mysteries of death, reincarnation and commemoration, cultural festivals and performances, symbolic objects, familial rankings and other aspects derived from their environment that also bear traditional religious significance. And because this set of personal names is now predominant among the ageing population and is losing contemporaneity due to an increasing subpopulation with a new (Christian) beliefs system, this study serves to preserve a transiting and endangered Erei socio-onomastic practice that represents the people's traditional cosmology

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Identity (music · Ideology · Participant observation · Personal identity · Politics · Population · Reincarnation · Religiosity · Religious identity · Self-concept · Situational ethics · Social science · Sociology · Worship · Anthropology · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Jewish Identity and Society · Law · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Psychology · Social Psychology