Abstract
In this article, we interrogate the concept of tuput (“to die and come out”) and the subsequent equation of it with reincarnation by the Ngas people of Plateau State in Nigeria, wherein it is claimed that persons who have undergone the ritual processes of tuput-enablement reincarnate within 2 days of their death, not by way of rebirth through conception and delivery but by just mysteriously reappearing in their full former selves and then resuming their normal life as though they never died. This claim raises a stir in us. In exploring the tuput phenomenon, we interviewed some indigenes of the Ngas community concerning the phenomenon. Thereafter, we situated the claims about tuput within the framework of existing theories of reincarnation and juxtaposed them with resurrection—another related theory of afterlife. Our findings reveal among other things that (a) although tuput is a theory of afterlife, it is not reincarnation. Tuput comes closer to the theory of resurrection as a theory of afterlife; (b) belief in tuput is unreflective and its associated claims are laden with internal contradictions; and (c) although tuput suffers the defects listed in (b), it nevertheless has some underlying values and promises that could be harnessed to enrich human knowledge and expand the scope of existing literature, if investigated further.
Highlights
As a survival concept, the term reincarnation ordinarily represents the theory that after bodily death, the soul becomes incarnate by means of rebirth in a new human or animal body
Given the classical meaning ascribed to reincarnation as well as the popular conception of it by Africans, can we say that tuput is reincarnation? There is no doubt that both tuput and reincarnation share certain features in common
Our reason is that the concept of the Ngas tuput as reincarnation is bedeviled by certain procedural hitches that will put any critical observer toward thinking that using the English word “reincarnation” for the Ngas’ tuput phenomenon is a case of language of accommodation
Summary
The term reincarnation ordinarily represents the theory that after bodily death, the soul becomes incarnate by means of rebirth in a new human or animal body. In this context, the survival concept is used to mean any concept that tends to suggest that there is something in humans that survive bodily death. For Africans, there is a special place (ancestral home) meant for the stay of persons who have died It is from this central abode (otherwise called the land of spirits) that they effect their own form of reincarnation in a mystical manner while at the same time retaining their individual existence in their ancestral home
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