thought, word, reality
If there were no word, all forces would be frozen, there would be no procreation, no change, no life. ‘There is nothing that there is not; whatever we have a name for, that is’; so speaks the wisdom of the Yoruba priests. The proverb signifies that the naming, the enunciation produces what it names. Naming is an incantation, a creative act. What we cannot conceive of is unreal; it does not exist. But every human thought, once expressed, becomes reality. For the word holds the course of things in train and changes and transforms them. And since the word has this power, every word is an effective word, every word is binding. There is no ‘harmless,’ noncommittal word. Every word has consequences. Therefore the word binds the muntu. And the muntu is responsible for his word.
—Janheinz Jahn, Muntu, as quoted in notes to Angela Y. Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, with reference to “the West African practice of nommo, which conjures powers associated with things by ritually pronouncing their names” (Davis 128)
