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Isidore Okpewho. 2014. Blood on the Tides: The Ozidi Saga and Oral Epic Narratology. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. 279 pp.
It comes as no surprise that Isidore Okpewho's latest endeavor is a critical study of the narratology of the epic of Ozidi. Okpewho bases his study on the version of the Ozidi performed by Okabou Ojobolo and recorded in book form (The Ozidi Saga) by his fellow countryman, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo. Ozidi, the epic hero of the story, is a boy born into the unenviable circumstance of having to avenge his father's death at the hands of coup plotters. However, with the fortifications of his witch grandmother Oreame, Ozidi succeeds in killing all, and more.
In the first of the book's seven chapters, Okpewho contextualizes the story. He investigates the history of the Ijo people among whom the story is set, and describes the culture, the geography, and the ecology of their home. Ijo ontology, for instance, reveals the centrality of the septuple order of the elements in the story: the performance of the Ozidi story is done in seven days and seven nights; Ozidi is born after a seven-day hurricane;...