My research now shows that there is a Cave Temple Complex in Arochukwu in the hinterland of Nigeria that served as a secret slave dealing location and processing center. I have self-consciously established a particular trail of Igbo slave journeys from the Temple of Complex in Arochukwu through former interior slave markets and slaveholding quarters in Ututu, Bende, and Azumini.   When developed, the Temple Complex together with the trail could bring slave journey-related tourism in Nigeria to a point comparable to the boom in Ghana and Senegal.

More than just a tourist destination, the Arochukwu Cave Temple Complex is expected to become a pilgrimage site for African Americans; more so those of Igbo ancestry.  Since we celebrate the history of our long journey from slavery to freedom every February, the Aro Pilgrimage Foundation will start organizing a Journeying Back from Freedom to Freedom Pilgrimage to Africa; with effect from February 2009.   That will be the beginning of an annual symbolic journeying back to the state of freedom that was before the Atlantic slave trade began.

When people want to visit the beginning points of the slave journeys to the United States from West Africa, they usually do not go to Nigeria in the Slave Coast.  Instead they go to Senegal (the former Grain Coast) or Ghana (the former Gold Coast).Yet it is estimated that over 50% of the enslaved Africans that came to the United States, came directly from the region that Europeans traders named the Slave Coast to distinguish it from the Grain Coast (much of Gambia and Senegal), from the Ivory Coast (now Cote D’Ivoire); and from the Gold Coast (now Ghana). Some of the Igbo victims of the Atlantic slave trade (maybe thousands), were not declared slaves until they were ritually processed, symbolically declared dead, and covertly funneled through cave tunnels to coastal towns of Bonny and Calabar for the forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean.Most of them boarded slave ships at Bonny and traveled directly to Virginia and the greater Potomac/Chesapeake region of the United States and later to the plantations in the regions that became known as the Cotton or Black Belt in the Deep South—including part of Georgia, all of Alabama and Mississippi.From the Deep South, with their eyes set on freedom, thousands of the enslaved Africans escaped to freedom in the North even to Canada.

As we view this material vestige of slave journey, we should look beyond the vicissitude of the journey and begin to seek to bring healing to the deep-seated wounds of the historical tragedy of chattel slavery, on both sides of the Atlantic. I propose a journey back to the Temple Complex in Arochukwu, Nigeria.The Arochukwu Cave was a definite starting point of some of the slave journeys that took enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean—the Middle Passage—to the Americas where they eventually became free.The implication of from Freedom to Freedom here is that a journey that leads from North America back through the tunnels of disappearance in the Ancient Cave Temple Complex to the hinterland of the Slave Coast would be a symbolic journey to the state of freedom that was before the Atlantic slavery began.

In pre-Atlantic slavery times, the people of Arochukwu (the Aro) had performed customary rites for Chukwu—the Great Spirit—in the Temple Complex.  As the ritual specialists and custodians of the Temple the Aro alone could enter the cave to travel into the Dark Chamber Presence of Chukwu (God) and through a major Oracle (Ibin Ukpabi) interpret the voice of Chukwu. At that time, the Ancient Cave Temple Complex was the highest court of justice in Igboland. People from all over Igboland went to the Temple to seek the truth from Chukwu Abiama or Abiamara (“the Great Spirit to which Seekers of the Truth Come”) and to hear judgments through the Oracle. Those found guilty were either sold on to slavery or put to death depending upon the degree of their offence and the judgments of Chukwu.  The blood of those that received the death penalty colored the running stream in the cave, the River of Blood, red.   At the cave entrance from which the River of Blood issued, families thus waited to receive judgment on the fate of the accused by the subsequent coloring, or not, of this stream. 

It was with the advent of the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa during the 17^th century that the Aro, assuming the role of the leaders of the trade in the Igbo hinterland, exploited the Temple Complex in a very remarkable way—by using it as a major secret slave dealing location. During this time, the Aro took captured victims to the Temple Complex in what appeared to be the same ritual that had been undertaken since before memory, but as the victims disappeared into the cave tunnels (the tunnels of disappearance), the Aro would falsely color the river red with dye from the red cam wood to leave the impression that the condemned had died. The red water flowing from the cave was a signal to the relatives that the victims were dead. 

In reality, some of the tunnels (the Tunnel of Disappearance) led to various exist points on the trade routes to the Slave Coast. One of the outlets eventually led to Iyi Eke; a point from where the enslaved, now blindfolded, were led to Onu Abu Bekee, or European Beach in Ito.  And from there, waiting boats took the slaves to Calabar for onward transmission to the New World and slavery.  The other led to Afia Oso Nwamkpi a slave market in Ututu from where, using He-Goat as a metaphor, Aro traders and escorts took the victims to major hinterland slave markets in Bende, Uzuakoli, Azumini and eventually to Bonny.

Ours is a story of the memory of pain. The idea of slave dealing in the Temple of God with direct links to Shipping Ports in the Slave Coast is painful. Entering the Chamber Presence and facing the exact place to which the slave dealers took the victims of the Atlantic slave trade for judgment and ritual processing; to the exact place where probably thousands of African slaves entered and symbolically died is breathtaking.  Following the tunnels of disappearance through the trade routes to the point where the Atlantic Oceans ends in a twilight zone is heartrending. The experience can be overwhelming and the story bitter.  But it is the truth that must told in order to begin to make real the reconnection with Africa our ancestral home, enhance reconciliation and forgiveness, and start the healing of the deep-seated wounds of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery on both sides of the Atlantic.