IGWEBUIKE: THE CONCEPT OF BEAUTY IN IGBO-AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

Generally, the concept of beauty has become a recurrent decimal globally and this has over time paved way for beauty pageantry-a competition held to determine the most beautiful, both of male and female categories. The idea of beauty or the beautiful connotes a pleasing personal appearance or an attractive impressive personal quality. Accordingly, the idea of the beautiful has become a paradigm that is employed to determine what is fashionable and the pace of fashion as well. However, the concept of beauty is appreciated differently from culture to culture, thereby leading to a variance in fashion globally. This piece focuses on Igwebuike, which is an Igbo-African philosophy of complementarity and the substratum of African traditional values, philosophy and religion; to explain how the concept of beauty is perceived in Igbo-African philosophy. For the purpose of this study, the indigenous holistic method of inquiry is adopted.