Edeh’s grandfather, Ngele, was an old man of average height, with a lean and frail body that could not hide his ribs. Yet his bones were as strong as stone pebbles, and when he walked it was in strides. When he talked, he did so with a calmness that made every word deep and rich.
That day they were to visit Ndegu, a faraway village, where Ngele’s friend lived. To reach there, they would have to cross several streams and walk through rough paths surrounded by grasslands and forests.
In the morning, Edeh sat on a small stool waiting for his grandfather to dress. Normally it took the old man a long time to do that, and if he was to embark on a very important journey he would take extra time. This preparation would begin in the early hours of the morning, starting with sharpening his machete on a large stone-flint in front of his hut, refusing pleas from Edeh’s father to do it for him. Ngele would squat, sprinkling water on the flint and sharpen the machete to a razor edge. Every Izzi man carried a machete wherever he went—the machete placed in a leather scabbard and hung on the shoulder. Because of this, duels were rampant among all men of Izzi, both young and old. A slight provocation could cause a duel in drinking places, markets, farms, everywhere. If a man placed his hand romantically on another’s wife, it was a problem. If a man was insulted even by a kinsman, he could draw out his machete.
Earlier that morning, Ngele had sent out Ireh, one of his grandsons, Edeh’s cousin, to a vintner to bring a specially ordered keg of palm-wine. When the keg arrived, he sat down on a bamboo bench and took a long gourd cup and poured a drink for himself. It was against the tradition to drink while standing, because it showed disrespect for the gods that gave the palm trees their sap. After he had drunk the cup of the wine, Ngele grinned in approval, it was good.
He went into his hut. It was built with mud blocks in a beehive form and finished with a combination of dried raffia and spear grass. A long bamboo pole served as the centre column and reached up to the helm of the building supporting the roof. The outside walls were plastered with cow dung and finished with paintings of wild animals made with uri, a local chalk mashed with green leaves. The floor was also plastered with cow dung and uswie, camwood, making it cool all the time, even in hot weather.
The compound was large, and ujirisi plants with their leaves jutting out from long, thin, branchless trunks, took positions in almost all its corners. The cow pen was round and situated at the center of the compound. It was built with the ujirisi plants and between these, dried bamboo sticks were stuck into the ground and attached to the plants with crawler ropes harvested from the forests.
Edeh watched as over fifty cows fought amongst themselves and ran around the pen. It made him remember the times he had gone to the field with his elder brothers, whose chores were to herd the cows. Edeh was tall and lean with a head like a round bread-fruit and long gazelle-like legs. His scalp was infested with ringworm, yet he was the spitting image of his grandfather.
The morning sun arose and hit the horizon far beyond Edeh’s reach. He sat patiently and watched as Nwibo, his grandmother, came out of her kitchen. The old woman carried a tray made of gourd that contained two calabash plates. One of the plates enclosed a tall heap of pounded yam and the other an esusa soup, prepared with chicken. Edeh had earlier eaten the same soup before he took his bath but, as he sat beside the tray of food and a keg of palm wine, he felt his mouth water. Instead, he watched the naked young kids play around the large dusty compound.
Asha birds chirped loudly about. They flew over, carrying in their beak, straws for their new nests. Ngele emerged from the hut, dressed in a hide that had a design of warriors carrying spears and clubs. He wore a straw cap that stretched to the side of his shoulder—he was a jioke, a titled man of the greatest Order of Horse Killers. The old man wore a skirt made of a leopard hide, tied firmly around his waist with thread from a worn out sack. The hide was from a leopard his own father had killed many years back—a story Edeh had heard many times.
“I am set!” Ngele announced, loud enough to attract the attention of his two wives and that of Edeh’s mother, Nene. He walked to the bench and sat down. His hands were wrinkled and his feet looked like the skin of a tortoise. His eyes were reddish-gray as a result of too much snuff taken in readiness for the journey.
“May the gods guard you!” Edeh’s grandmother prayed.
“They will. It is a long journey,” Ngele responded. Edeh wondered why they must travel so far to visit his friend. If the man they were visiting was a distant relative of their grandfather what were they travelling there to do? He knew that it was customary for one to carry cooked food and drinks while paying an august visit to a friend or relative.
Edeh’s mother took the tray of food and placed it on Edeh’s head. Ireh lifted the keg of palm-wine to his head. Ngele stood, and the journey began.
As they traipsed along the bushy paths, he kept the two boys entertained with stories. He told them of days when the clan was at war with their neighbours over a large portion of land and how a lot of their enemies were taken into slavery.
“Nnanna, father, how long was that?” Edeh asked.
“Many years ago. I was a young man then.”
“Was it tough?”
“Of course. It was with the Ekori people across the river. We couldn’t cross the river to fight them because we had no boats. Our people didn’t know how to make boats.”
“What about now, nnanna?” Ireh asked.
“We still don’t know how to make boats. Boat making is a skill only the gods can give.
And they give it to whomever they choose. We are good with machetes and bows and they are not… so you see, what the gods gave to us, they didn’t give to them. That is how the gods work, my child.”
The boys were perplexed. “If we had no boats, how were our people able to cross to the other side to fight the Ekroi people?” Ireh asked.
“Or did you collect their boats which they left on our side of the river and use them?” Edeh asked.
“How can your enemy leave boats for you knowing you would use them against him?”
They were silent for some time. Occasionally Ngele would slow down, which would cause Ireh, who was following closely, to nearly bump into him. Ireh was taller than Edeh, but had a less handsome face and dandruff on his head rubbed with a dark medicine from tree barks. His legs looked like those of the Ijere masquerades, tall and fat.
“They used to come to our side to trade their fishes for our tubers of yam and cassava and cocoyam. When the war was to begin they stopped coming and withdrew all their boats. They invaded our village at night, kidnapping boys and raping women. It was horrible. Sometimes they set huts ablaze.”
“And there were no guards?”
“Ours was a big village, even then, and we live in scattered settlement, we couldn’t guard everywhere. But when we thought they were going to wipe us away, the gods intervened.”
The boys were eager to hear what happened. Their grandfather had never told them this story during the moonlight tales back home. They wondered if the journey had made him want to talk so as to keep them agile as they walked the lonely paths. The road was too narrow to accommodate two people at a time so they filed in a single line. Their grandfather was in front, while the two boys followed. His pace slowed the journey and this was what the two boys hated most.
“The elders’ council had a meeting, and we consulted the gods. We made sacrifices. A lot of sacrifices. Then the gods surprised us.” They continued walking. Silent now for some time. A squirrel crossed their path, few meters away from them. The grasses swayed in the little breeze. They perspired, their legs tiring, but they walked on. The boys wondered why their grandfather must make this journey every year. Once a year for about six years, he must visit his friend Arogu.
“The gods told us to bring the Okperegede drum and we did. The next day, during battle, we had to cross their river using the drum.”
“What?”
“Yes, boys!”
“How did that happen, nnanna?”
“The chief priest fortified the soldiers. He killed a cock that was a year old and sprayed the blood and the feathers on the drum.”
“How did he know the cock was a year old?”
“That is why he is a diviner. He knew. He brought the cock himself. The village paid. So he prayed and poured libations with palm wine. The warriors were fortified and they placed pieces of palm fronds in their mouth and carried the drum to the river.”
Ireh chipped in happily: “I have seen the drum once, Edeh, it is very huge.”
“I have never seen it,” Edeh said.
When they crossed the twenty-fourth stream it was noon and the journey had become tiring.
“So when we got to the river bank. About nine men sat on the drum and it ferried them across the river.”
“And what did their warriors do then?”
“Oh, my boy… they didn’t know we were coming.” He coughed. “They didn’t know. They knew we had no access to boats and we cannot make boats, so what was the need of guarding the river banks. When our warriors had all crossed, we took them by surprise.”
The boys were giggling. The journey became easier and fun.
Ngele said to them, “We were lucky, the gods were on our side.”
The sun had kept them company as he began to tell them about the gods—especially about Okemini, the god of all gods, about the connection between all the gods and how everything was predetermined by the gods. He told the boys that before anything happened in a man’s life, the gods would call for a meeting and deliberate on it.
“So nnanna, what happened? Did our village win the war?”
“The gods were on our side. When the gods are with you, you can lift mountains without knowing it, my child. We won the war.”
After a moment he said: “We took them unawares. It was in the morning, they were in their huts. Our warriors set their huts ablaze and we took their boats and ferried warriors with them.”
The stories continued till they came to a double path. Ngele told them that the left path led to the land of the spirits and dead. Humans were only allowed to use the path at certain times of the year. The right path led to the land of the living and on to their destination.
After some time, as the sun began to shine over the waters casting their shadows into it. The old man made them sit under an ukpa tree for a while.
By evening they arrived at their destination. Ndegu village was built on a plain below the great mountain of Obashi, the creator god. The sun had almost given way to night and galaxies began to appear in the sky. Women walked past leisurely, carrying baskets filled with tubers of yam and cocoyam of different varieties. Edeh watched as young girls hurried past, muttering greetings to them. Some carried kegs filled with water on their heads, others clutched empty kegs under their arms. The grass was tall and dry and Edeh imagined how game would fill the bushes and how he would love to hunt the rats and grass-cutters—a massive rat-like creature that fed on spear grasses and tubers.
They arrived at a compound with a long entrance, as compounds in Izzi were not built close to the village paths. From the path there was an entrance stretching twenty feet. But to their amazement, this particular compound was circular and so large it could accommodate a thousand people dancing Atilogwu at once. The whole compound was fenced with ujirisi like their pen back home. But here, the ujirisi were big and in between there was bamboo so closely placed and tied to the plants with ropes that to enter the compound was impossible—unless one went with machete and took some time cutting through the enclosure.
Edeh asked, “Are we at your friend’s place nnanna?”
“Yes. We are.” His voice always made Edeh want to laugh because it reminded him of the way their village Ijere masquerade sounded on the nights before the final full moon of the year when it went round the village, dancing in front of houses and speaking in a broad, muffled voice, mimicking a spirit.
The compound gate was small such that it could only accommodate two people at a time. Edeh’s jaw dropped in astonishment at the size of the compound and at the fence. It was only wealthy men that built such fences.
“‘I like this fence,” Edeh said. “I wish we had such a fence.”
“Don’t wish for anything on Earth… be content with the little the gods give to you.”
“But nnanna, I think the more you wish, the more the gods give to you?” Ireh asked. Edeh was still pondering over the words. He stared at the large cattle pen situated at the center of the compound.
The old man said, “Even before you think of wishing, Obashi knows already. So why make a wish. He knows what you need. That is why he is creator-god. Wishing will only make you worry-”
A large noise erupted like thunder bolts. Bare-breasted women ran in line with young girls and boys towards them. Soon, Edeh and his companions were overwhelmed. They all scampered around them, saluting Ngele. The women collected the tray of food and the young men took the keg of palm wine. They were led to the threshold of the hut that sat at the center of the compound, which showed that it belonged to the head of the family. Edeh wondered again why they were treating his grandfather with so much respect. It made him think about why they made the journey in the first place—his grandfather was old and rarely went out, but once a year, he visited Arogu.
Neighbours began to enter the compound to witness what was happening and Edeh noticed how their faces lit up as they saw Ngele.
“Deje! Welcome!” they greeted over and over again.
“Where is my friend?” Ngele asked. He sat on an upturned mortar and held his long staff with both hands. One of the women approached with a calabash of water and gourd cups. Ngele took one of the cups and held it as water was poured.
After a while, the gate was thrown open again and an elderly man walked hastily through it. He was in the company of six other men, four of which were his friends while the other two were his pageboys who had gone out with him. The elderly man was the shortest amongst the six men. He was surrounded by the others as they entered the compound, their attention drawn to whatever he was saying. Edeh could see that he was the man they came to visit. The two pageboys disappeared into the little crowd that gathered in honour of the visitors. Arogu was a short bald man who walked in quick strides, preceded by a round and protruded stomach. His face was broad with a thick beard which complemented his bald head. His voice was hoarse which made him seem older when he talked to Ngele.
“Aah! Ngele! So good of you to have come. So good of you,” said Arogu. “Deje, welcome,” he greeted. Ngele stood and they shook hands. Arogu introduced his friends. Kitchen stools were brought for them and they sat facing Ngele.
“It’s good of you to have come. I missed you. I missed your stories. My family missed all about you, especially the women. They always look forward to your coming.” A tall woman approached and greeted the men. Edeh and Ireh were seated on small stools by the side of their grandfather. Another woman brought a tray of food and a younger boy the keg of palm wine.
“He brought all these, nnajiuphu, our lord,” the tall woman reported. The presents were placed in the presence of Arogu. Smiling broadly he radiated like the twinkling galaxies, with his cheeks puffed up. Edeh could see that he was a wealthy man, as a wealthy man was also noted by the number of wives and had.
“Oh! Nnajiuphu. Imeta, you have done well. But you shouldn’t have passed through all the stress of bringing us presents, because you travel from afar...” Arogu was overwhelmed. He stood and shook hands with Ngele. The gate was thrown open again and over one hundred cows of different sizes queued into the compound shepherded by four young boys. Edeh watched as one of them rushed to open the pen and the cows strolled lazily inside. They looked well fed and healthy.
“Woman, please share the food. Tell the children to bring cups,” said Arogu to the tall woman who took the food away. She was his first wife, and her large buttocks bumped up and down as she strolled away.
“How was the journey?” asked one of the men who had introduced himself as Nwiboko.
“It was tiring and long. But we are glad to have arrived early enough,” Ngele answered. He brought out the horn of a ram from the leather bag that hung on his shoulder. The opening on the oval side of the goat horn was stopped with a piece of dried wood and attached with a rope. He pulled the rope opening the horn and upturned it, snuff dropped on his palm. He cupped his palm and used the index finger of his right hand to collect a pinch and pushed it into his nostrils. He sniffed and coughed. Then, he offered the horn to his host. Arogu accepted and did the same, after which the snuff horn was passed around to every man present. The cups arrived, Edeh and his brother watched as one of Arogu’s sons was called to serve the drink.
As the men sniffed the snuff, the young man poured a cup of palm wine and drank first. His face contorted in excitement as he drank, which showed it was a very good wine. He poured another cup and gave it to Ngele who brought the wine. Ngele clapped his both palms together to clear the snuff. He drank the wine in a gulp and raised his face. He gave back the cup and the young man poured another for him, for it was customary that because he presented the wine he be served twice sequentially.
The young man then poured the drink for his father Arogu, who gulped it fast and grinned. “It’s a good wine. Whose wine is this?” he asked.
“Akrikor. He is the best wine tapper in our village,” Ngele responded.
Arogu’s first wife arrived with three young girls of Edeh’s age carrying plates of food. The food was laid in front of the men. There were two plates; the bigger one contained a piece of the pounded yam while the other contained some of the soup which Ngele and his grandsons brought. There were lumps of dried meat, pieces of smoked fish, and some shreds of chicken meat in the soup.
“Nnajiuphu. We have shared the food,” the woman announced and left after Ngele congenially teased her. One of the girls brought a bowl of water made from a gourd. By this time they had all drunk almost two cups of the wine each, and Edeh and his cousin were offered a cup each. Ngele stood and turned, sneezed and blew his nose, then
cleaned it with the back of his palm.
“Let us eat, please,” Arogu invited. At that instant, two young girls brought smaller plates of food for Edeh and Ireh. The men washed their hands in the water offered to rinse their hands. Collectively, they collected balls of pounded yam and ate it with the soup, dipping their hands in the plates at the same time. Edeh and Ireh ate theirs too, even though the food was cold by then. When they had all eaten, Edeh still wondered why they visited.
The next morning sunrays peeped through the window into the room where Edeh and Ireh slept with some other boys. Edeh woke, came outside and saw the women walking up to greet his grandfather, who was already seated by the threshold of his host’s hut, eating kola-nut.
When the women had greeted him Ngele called on them to follow him. One of them shouted for the others that were still in their huts to come out. In a flash, the compound was filled with women and their children marching behind Ngele.
Arogu stood abruptly and began to protest: “Again this year? I know that is why you have come! Perhaps these women have had their secret meeting and sent for you!”
Ngele ignored him, and headed for the yam barn with the women and their children.
Arogu became furious for he couldn’t stand to watch what they were about to do.
Arogu was a miser, even though he was a man of affluence and his cattle pen was one of the largest in the clan of Izzi. His barn was larger than the barns of ten wealthy men put together and his yams were so huge sometimes they pulled down the stake poles.
He had goats that ran into hundreds, sheep that were uncountable, and thousands of palm trees scattered in many villages. Arogu was known in the whole of Izzi clan as the wealthiest man whose children suffered from swollen stomachs. His thirteen wives borrowed yams from neighbours to be able to eat. On festivals he would give a cock each to his wives, instead of killing one of his animals for them. He bought no drinks in the evenings when men drank under a big udara tree close to the shrine of Odoh, but drank other people’s. Arogu was amongst the men that paid their village levies late, and would be the first to complain when things were hard.
Six years earlier, his ninth wife managed to open his ever-locked barn and pilfered a tuber of yam. Unluckily for her, she was still peeling the yam when her husband walked into the compound. It was during the rainy season when yams were scarce, and Arogu knew that none of his wives had yams.
“Who gave you that yam?” he asked furiously. The woman fidgeted. If she told him that it was from a neighbour, her husband would ask the neighbour, so she was quiet.
“You stole my yam, right?” He did not wait for a reply, but pounced on the woman and beat her till she was unconscious. There was only one man Arogu feared, one man he listened to, and that man was Ngele. The ailing wife’s son took a journey the next day and reported him to Ngele. Two days later, the old man arrived and after admonishing Arogu, ordered the lock to the barn broken and asked all his wives to enter the compound and cart away enough yams that would last them till the next year when he would visit again. After that he threw open the pen that housed the goats and sheep and each of the women took three. He took out one of the cows and ordered the pageboys to slaughter it and they did. He divided the beef amongst the women and asked them to smoke it for preservation, till the next time he would visit. It was a feast. Arogu only stared in despair. Since that year it became an annual ritual.
When Ngele got to the barn, followed by the swarm of women and children, teenagers, and pages, he found that the barn had been locked with a very strong rope – the kind used in tethering cattle. “Not this year!” Arogu shouted from the front of his hut where he stood.
“Order your boys to unlock the barn, Arogu. We need to feed these women. Your wives and children,” Ngele instructed calmly.
“No. Not this year. I want everyone to leave my barn now!” he shouted. He stood up and began to approach them. The crowed of women and children moved back in fear. Ngele stood his ground and drew his machete from its sheath to the surprise of everyone.
They wondered if the old man could still fight, if he could still engage in duels. They wondered if he could withstand their lord, Arogu in a duel.
“Do not near me, Arogu or you will regret this day.” The old man’s calm words resonated with strength and fearlessness. Arogu was taken aback. He stood, gawking at the old man, obviously confused. Ngele turned, severed the rope with his machete, and threw open the barn.
“No one should enter my barn!”Arogu screamed at his household.
Ngele turned to Arogu, “Then you must fight me first.”
Arogu said, “I cannot fight you, nnajiuphu, my lord. It is an abomination.”
“Then allow me feed your family. You accursed son of the devil!” Ngele retorted angrily.
He turned to the crowed. “Enter the barn. Now!”
Women and children used baskets to cart away tubers of yams and piled them in their huts. The same happened to the goats and sheep. Arogu, resigned, sat in front of his hut, eating a piece of kola. As the women hurriedly passed to offload and go back to the barn, he would lift his head and shout: “Make sure you take enough! Because, till next year, if I see any of you around my barn, I will chop off that person’s head with my machete!” When they were through and the songs of joy from the women subsided, Ngele came sweating and tired and sat beside his friend.
“Are you through with disbursing my wealth to those lazy scoundrels?” Arogu asked furiously.
“Arogu, my friend, do you know that you have a short time to live?”
“Why?”
“Hungry people are angry people. When a man is surrounded by hungry people, his death is just sitting in the threshold of his hut, waiting for him,” Ngele admonished. Arogu only nodded like a lizard and said nothing. Though Ngele talked to him each time, it seemed never to change him.
Arogu said, “Nnajiuphu, wealth is difficult to acquire. But women don’t know that, they are like pigs, they could eat you out in few days—eat out a whole season of farm produce in few days.”
“But they are your wives and children, Arogu. They help in the farms. All this wealth wouldn’t have been without their assistance.”
“I have workers and slaves. I work hard for my wealth every day. I still have titles to take, a lot of titles that cost a lot of money, goats, and cattle. What is a man without titles? Nothing.”
“And what is a man without family?”
“My lord, you know I respect you so much. I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t allow you do this every year,” Arogu paused and scratched his bald head. “My lord, you are the oldest man in our lineage. Your word is law. Your commands must be obeyed otherwise the gods could get angry. If I disobey you, the gods might make me lose all I have, all these yams, cattle, goats, everything-”
“That is why you must listen to me. That is why you must allow your family share in your wealth. Otherwise, next time I will divide your farmlands for them.”
Arogu’s face lit up in a rage, but he subdued his anger. If it was someone else he would have drawn his machete for an attack. But with Ngele, he was helpless, for by custom Ngele as the oldest man in his lineage was like the representative of the gods on Earth.
Both men sat, watching each other in silence, then Arogu said: “I will change. I don’t want to have you here next season, dividing my farmlands among my wives. It will give them so much power. You know what women could do with power.” He waved his hands in reluctance and surrender.
Edeh and Ireh watched in great astonishment. They had never seen or imagined such in their lives.
“Ireh?”
“Yes.”
“Will you like to live in this compound?” Edeh asked, as they stood by the barn.
“No. Never. Not even for a day.”
“That man,” Edeh said, and pointed at Arogu, “was born on a day the palm tree bore its fruit on the frond.”
(c) Image culled from African Roar anthology, 2014.
