As he approached the centre of the market place Ezeulu re-enacted the First Coming of Ulu and how each of the four Days put obstacles in his way.
‘At that time, when lizards were still in ones and twos, the whole people assembled and chose me to carry their new deity. I said to them:
‘“Who am I to carry this fire on my bare head? A man who knows that his anus is small does not swallow an udala seed.”
‘They said to me:
‘“Fear not. The man who sends a child to catch a shrew will also give him water to wash his hand.”
‘I said: “So be it.”
‘And we set to work. That day was Eke: we worked into Oye and then into Afo. As day broke on Nkwo and the sun carried its sacrifice I carried my Alusi and, with all the people behind me, set out on that journey. A man sang with the flute on my right and another replied on my left. From behind the heavy tread of all the people gave me strength. And then all of a sudden something spread itself across my face. On one side it was raining, on the other side it was dry. I looked again and saw that it was Eke.
‘I said to him: “Is it you Eke?”
‘He replied: “It is I, Eke, the One that makes a strong man bite the earth with his teeth.”
‘I took a hen’s egg and gave him. He took it and ate and gave way to me. We went on, past streams and forests. Then a smoking thicket crossed my path, and two men were wrestling on their heads. My followers looked once and took to their heels. I looked again and saw that it was Oye.
‘I said to him: “Is it you Oye across my path?”
‘He said: “It is I, Oye, the One that began cooking before Another and so has more broken pots.”
‘I took a white cock and gave him. He took it and made way for me. I went on past farmlands and wilds and then I saw that my head was too heavy for me. I looked steadily and saw that it was Afo.
‘I said: “Is it you Afo?”
‘He said: “It is I, Afo, the great river that cannot be salted.”
‘I replied: “I am Ezeulu, the hunchback more terrible than a leper.”
‘Afo shrugged and said: “Pass, your own is worse than mine.”
‘I passed and the sun came down and beat me and the rain came down and drenched me. Then I met Nkwo. I looked on his left and saw an old woman, tired, dancing strange steps on the hill. I looked to the right and saw a horse and saw a ram. I slew the horse and with the ram I cleaned my matchet, and so removed that evil.’
By now Ezeulu was in the centre of the market place. He struck the metal staff into the earth and left it quivering while he danced a few more steps to the Ikolo which had not paused for breath since the priest emerged. All the women waved their pumpkin leaves in front of them.
Ezeulu looked round again at all the men and women of Umuaro, but saw no one in particular. Then he pulled the staff out of the ground, and with it in his left hand and the Mother of Ofo in his right he jumped forward and began to run round the market place.
All the women set up a long, excited ululation and there was renewed jostling for the front line. As the fleeing Chief Priest reached any section of the crowd the women there waved their leaves round their heads and flung them at him. It was as though thousands and thousands of giant, flying insects swarmed upon him.
Ugoye who had pushed and shoved until she got to the front murmured her prayer over and over again as the Chief Priest approached the part of the circle where she stood:
‘Great Ulu who kills and saves, I implore you to cleanse my household of all defilement. If I have spoken it with my mouth or seen it with my eyes, or if I have heard it with my ears or stepped on it with my foot or if it has come through my children or my friends or kinsfolk let it follow these leaves.’
She waved the small bunch in a circle round her head and flung it with all her power at the Chief Priest as he ran past her position.
The six messengers followed closely behind the priest and, at intervals, one of them bent down quickly and picked up at random one bunch of leaves and continued running. The Ikolo drum worked itself into a frenzy during the Chief Priest’s flight especially its final stages when he, having completed the full circle of the market place, ran on with increasing speed into the sanctuary of his shrine, his messengers at his heels. As soon as they disappeared the Ikolo broke off its beating abruptly with one last KOME. The mounting tension which had gripped the entire market place and seemed to send its breath going up, up and up exploded with this last beat of the drum and released a vast and deep breathing down. But the moment of relief was very short-lived. The crowd seemed to rouse itself quickly to the knowledge that their Chief Priest was safe in his shrine, triumphant over the sins of Umuaro which he was now burying deep into the earth with the six bunches of leaves.
As if someone had given them a sign, all the women of Umunneora broke out from the circle and began to run round the market place, stamping their feet heavily. At the beginning it was haphazard but soon everyone was stamping together in unison and a vast cloud of dust rose from their feet. Only those whose feet were weighed down by age or by ivory were out of step. When they had gone round they rejoined the standing crowd. Then the women of Umuagu burst through from every part of the huge circle to begin their own run. The others waited and clapped for them; no one ran out of turn. By the time the women of the sixth village ran their race the pumpkin leaves that had lain so thickly all around were smashed and trodden into the dust.
As soon as the running was over the crowd began to break up once more into little groups of friends and relations. Akueke sought out her elder sister, Adeze, whom she had last seen running with the other women of Umuezeani. She did not search very far because Adeze stood out in any crowd. She was tall and bronze-skinned; if she had been a man she would have resembled her father even more than Obika.
‘I thought perhaps you had gone home,’ said Adeze. ‘I saw Matefi just now but she had not seen you at all.’
‘How could she see me? I’m not big enough for her to see.’
‘Are you two quarrelling again? I thought I saw it on her face. What have you done to her this time?’
‘My sister, leave Matefi and her trouble aside and let us talk about better things.’
At that point Ugoye joined them.
‘I have been looking for you two all over the market place,’ she said. She embraced Adeze whom she called Mother of my Husband.
‘How are the children?’ asked Adeze. ‘Is it true you have been teaching them to eat python?’
‘You think it is something for making people laugh?’ Ugoye sounded very hurt. ‘No wonder you are the only person in Umuaro who did not care to come and ask what was happening.’
‘Was anything happening? Nobody told me. Was it a fire or did someone die?’
‘Do not mind Adeze, Ugoye,’ said her sister, ‘she is worse than her father.’
‘Did you expect what the leopard sired to be different from the leopard?’
No one replied.
‘Do not be angry with me, Ugoye. I heard everything. But our enemies and those jealous of us were waiting to see us running up and down in confusion. It is not Adeze will give them that satisfaction. That mad woman, Akueni Nwosisi, whose family has committed every abomination in Umuaro, came running to me to show her pity. I asked her whether someone who put a python in a box was not to be preferred to her kinsman caught behind the house copulating with a she-goat.’
Ugoye and Akueke laughed. They could clearly visualize their aggressive sister putting this question.
‘You are coming with us?’ asked Akueke.
‘Yes, I must see the children. And perhaps I shall exact a fine or two from Ugoye and Matefi; I fear they look after my father half-heartedly.’
‘Please, husband, I implore you,’ cried Ugoye in mock fear. ‘I do my best. It is your father who ill-treats me. And when you talk to him,’ she added seriously, ‘ask him why at his age he must run like an antelope. Last year he could not get up for days after the ceremony.�
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‘Don’t you know,’ asked Akueke looking furtively back to see if a man was near; there was no one; even so she lowered her voice, ‘don’t you know that in his younger days he used to run as Ogbazulobodo? As Obika does now.’
‘It is you people, especially the two of you, who lead him astray. He likes to think that he is stronger than any young man of today and you people encourage him. If he were my father I would let him know the truth.’
‘Is he not your husband?’ asked Adeze. ‘If he dies tomorrow are you not the one to sit in ashes in the cooking-place for seven markets? Is it you or me will wear sackcloth for one year?’
‘What am I telling you?’ asked Akueke, changing the subject. ‘My husband and his people came the other day.’
‘What did they come for?’
‘What else would they come for?’
‘So they are tired of waiting, small beasts of the bush. I thought they were waiting for you to take palm wine to beg them.’
‘Don’t abuse my husband’s people, or we shall fight,’ said Akueke pretending anger.
‘Please forgive me. I did not know that you and he had suddenly become palm oil and salt again. When are you going back to him?’
‘One market come next Oye.’
Chapter Eight
The new road which Mr Wright was building to connect Okperi with its enemy, Umuaro, had now reached its final stages. Even so it would not be finished before the onset of the rainy season if it was left to the paid gang he was using. He had thought of increasing the size of this gang but Captain Winterbottom had told him that far from authorizing any increase he was at that very moment considering a retrenchment as the Vote for Capital Works for the financial year was already largely overspent. Mr Wright had then toyed with the idea of reducing the labourers’ pay from threepence a day to something like twopence. But this would not have increased the labour force substantially; not even halving their pay would have achieved the desired result, even if Mr Wright could have found it in his heart to treat the men so meanly. In fact he had got very much attached to this gang and knew their leaders by name now. Many of them were, of course, bone lazy and could only respond to severe handling. But once you got used to them they could be quite amusing. They were as loyal as pet dogs and their ability to improvise songs was incredible. As soon as they were signed on the first day and told how much they would be paid they devised a work song. Their leader sang: ‘Lebula toro toro’ and all the others replied: ‘A day’, at the same time swinging their matchets or wielding their hoes. It was a most effective work song and they sang it for many days:
Lebula toro toro
A day
Lebula toro toro
A day
And they sang it in English too!
Anyhow there was only one alternative left to Mr Wright if he was to complete the road before June and get away from this hole of a place. He had to use unpaid labour. He asked for permission to do this, and after due consideration Captain Winterbottom gave his approval. In the letter conveying it he pointed out that it was the policy of the Administration to resort to this method only in the most exceptional circumstances… ‘The natives cannot be an exception to the aphorism that the labourer is worthy of his hire.’
Mr Wright who had come to Government Hill from his P.W.D. Road Camp about five miles away to get this reply, glanced through it, crumpled it and put it in the pocket of his khaki shorts. Like all practical types he had little respect for administrative red tape.
When the leaders of Umuaro were told to provide the necessary labour for the white man’s new, wide road they held a meeting and decided to offer the services of the two latest age groups to be admitted into full manhood: the age group that called itself Otakagu, and the one below it which was nicknamed Omumawa.
These two groups never got on well together. They were, like two successive brothers, always quarrelling. In fact it was said that the elder group who when they came of age took the name Devourer Like Leopard were so contemptuous of their younger brothers when they came of age two years later that they nicknamed them Omumawa, meaning that the man’s cloth they tied between the legs was a feint to cover small boys’ penes. It was a good joke, and so overpowered the attempt of the new group to take a more befitting name. For this reason they nursed a grudge against Otakagu, and a meeting of the two was often like the meeting of fire and gunpowder. Whenever they could, therefore, they went by separate ways; as in the case of the white man’s new road. All that Mr Wright asked for was two days in the week, and so the two age groups arranged to work separately on alternate Eke days. On these occasions the white man came over from the paid gang which he had turned into an orderly and fairly skilled force to supervise the free but undisciplined crowd from Umuaro.
Because of his familiarity with the white man’s language the carpenter, Moses Unachukwu, although very much older than the two age groups, had come forward to organize them and to take words out of the white man’s mouth for them. At first Mr Wright was inclined to distrust him, as he distrusted all uppity natives but he soon found him very useful and was now even considering giving him some little reward when the road was finished. Meanwhile Unachukwu’s reputation in Umuaro rose to unprecedented heights. It was one thing to claim to speak the white man’s tongue and quite another to be seen actually doing it. The story spread throughout the six villages. Ezeulu’s one regret was that a man of Umunneora should have this prestige. But soon, he thought, his son would earn the same or greater honour.
It was the turn of the Otakagu age group to work on the new road on the day following the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves. Ezeulu’s second son, Obika, and his friend, Ofoedu, belonged to this group. But they had drunk so much palm wine on the day before that when all the other people went to work they were still asleep. Obika who had staggered home almost at cock-crow defied the combined effort of his mother and sister to rouse him.
It had happened on the festival day that as Obika and Ofoedu drank with the three men at the market place, one of the men had thrown a challenge to them. The conversation had turned on the amount of palm wine a good drinker could take without losing knowledge of himself.
‘It all depends on the palm tree and the tapper,’ said one of the men.
‘Yes,’ agreed his friend, Maduka. ‘It depends on the tree and the man who taps it.’
‘That is not so. It depends on the man who drinks. You may bring any tree in Umuaro and any tapper,’ said Ofoedu, ‘and I shall still drink my bellyful and go home with clear eyes.’
Obika agreed with his friend. ‘It is true that some trees are stronger than others and some tappers are better than others, but a good drinker will defeat them both.’
‘Have you heard of the palm tree in my village which they call Okposalebo?’
Obika and Ofoedu said no.
‘Anyone who has not heard of Okposalebo and yet claims to be a good drinker deceives himself.’
‘What Maduka says is very true,’ said one of the others. ‘The wine from this tree is never sold in the market, and no one can drink three hornfuls and still know his way home.’
‘This Okposalebo is a very old tree. It is called Disperser of a Kindred because two brothers would fight like strangers after drinking two hornfuls of its wine.’
‘Tell us another story,’ Obika said, filling his horn. ‘If the tapper adds medicine to his wine that is another matter, but if you are telling us of the fluid as the tree yields it, then I say tell us another story.’
Then Maduka threw the challenge. ‘It is not profitable to speak too many words. The palm tree is not in the distant riverain country, but here in Umuaro. Let us go from here to Nwokafo’s compound and ask him to give us a gourd from this tree. It is very costly – the gourd may be ego-nese – but I shall pay. If you two drink three hornfuls each and still go home let it be my loss. But if not you must give me ego-neli whenever you come to your senses again.’
It was as Maduka had said. The two boasters
had fallen asleep where they sat, and when night came he left them there and retired to his bed. But he came out twice in the night and found them still snoring. When he woke up finally in the morning, they were gone. He wished he had seen them depart. Perhaps when they heard their betters talking about palm wine in future they would not open their mouths so wide.
Ofoedu did not seem to have fared as badly as Obika. When he woke up and found that the sun was already shining he rushed to Ezeulu’s compound to call Obika. But although they shouted his name and shook him he showed no sign of stirring. Eventually Ofoedu poured a gourd of cold water over him and he woke up. The two then set out to join their age group working on the new road. They were like a pair of Night Masks caught abroad by daylight.
Ezeulu who lay in his obi prostrate from the exhaustion of the festival was wakened by all the commotion in the inner compound. He asked Nwafo the meaning of all the noise and was told that they were trying to rouse Obika. He said nothing more, only gnashed his teeth. The young man’s behaviour was like a heavy load on his father’s head. In a few days, Ezeulu said within himself, Obika’s new bride would arrive. She would have come already if her mother had not fallen sick. When she arrived what a husband she would find! A man who could not watch his hut at night because he was dead with palm wine. Where did the manhood of such a husband lie? A man who could not protect his wife if night marauders knocked at his door. A man who was roused in the morning by the women. Tufia! spat the old priest. He could not contain his disgust.
Although Ezeulu did not ask for details he knew without being told that Ofoedu was behind this latest episode. He had said it over and over again that this fellow Ofoedu did not contain the smallest drop of human presence inside his entire body. It was hardly two years since he sent everybody running to his father’s compound in a false fire alarm for which his father, who was not a rich man, paid a fine of one goat. Ezeulu had told Obika again and again that such a person was not a fit friend for anyone who wanted to do something with his life. But he had not heeded and today there was as little to choose between them as between rotten palm nuts and a broken mortar.
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