by Wole Soyinka
“And are they?”
“Of course son, what do you think! Even total strangers are welcome there as here. The curious among our own people learn what they can, but they always return here!”
“Do they learn the truth?”
“Who knows? Does it really matter? All that counts is that they see a difference and they choose. A blind man can see it at a glance—they worship one god, we another.”
“So that was the cause of the break.”
“One of many. But we don’t tell our children that. Why should we? It then becomes too large a thing in their lives. If they conclude for themselves that is the reason, so be it. There are other differences, matters of trade, matters of personal lives, children, teaching, ownership—oh the list is endless. But it was religion that caused a split in that first community. And it happened at the time of the slave trade. Yes, it was that simple. As best as she could Aiyétómò protected her people. But one day one of our young men had this thought. He told himself, we base our lives on the teachings of this white god yet the bearers of that faith kill, burn, maim, loot and enslave our people. It is time, he said, to return to the religion of our fathers.”
The old man spoke with the pride of one who had witnessed the moment of triumph, the glitter in his eyes was not the borrowed flame of the historian. He went on to confirm Ofeyi’s observation as he tapped himself on the chest and continued, “I am the last survivor of those who witnessed the scene at the meeting-house. I was a mere boy but I understood. I did not even speak to my parents before I followed the wild-eyed man and those who sprang to follow him. It was a strange revelation, to find that many had felt the same thing, but only he had dared rise in the meeting-place and testify.”
“And he founded the religion of the Grain?”
The old man shrugged. “Why give it a name? We don’t give it one. We don’t even think of it as a religion, only as a way of life. Call it a philosophy if you like. Don’t you yet understand the nature of our Founder? Fleeing from one self-contradictory deity he was not likely to stumble so easily into the pitfalls of another. No son, his concern was to found a way of life, a near-copy of what he grew up with in Aiyétómò, but without paying lip-service to dubious gods.”
Ofeyi smiled. “What do you call all this then?” The sounds of drums were not far and from time to time they could see distant groups of dancers across the field, hear the thud of feet and the flash of bangles in the sun.
“We have observances” Ahime conceded. “We have our rituals. We are a farming and fishing community so we acknowledge our debts to earth and to the sea. And when a great man dies, a founder, we pay him homage. If we wish to take one full year burying him it is still less than his dues. For a people who own everything in common what we spend merely returns to us.”
“As with earth?”
The old man stood still, stared thoughtfully at him. The look in his eyes could be pleasure or surprise. “Say that again” he said.
Ofeyi frowned, repeated the phrase.
“And where did you learn that?” the old man demanded.
“Is it something to be learnt?” Ofeyi demanded in turn. “You forget our first meeting. I came here with a message remember?”
“Ah yes of course. The land to those who till it….”
“The sea to those who fish it….”
The old man stroked his chin, smiling. “Yes…and I told our departed Founder. I said to him, here comes a man who brings us our own view of life. And he said simply, give him the run of the meeting-house…how strange….”
“What is strange Pa?”
“When Aiyétómò, our parent community turned its back on the world, the founding Elder always said someone like you would turn up from the outer cesspit of the land, a stranger who would take our message to the world. But you came here instead, to us the offshoot.”
Ofeyi laughed. “Yes, I came in search of converts. Aiyétómò, Aiyéró, they were here all the time while I brought models from the European world….”
Ahime stopped him. “No. It was a most beneficial thing for us, your coming here all puffed with your sense of mission. It was good to know that our ways have always been the dream of mankind all through the ages and among people so far apart. Peoples as different in appearance as the cocoa-pod from a yam tuber. Eating and drinking differently, worshipping gods with no common ancestor, and yet…”
* * *
—
In the hours before dawn the song-leaders from the dead Custodian’s household followed Ahime through the sleeping town, swift dark-brushing motions of maroon loin-cloths. All paths must be trodden in the pre-dawn hours, heads bent to the ground, acknowledging no one and seeing none. A low moan rose, thrilled in the slumbersome air, the earth gave answer in trembling accents, a lead voice prompted the sleep-washed dirge of earth and a sudden motion of feet would thud in velvety unison. The dark figures swayed backwards, leant into the yielding night membrane, uncoiled in a python lunge upwelling into a dark-toned monody. Then they leapt forward again along the path, sending soft vibrations along the path.
Blood, oil, colanuts red and white in clay vessels at every crossroads, slain pigeons at every spot where a founder had fallen, sacrificed or finally rested, at every meaning left behind by the first progenitors. The departed were appeased, venerated, welcomed, touched and brought among the living. The new deceased was on his way.
Finally the hands of induction were swallowed by dawn. They gave way to a fleet of canoes which came over the water from the parent town Aiyétómò. Red ochred fences opened out in a flow of age-groups, joined the criss-currents of processions, paid homage at the house of death. The town was dressed in pride of exhibition.
Gun-bursts, tang of powder, angry dispersions of kites. The hunter groups filled their guns with wild metal, shot down branches and pulped the fibrous trunks, filled the air with rubble as they fired into wall-corners. A coconut disintegrated, driving white-fleshed shrapnels over rooftops. A pawpaw turned to red mash. The kites circled the hunters from a safe height, swooped down as they disappeared and snatched up the shreds of red-headed lizards.
Torches at night. Pungent trails on rings of flames, night forays by the tireless hunters, raconteurs of history chanting, stamping, mumming the gory course of divine lineages, a tapestry unravelled, masks in stirring possession by fireglow…all moving towards the climax of bright red sluices.
Ahime leant over to his adopted son and whispered, “At the time I told you of, there were no hunting clans in the parent community. Fish was the mainstay. And the question our Founder asked himself was this, How shall we defend ourselves if the slave-raiders come again? You asked what our religion is and I answered you truthfully, none. But among others we grant Ogun pride of place. You’ve seen our smithy at work. Look at those guns—men come from all over the country to seek the best from us.”
At the least, Ofeyi thought, looking around him, it all restores the jaded psyche. On the huge four-poster bed the Custodian lay in state within an alcove of the outer wall, facing the iron and wattle roofs of Aiyéró. Submitting to a sensation of floating Ofeyi watched the body levitate towards the four golden ostrich eggs which crowned the bedposts. He took the place of the dead man, sinking deep in the feather-bed. Two electric fans blew flies from his face to the distant hum of Aiyéró’s power station. There were crowds in the trees, scrambling for places to look their last on the face of the Custodian, they hung on fences, dangled from posts and tumbled through the hedges. Distant drums and voices, female, announced the approach of a new woman’s guild. Why are the nostrils of a corpse stuffed with cotton wool? Ah yes, to keep the flies from climbing in. Laying eggs of putrefaction. Even a founder’s face is not immune. The alcove choked in fumes of camphor.
The guilds approached, danced, retreated, leaving sinuous waves between the corpse and fourteen noble bulls penned before t
he alcove, one for each of the thirteen prior departed founding elders of the town. They were proud-horned, rich-humped, their brilliant ivory torsos rippled in the sun. Among them leapt the acrobats, in violent cartwheels, the female stilt-dancers bestrode them writhing suggestively above the humps, stooping low till their raffia skirts just covered the humps, only to twist away and leap over the herd looking back with mock-rebuke at the large watery eyes. The swirl of loincloths daubed ochre, chalk and indigo turned the pen fluid, as if the enclosure were one vast churn of milk. Until Ahime nodded quietly to the leaders, and the arena drained slowly of movements. The pillowed head of the Custodian had merged into shadows of the alcove, leaving the white shrouded form and the death-bed faithfully white to the eyes. The songs fell silent, the shouts retreated into subdued murmurs: a prelude of dedication before the climax of bright red sluices.
A thrill of anticipation communicated through his wrist. He turned to Iriyise whose fingers had sought his and found that her gaze was far away, her mind surrendered still to the Mysteries of that dawn of which this was the wider communion.
All eyes turned on Ahime. He rose, his yet supple fingers, dark and sensitive against a white wrapper which looped his shoulder. He moved among the arches of ivory in the pen, a fragile, near-feminine grace among the virile splendour of the bulls, raised his other hand in a moment’s brief dedication while the gathering bowed their heads. He let the hush hang for a while, then he gave the command they all waited to hear:
“Plant the horns!”
To the rumble of renewed anticipation a group of young men rushed into the pen, picked up the trailing ropes, pulled, tugged and created space among the bulls. The old man raised his arm again as soon as the manoeuvre was completed, he was now the self-conscious performer, orchestrating details of the pageant, immaculate in white smock and wrapper, a silver glint from a neck-chain as he turned to survey the positioning of the bulls. The men, two to each bull, now kept their eyes on him. An occasional bellow came from the beasts themselves, who otherwise submitted to the drill with a mild questioning interest. When all appeared set to his satisfaction he brought down the arm and, one after the other, in no particular order but with earth-shaking thuds that brought a tremor to the feet of the furthest in the congregation the bulls were felled. It was a deft, near-invisible manoeuvre, a multiple exposure of swift complementary motions of one rope. Rear-feet and head, there was a moment to catch the surprise in the eyes of the bull, to watch the rope ripple along its length towards the target, a precise jerk of the massive head and suddenly the bull was down, both horns firmly anchored in earth and the adepts of this rope-trick instantly over the prostrate hulk, fastening the legs together with swift accomplishment.
A nod from the old man and they left the enclosure. He stood alone among the fourteen ivory throats tendered to the sky, taut lines of veins and tendons which curved and plunged into throbbing breast chambers. Distended eyes betrayed a now present fear which strangely was not given voice. Ahime was a reed of life in the white stillness of a memorial ground, a flicker of motion among marble tombstones. An intuitive priest, he knew better than to disturb the laden altar until his followers had drunk their fill of it, he let the ponderous mass for the dead emit vibrations of abundance, potency and renewal, binding the pulses in his own person, building a force for life within the circle of the pen until he judged the moment right for the magical release. They saw him feel softly within the folds of his cloth, watched his hand emerge with a slender knife, a mere flutist blade, so insubstantial did it appear against the pillared throats of the bulls.
Iriyise beside him, a distant stillness. Her ivory neckpiece had merged with hidden rapids in the bulls’ convulsive throats. Caryatid and timeless, only the warmth of her fingers reassured him of her living flesh, a willing presence at the altar.
Ahime moved with feline balance, his hand poured back the drapes which fell away from his shoulder as he bent over the bull nearest the alcove. The cloth fell again so he caught it over the left arm and kept it there pressed against his waist. His knife-hand moved once, slashed deep and drew across the throat. The taut skin parted easily, opening to a layer of translucent membrane, yielding in turn to tendons and a commencement of red mists. Suddenly the white afternoon was showered in a crimson fountain, rising higher and higher, pumping ever upwards to a sun-scorched sky. Ahime stepped back quickly but not so far that the falling spray should not find him. His white vestments bloomed suddenly with small red petals and a long sigh rose, fell and filled the air with whispers of wind and the opening of buds. He moved swiftly now, the sighs of release were woven among the spreading mists, a thousand eyes followed the motions of the priest whose flutist blade was laid again and again to ivory pipes, tuned to invocations of renewal. Opening the vents of a rich elixir, he of the masseur’s fingers stooped at each succeeding sluice-gate, a fountain-head covered in rime, his arms were supple streams in a knowing course through ridges bathed in a sun’s downwash. He nudged the ridges’ streams awake and they joined their tributaries to his fountain-head. A deep beneficence rested over the motions of his hands, opening red sluices for the land’s replenishment.
The jets climbed strongly, the springs seemed interminable. But at last even those cavernous hearts had no more to give; a last spriglet of blood blossomed briefly, then the flood was dammed. A last gargle came through a blocked-up drain, a final shudder of love gave all to a passive earth. But the depleted hulks over which a miasma now lay retained for the congregation their power of emission. Ahime walked around on the inside of the pen, flushed and communicant. Anxious hands reached out to touch him and those hands touched other hands and faces, transmitting the essence of the sacrifice to the furthest in the gathering.
The entry of the butchers, armed with huge blades, axes and choppers, followed by women with huge bowls, trays and pots of water wrought instant transformation in the mood. But flutes, drums and voices breaking out from among the crowd continued to dispense the bulls’ elixir even as the flesh was hacked, the guts squeezed and braided, and the enclosure turned pungent and heady in the mixture of blood and faeces. The heads, smeared in froth and blood, haunted by flies lay in a heap. Potsherds of blood, pocked by entrails slowly congealed in the afternoon whose shadows had begun to lengthen. The women lit fires, undaunted, even exhilarated by the prospect of a night-long wake. The first potloads of malt brew approached on the heads of children. Bundles of firewood accompanied the arrival of clay and iron cauldrons and cans of oil. Dwindling into the dusk, voices called to the Custodian:
Watch O watch for us
Who stay a while
For we have soothed your path
Who leave us now
Pursuing him into the distant regions of his new abode, imbuing him with all the sympathetic potency, the healing and reproductive promise of the earth-bull union which they had witnessed they exhorted:
You dip your hand in the red clay bowl
The gods eat from
Lay your hand upon my earth
Shower me with rain
Lay your hand upon my roof
Fill me with children
Lay your hand upon my body
Bless me with health…
Ofeyi’s mind had moved away with the retreating voices, away from the immediate presence of the dead man, and the noise of hacking and tearing in the enclosure. Suddenly the singing seemed to be right before him, he looked up to see that some women had broken away from the working group in the pen, had surrounded Iriyise and were singing and dancing before him. When his eyes acknowledged their coup they laughed, broke off and danced back into the pen, taking Iriyise with them.
That night he told her to pack for an early morning return. Her face fell with disappointment but he promised: “We are coming back. Right now we have work to do.”
* * *
—
The old ma
n sprinted out to meet him as he beached the Corporation motor-boat and helped out Iriyise. “I have been listening for the sound” he said. He glanced mischievously at Iriyise. “Did the woman lead you back?”
Ofeyi shook his head. “I have come with schemes” he announced. “Official schemes.”
“I am content, even though I don’t know what they are. There are some people who must approve their needs only in terms of the need of others.”
“You are too deep for me Pa Ahime.”
Ahime shook his head. “We are simple people in Aiyéró. Welcome to you both.”
Even without the results of comparative tests—Ofeyi had returned to base with a pouch of Aiyéró’s soil—the firm dank earth that commenced only a short distance from the coastline was visibly cocoa earth. The idea that came from his first encounter with the commune was only one of many that sought to retrieve his occupation from its shallow world of jingles and the greater debasement of exploitation by the Cartel. The pattern could be reversed, the trick of conversion applied equally to the Cartel’s technical facilities not merely to effect restitution to many but to create a new generation for the future. A new plantation within the communal, labouring, sharing entity—seed through nursery to the mature plant and fructification—Ofeyi envisioned the parallel progress of the new idea, the birth of the new man from the same germ as the cocoa seed, the Aiyéró ideal disseminated with the same powerful propaganda machine of the Cartel throughout the land, taking hold of undirected youth and filling the vacuum of their transitional heritage with the virile shoot.
