Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

by Amos Tutuola

  “Ajaiyi, don’t let us give up yet. We must try hard. But my advice now is to go back to the Witch Doctor and find out again why your poverty is still getting worse even than ever before we had taken six rams to your dead father and you should find out from him as well why the six empty sacks have not been filled with money by your father since when you have put them in the room,” my wife advised me gently like that.

  Again, in the night, I went back to the Witch Doctor and I asked him for the reason why my poverty was still getting worse even than before the six rams were taken to the grave of my father. I also told him that since I had brought the empty sacks back to the house, they had not yet been filled up with the money by my dead father.

  “Ah! Ajaiyi, your poverty cannot be stopped yet and your dead father cannot fill the empty sacks with the money yet but when you take the rest three rams to his grave!” this Witch Doctor frightened me so much that I ran back to the house with great sorrow. And I told my wife what the Witch Doctor had told me to do before the empty sacks would be filled with the money by my dead father.

  “What are we going to do next to get the money to buy the rest three rams and the empty sacks?” my wife asked calmly.

  “As you know that we have no even one penny in hand, how much more to get such a big money to buy the three rams and sacks! But of course, what I am thinking in mind now to do is that when it is midnight. I will visit my father in his grave. I will ask from him that—‘My father, you knew that I am in poverty before you died. But after you have died and buried, you are demanding nine rams from me but failing to give them to you, I will remain in poverty throughout my life time. Of course, I had tried all my best and brought six for you. Yet I was told by the same Witch Doctor that unless I bring the rest three on top of your grave before you would set me free from the poverty in which you had left me before you died!’” And I explained further to my wife that if my dead father confirmed all what the Witch Doctor had told me to do then I would behead him (my dead father) before I would come out of his grave.

  “Ah, Ajaiyi, how can you manage to see your dead father? Please don’t attempt to visit the dead,” my wife feared greatly.

  In the midnight, I sharpened my long and heavy matchet which I had brought from my journeys. After that I took three of the six empty sacks which I put in the room with the hope that my dead father would fill them with the money. Then I went to the grave of my father. Having reached there, I filled two of the three sacks with the earth in such a perfect way that each seemed it contained a big ram. Having done so I put both on top of the grave. After that I left the third empty sack and my matchet behind the grave. Then I went to the Witch Doctor, I told him that I had put the rest three rams on top of the grave. He bursted into a great laughter when he heard so and he was still laughing loudly when I left him and I went back to the grave. As soon as I came back, I put the third empty sack on top of the grave as well. I held my matchet and then I entered inside it and cast down in it. Then I was waiting for my father to take these three sacks into his grave.

  To my surprise when it was about two hours, the Witch Doctor and his servants walked in the darkness to the grave. He told his servants to carry these three sacks to his house. And the servants hardly put the sacks down before his gods when he began to loose them one by one with the hope to bring the rams out and then to return the empty sacks to the grave before daybreak as he did the first time that I put six rams on top of the grave.

  But he was greatly shocked when he saw the earth in the first two sacks instead of rams and he hardly loosened the third when I jumped out of that one suddenly with my long and sharp matchet in hand, raised above head. Now as “a tormentor forces his victims to be hardy”, it was so for this Witch Doctor this midnight:

  “Hah! Ajaiyi, you were in the sack as well!” the Witch Doctor and his servants shouted dreadfully as they hastily defended their heads and faces with their palms.

  Without hesitation, I walked wildly to the Witch Doctor. I stood firmly in front of him and his servants as I raised my long sharp matchet above head and then as I stared at him, I asked quietly: “Hun-un! So you have taken my rams for yourself and not my dead father! The rams in respect of which I have pawned myself to the third pawnbroker before I got the ten pounds with which I bought them! No doubt, you are finished this midnight! And …” this moment, as I was shouting greatly on him, the great anger began to shake me from foot to head.

  “Oh, Ajaiyi, keep cool and let me confess to you now. It was not your dead father who had taken all your rams but I was the right person who had taken them and I had killed them for my food! I beg you now to forgive me!” the Witch Doctor, as the fear forced the perspiration to be rushing out of his body, he hastily confessed to me as I was preparing to matchet him and his servants to death.

  “But I believe, you are my dead father who had taken my rams on top of the grave! Therefore, you are to set me free from my chronic poverty this midnight!” I shouted greatly on him as the great anger forced me to start to threaten him with the matchet.

  “Not at all! I am not your dead father in any way but I am the Witch Doctor of this village! Therefore, I have no power to set you free from your poverty, and …” the Witch Doctor explained loudly with fear as he was trembling. But I hardly heard like that from him when I ran against him and snatched his right hand and then I asked loudly: “Tell me the truth now! Will you set me free from my inherited poverty this midnight?”

  “Not at all! Only your dead father has the power to set you free from your pov…!” But as he was still explaining to me with a trembling voice. His servants rushed against me and he too hastily joined them. All of them held me and were trying to take the matchet from me. Having struggled hardly for a few minutes, the great anger gave me so much power this moment that I overpowered them when I struck some of them with the matchet. And without hesitation, I snatched the right hand of the Witch Doctor again and without mercy I began to drag him here and there in his sitting room.

  But when he started to shout for help, I hastily closed up his mouth with the flat part of my matchet. Having seen this my dreadful action, all of his servants stretched up their hands, the great fear kept them quiet and then they hastily escaped to the outside.

  “Certainly, you are my dead father who had taken all my rams and who will set me free from my poverty this midnight! Will you?” I roared greatly on him as I had then become as wild as a hungry lion.

  “Ajaiyi, I am not a dead man! But I am the Witch Doctor of this village!” he murmured as his heart was throbbing with fear especially when he looked around and saw that all of his servants had been escaped to the outside for their lives.

  “If you are a dead man or not, I don’t mind! But show me where you keep all your money! Otherwise you are finished this midnight!” I shouted on him as I started to push him about with the pointed end of my matchet.

  “Heh! Ajaiyi, don’t kill me! Please follow me now to where I keep my money! Please don’t kill me! But have mercy on me!”

  Willing or not, the Witch Doctor walked with trembling body to the spot that he kept his money in a big pot which was half buried in front of his gods. Then with great fear of not being matcheted to death, he pointed finger to the big pot in which he kept all his money, which he had got from various people by his satanic way. So without hesitation, I pulled the pot out of the ground. I put it on my head and then I carried it to my house that midnight.

  As soon as I had carried it to the house, I threw the whole money on the floor from the pot. But when my wife and I counted all, it was more than six thousand pounds. So it was this terrible midnight it was just revealed to me that it was this Witch Doctor who had taken my rams but not my dead father.

  Although I had six thousand pounds from this Witch Doctor of my village with bravery, which he had got from the various people by his satanic way. Of course this money could free me from my poverty. But I did not spend it at all because it came to my mind this midnight that “m
oney was father of sins and insincerities.” And I remembered this midnight as well that Ojo, Alabi and I had been seriously warned in the town of the Creator that we should keep ourselves away from sins when we returned to our village. Furthermore, when the Head of the drummers of the Creator took us to the place of the punishments in the town of the Creator. I saw uncountable of the lords, millionaires, barristers, money-lenders, judges, etc. etc., who were in the greatest fire in respect of the sins which they had committed in order to get money before they died. So having remembered all this, instead to pay my debts out of this money, I simply kept it in the room.

  But the following month, it came to my mind one night to build churches with this money. So I built one big church in my village, one in the village of the first pawnbroker who had taken the terrible talking heavy lump of the iron from me, one in the second pawnbroker who had given me the twenty pounds with which I had married my wife and one in the village of the third pawnbroker who had given me the ten pounds with which I bought the six rams and six empty sacks, with this six thousand pounds. After the four churches had been completed, with few people I started to worship the God Almighty in them every Sunday. I was then teaching the people the little I had learned about God from the town of the Creator. Within a few weeks, thousands of people from various villages and towns came and joined us when they heard that many people were healed from their sicknesses in one day by the prayers. All the evil worshippers, idol worshippers, etc. threw all their idols, etc. away and they joined us. Later on, this Witch Doctor too threw away all his gods and he joined us and it was not so long when he became one of the leaders. After some months, all the members of the churches, having understood that the God Almighty was the only to be worshipped and having seen that their prayers were heard by God, without asking them to help me with money. Each of them started to help me with a little money as he or she could. So within a few months I had plenty of money. Out of the money, I paid all of my debts and then I was free from my inherited poverty. It was like that I was entirely free from my inherited poverty at last but in a clean way.

  About the Author

  Amos Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1920. The son of a cocoa farmer, he attended several schools before training as a blacksmith. He later worked as a civil servant. His first novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, was published in 1952 and brought him international recognition. From 1956 until retirement, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company while continuing to write. His last book, The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories, was published in 1990. He died in Ibadan in 1997.

  By the Same Author

  THE PALM-WINE DRINKARD

  MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS

  SIMBI AND THE SATYR OF THE DARK JUNGLE

  THE BRAVE AFRICAN HUNTRESS

  FEATHER WOMAN OF THE JUNGLE

  THE WITCH-HERBALIST OF THE REMOTE TOWN

  PAUPER, BRAWLER AND SLANDERER

  THE VILLAGE WITCH DOCTOR AND OTHER STORIES

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2014

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © The Estate of Amos Tutuola, 1967

  Cover design by Faber

  The right of Amos Tutuola to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–31136–1