“But you said it was where they bury children?” asked the medicine man.
“No,” said Ezinma, whose feeling of importance was manifest in her sprightly walk. She sometimes broke into a run and stopped again suddenly. The crowd followed her silently. Women and children returning from the stream with pots of water on their heads wondered what was happening until they saw Okagbue and guessed that it must be something to do with ogbanje. And they all knew Ekwefi and her daughter very well.
When she got to the big udala tree Ezinma turned left into the bush, and the crowd followed her. Because of her size she made her way through trees and creepers more quickly than her followers. The bush was alive with the tread of feet on dry leaves and sticks and the moving aside of tree branches. Ezinma went deeper and deeper and the crowd went with her. Then she suddenly turned round and began to walk back to the road. Everybody stood to let her pass and then filed after her.
“If you bring us all this way for nothing I shall beat sense into you,” Okonkwo threatened.
“I have told you to let her alone. I know how to deal with them,” said Okagbue.
Ezinma led the way back to the road, looked left and right and turned right. And so they arrived home again.
“Where did you bury your iyi-uwa?” asked Okagbue when Ezinma finally stopped outside her father’s obi. Okagbue’s voice was unchanged. It was quiet and confident.
“It is near that orange tree,” Ezinma said.
“And why did you not say so, you wicked daughter of Akalogoli?” Okonkwo swore furiously. The medicine man ignored him.
“Come and show me the exact spot,” he said quietly to Ezinma.
“It is here,” she said when they got to the tree.
“Point at the spot with your finger,” said Okagbue.
“It is here,” said Ezinma touching the ground with her finger. Okonkwo stood by, rumbling like thunder in the rainy season.
“Bring me a hoe,” said Okagbue.
When Ekwefi brought the hoe, he had already put aside his goatskin bag and his big cloth and was in his underwear, a long and thin strip of cloth wound round the waist like a belt and then passed between the legs to be fastened to the belt behind. He immediately set to work digging a pit where Ezinma had indicated. The neighbors sat around watching the pit becoming deeper and deeper. The dark top soil soon gave way to the bright red earth with which women scrubbed the floors and walls of huts. Okagbue worked tirelessly and in silence, his back shining with perspiration. Okonkwo stood by the pit. He asked Okagbue to come up and rest while he took a hand. But Okagbue said he was not tired yet.
Ekwefi went into her hut to cook yams. Her husband had brought out more yams than usual because the medicine man had to be fed. Ezinma went with her and helped in preparing the vegetables.
“There is too much green vegetable,” she said.
“Don’t you see the pot is full of yams?” Ekwefi asked. “And you know how leaves become smaller after cooking.”
“Yes,” said Ezinma, “that was why the snake-lizard killed his mother.”
“Very true,” said Ekwefi.
“He gave his mother seven baskets of vegetables to cook and in the end there were only three. And so he killed her,” said Ezinma.
“That is not the end of the story.”
“Oho,” said Ezinma. “I remember now. He brought another seven baskets and cooked them himself. And there were again only three. So he killed himself too.”
Outside the obi Okagbue and Okonkwo were digging the pit to find where Ezinma had buried her iyi-uwa. Neighbors sat around, watching. The pit was now so deep that they no longer saw the digger. They only saw the red earth he threw up mounting higher and higher. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, stood near the edge of the pit because he wanted to take in all that happened.
Okagbue had again taken over the digging from Okonkwo. He worked, as usual, in silence. The neighbors and Okonkwo’s wives were now talking. The children had lost interest and were playing.
Suddenly Okagbue sprang to the surface with the agility of a leopard.
“It is very near now,” he said. “I have felt it.”
There was immediate excitement and those who were sitting jumped to their feet.
“Call your wife and child,” he said to Okonkwo. But Ekwefi and Ezinma had heard the noise and run out to see what it was.
Okagbue went back into the pit, which was now surrounded by spectators. After a few more hoe-fuls of earth he struck the iyi-uwa. He raised it carefully with the hoe and threw it to the surface. Some women ran away in fear when it was thrown. But they soon returned and everyone was gazing at the rag from a reasonable distance. Okagbue emerged and without saying a word or even looking at the spectators he went to his goatskin bag, took out two leaves and began to chew them. When he had swallowed them, he took up the rag with his left hand and began to untie it. And then the smooth, shiny pebble fell out. He picked it up.
“Is this yours?” he asked Ezinma.
“Yes,” she replied. All the women shouted with joy because Ekwefi’s troubles were at last ended.
All this had happened more than a year ago and Ezinma had not been ill since. And then suddenly she had begun to shiver in the night. Ekwefi brought her to the fireplace, spread her mat on the floor and built a fire. But she had got worse and worse. As she knelt by her, feeling with her palm the wet, burning forehead, she prayed a thousand times. Although her husband’s wives were saying that it was nothing more than iba, she did not hear them.
Okonkwo returned from the bush carrying on his left shoulder a large bundle of grasses and leaves, roots and barks of medicinal trees and shrubs. He went into Ekwefi’s hut, put down his load and sat down.
“Get me a pot,” he said, “and leave the child alone.”
Ekwefi went to bring the pot and Okonkwo selected the best from his bundle, in their due proportions, and cut them up. He put them in the pot and Ekwefi poured in some water.
“Is that enough?” she asked when she had poured in about half of the water in the bowl.
“A little more … I said a little. Are you deaf?” Okonkwo roared at her.
She set the pot on the fire and Okonkwo took up his machete to return to his obi.
“You must watch the pot carefully,” he said as he went, “and don’t allow it to boil over. If it does its power will be gone.” He went away to his hut and Ekwefi began to tend the medicine pot almost as if it was itself a sick child. Her eyes went constantly from Ezinma to the boiling pot and back to Ezinma.
Okonkwo returned when he felt the medicine had cooked long anough. He looked it over and said it was done.
“Bring me a low stool for Ezinma,” he said, “and a thick mat.”
He took down the pot from the fire and placed it in front of the stool. He then roused Ezinma and placed her on the stool, astride the steaming pot. The thick mat was thrown over both. Ezinma struggled to escape from the choking and overpowering steam, but she was held down. She started to cry.
When the mat was at last removed she was drenched in perspiration. Ekwefi mopped her with a piece of cloth and she lay down on a dry mat and was soon asleep.
CHAPTER TEN
Large crowds began to gather on the village ilo as soon as the edge had worn off the sun’s heat and it was no longer painful on the body. Most communal ceremonies took place at that time of the day, so that even when it was said that a ceremony would begin “after the midday meal” everyone understood that it would begin a long time later, when the sun’s heat had softened.
It was clear from the way the crowd stood or sat that the ceremony was for men. There were many women, but they looked on from the fringe like outsiders. The titled men and elders sat on their stools waiting for the trials to begin. In front of them was a row of stools on which nobody sat. There were nine of them. Two little groups of people stood at a respectable distance beyond the stools. They faced the elders. There were three men in one group and three men and one woman in the other. The
woman was Mgbafo and the three men with her were her brothers. In the other group were her husband, Uzowulu, and his relatives. Mgbafo and her brothers were as still as statues into whose faces the artist has molded defiance. Uzowulu and his relative, on the other hand, were whispering together. It looked like whispering, but they were really talking at the top of their voices. Everybody in the crowd was talking. It was like the market. From a distance the noise was a deep rumble carried by the wind.
An iron gong sounded, setting up a wave of expectation in the crowd. Everyone looked in the direction of the egwugwu house. Gome, gome, gome, gome went the gong, and a powerful flute blew a high-pitched blast. Then came the voices of the egwugwu, guttural and awesome. The wave struck the women and children and there was a backward stampede. But it was momentary. They were already far enough where they stood and there was room for running away if any of the egwugwu should go towards them.
The drum sounded again and the flute blew. The egwugwu house was now a pandemonium of quavering voices: Aru oyim de de de dei! filled the air as the spirits of the ancestors, just emerged from the earth, greeted themselves in their esoteric language. The egwugwu house into which they emerged faced the forest, away from the crowd, who saw only its back with the many-colored patterns and drawings done by specially chosen women at regular intervals. These women never saw the inside of the hut. No woman ever did. They scrubbed and painted the outside walls under the supervision of men. If they imagined what was inside, they kept their imagination to themselves. No woman ever asked questions about the most powerful and the most secret cult in the clan.
Aru oyim de de de dei! flew around the dark, closed hut like tongues of fire. The ancestral spirits of the clan were abroad. The metal gong beat continuously now and the flute, shrill and powerful, floated on the chaos.
And then the egwugwu appeared. The women and children sent up a great shout and took to their heels. It was instinctive. A woman fled as soon as an egwugwu came in sight. And when, as on that day, nine of the greatest masked spirits in the clan came out together it was a terrifying spectacle. Even Mgbafo took to her heels and had to be restrained by her brothers.
Each of the nine egwugwu represented a village of the clan. Their leader was called Evil Forest. Smoke poured out of his head.
The nine villages of Umuofia had grown out of the nine sons of the first father of the clan. Evil Forest represented the village of Umueru, or the children of Eru, who was the eldest of the nine sons.
“Umuofia kwenu!” shouted the leading egwugwu, pushing the air with his raffia arms. The elders of the clan replied, “Yaa!”
“Umuofia kwenu!”
“Yaa!”
“Umuofia kwenu!”
“Yaa!”
Evil Forest then thrust the pointed end of his rattling staff into the earth. And it began to shake and rattle, like something agitating with a metallic life. He took the first of the empty stools and the eight other egwugwu began to sit in order of seniority after him.
Okonkwo’s wives, and perhaps other women as well, might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo. And they might also have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat behind the row of egwugwu. But if they thought these things they kept them within themselves. The egwugwu with the springy walk was one of the dead fathers of the clan. He looked terrible with the smoked raffia body, a huge wooden face painted white except for the round hollow eyes and the charred teeth that were as big as a man’s fingers. On his head were two powerful horns.
When all the egwugwu had sat down and the sound of the many tiny bells and rattles on their bodies had subsided, Evil Forest addressed the two groups of people facing them.
“Uzowulu’s body, I salute you,” he said. Spirits always addressed humans as “bodies.” Uzowulu bent down and touched the earth with his right hand as a sign of submission.
“Our father, my hand has touched the ground,” he said.
“Uzowulu’s body, do you know me?” asked the spirit.
“How can I know you, father? You are beyond our knowledge.”
Evil Forest then turned to the other group and addressed the eldest of the three brothers.
“The body of Odukwe, I greet you,” he said, and Odukwe bent down and touched the earth. The hearing then began.
Uzowulu stepped forward and presented his case.
“That woman standing there is my wife, Mgbafo. I married her with my money and my yams. I do not owe my in-laws anything. I owe them no yams. I owe them no coco-yams. One morning three of them came to my house, beat me up and took my wife and children away. This happened in the rainy season. I have waited in vain for my wife to return. At last I went to my in-laws and said to them, ‘You have taken back your sister. I did not send her away. You yourselves took her. The law of the clan is that you should return her bride-price.’ But my wife’s brothers said they had nothing to tell me. So I have brought the matter to the fathers of the clan. My case is finished. I salute you.”
“Your words are good,” said the leader of the egwugwu. “Let us hear Odukwe. His words may also be good.”
Odukwe was short and thickset. He stepped forward, saluted the spirits and began his story.
“My in-law has told you that we went to his house, beat him up and took our sister and her children away. All that is true. He told you that he came to take back her bride-price and we refused to give it him. That also is true. My in-law, Uzowulu, is a beast. My sister lived with him for nine years. During those years no single day passed in the sky without his beating the woman. We have tried to settle their quarrels time without number and on each occasion Uzowulu was guilty—”
“It is a lie!” Uzowulu shouted.
“Two years ago,” continued Odukwe, “when she was pregnant, he beat her until she miscarried.”
“It is a lie. She miscarried after she had gone to sleep with her lover.”
“Uzowulu’s body, I salute you,” said Evil Forest, silencing him. “What kind of lover sleeps with a pregnant woman?” There was a loud murmur of approbation from the crowd. Odukwe continued:
“Last year when my sister was recovering from an illness, he beat her again so that if the neighbors had not gone in to save her she would have been killed. We heard of it, and did as you have been told. The law of Umuofia is that if a woman runs away from her husband her bride-price is returned. But in this case she ran away to save her life. Her two children belong to Uzowulu. We do not dispute it, but they are too young to leave their mother. If, in the other hand, Uzowulu should recover from his madness and come in the proper way to beg his wife to return she will do so on the understanding that if he ever beats her again we shall cut off his genitals for him.”
The crowd roared with laughter. Evil Forest rose to his feet and order was immediately restored. A steady cloud of smoke rose from his head. He sat down again and called two witnesses. They were both Uzowulu’s neighbors, and they agreed about the beating. Evil Forest then stood up, pulled out his staff and thrust it into the earth again. He ran a few steps in the direction of the women; they all fled in terror, only to return to their places almost immediately. The nine egwugwu then went away to consult together in their house. They were silent for a long time. Then the metal gong sounded and the flute was blown. The egwugwu had emerged once again from their underground home. They saluted one another and then reappeared on the ilo.
“Umuofia kwenu!” roared Evil Forest, facing the elders and grandees of the clan.
“Yaa!” replied the thunderous crowd; then silence descended from the sky and swallowed the noise.
Evil Forest began to speak and all the while he spoke everyone was silent. The eight other egwugwu were as still as statues.
“We have heard both sides of the case,” said Evil Forest. “Our duty is not to blame this man or to praise that, but to settle the dispute.” He turned to Uzowulu’s group and allowed a short pause.
“Uzowulu’s body, I salute you,” he sa
id.
“Our father, my hand has touched the ground,” replied Uzowulu, touching the earth.
“Uzowulu’s body, do you know me?”
“How can I know you, father? You are beyond our knowledge,” Uzowulu replied.
“I am Evil Forest. I kill a man on the day that his life is sweetest to him.”
“That is true,” replied Uzowulu.
“Go to your in-laws with a pot of wine and beg your wife to return to you. It is not bravery when a man fights with a woman.” He turned to Odukwe, and allowed a brief pause.
“Odukwe’s body, I greet you,” he said.
“My hand is on the ground,” replied Okukwe.
“Do you know me?”
“No man can know you,” replied Odukwe.
“I am Evil Forest, I am Dry-meat-that-fills-the-mouth, I am Fire-that-burns-without-faggots. If your in-law brings wine to you, let your sister go with him. I salute you.” He pulled his staff from the hard earth and thrust it back.
“Umuofia kwenu!” he roared, and the crowd answered.
“I don’t know why such a trifle should come before the egwugwu,” said one elder to another.
“Don’t you know what kind of man Uzowulu is? He will not listen to any other decision,” replied the other.
As they spoke two other groups of people had replaced the first before the egwugwu, and a great land case began.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The night was impenetrably dark. The moon had been rising later and later every night until now it was seen only at dawn. And whenever the moon forsook evening and rose at cock-crow the nights were as black as charcoal.
Ezinma and her mother sat on a mat on the floor after their supper of yam foo-foo and bitter-leaf soup. A palm-oil lamp gave out yellowish light. Without it, it would have been impossible to eat; one could not have known where one’s mouth was in the darkness of that night. There was an oil lamp in all the four huts on Okonkwo’s compound, and each hut seen from the others looked like a soft eye of yellow half-light set in the solid massiveness of night.