After they had all chewed and swallowed their kola Ezekwesili spoke.
‘Ezeulu, the leaders of Umuaro assembled here have asked me to tell you that they are thankful for the kola you gave them. Thank you again and again and may your stock be replenished.’
The others joined in to say: ‘Thank you, may your stock be replenished.’
‘Perhaps you can guess why we have come. It is because of certain stories that have reached our ears; and we thought the best thing was to find out what is true and what is not from the only man who can tell us. The story we have heard is that there is a little disagreement about the next New Yam Festival. As I said we do not know if it is true or not, but we do know that there is fear and anxiety in Umuaro which if allowed to spread might spoil something. We cannot wait for that to happen; an adult does not sit and watch while the she-goat suffers the pain of childbirth tied to a post. Leaders of Umuaro, have I spoken according to your wish?’
‘You have delivered our message.’
‘Ezekwesili,’ called Ezeulu.
‘Eei,’ answered the man who had just spoken.
‘I welcome you. Your words have entered my ears. Egonwanne.’
‘Eei.’
‘Nnanyelugo.’
‘Eei.’
Ezeulu called each one by his salutation name.
‘I welcome you all. Your mission is a good one and I thank you. But I have not heard that there is a disagreement about the New Yam Feast. My assistants came here two days ago and said it was time to announce the day of the next festival and I told them that it was not their place to remind me.’
Ezekwesili’s head was slightly bowed and he was rubbing his hairless dome. Ofoka had taken his snuff bottle from his pure white goatskin bag and was tipping some of the stuff into his left palm. Nnanyelugo who sat nearest to him rubbed his own palms together to clean them and then presented the left to Ofoka without saying a word. Ofoka turned the snuff from his own hand into Nnanyelugo’s and tipped out some more for himself.
‘But with you,’ continued Ezeulu, ‘I need not speak in riddles. You all know what our custom is. I only call a new festival when there is only one yam left from the last. Today I have three yams and so I know that the time has not come.’
Three or four of the visitors tried to speak at once but the others gave way to Onenyi Nnanyelugo. He saluted everyone by name before he started.
‘I think that Ezeulu has spoken well. Everything he has said entered my ears. We all know the custom and no one can say that Ezeulu has offended against it. But the harvest is ripe in the soil and must be gathered now or it will be eaten by the sun and the weevils. At the same time Ezeulu has just told us that he still has three sacred yams to eat from last year. What then do we do? How do you carry a man with a broken waist? We know why the sacred yams are still not finished; it was the work of the white man. But he is not here now to breathe with us the air he has fouled. We cannot go to Okperi and ask him to come and eat the yams that now stand between us and the harvest. Shall we then sit down and watch our harvest ruined and our children and wives die of hunger? No! Although I am not the priest of Ulu I can say that the deity does not want Umuaro to perish. We call him the saver. Therefore you must find a way out, Ezeulu. If I could I would go now and eat the remaining yams. But I am not the priest of Ulu. It is for you, Ezeulu, to save our harvest.’
The others murmured their approval.
‘Nnanyelugo.’
‘Eei.’
‘You have spoken well. But what you ask me to do is not done. Those yams are not food and a man does not eat them because he is hungry. You are asking me to eat death.’
‘Ezeulu,’ said Anichebe Udeozo. ‘We know that such a thing has never been done before but never before has the white man taken the Chief Priest away. These are not the times we used to know and we must meet them as they come or be rolled in the dust. I want you to look round this room and tell me what you see. Do you think there is another Umuaro outside this hut now?’
‘No, you are Umuaro,’ said Ezeulu.
‘Yes, we are Umuaro. Therefore listen to what I am going to say. Umuaro is now asking you to go and eat those remaining yams today and name the day of the next harvest. Do you hear me well? I said go and eat those yams today, not tomorrow; and if Ulu says we have committed an abomination let it be on the heads of the ten of us here. You will be free because we have set you to it, and the person who sets a child to catch a shrew should also find him water to wash the odour from his hand. We shall find you the water. Umuaro, have I spoken well?’
‘You have said everything. We shall take the punishment.’
‘Leaders of Umuaro, do not say that I am treating your words with contempt; it is not my wish to do so. But you cannot say: do what is not done and we shall take the blame. I am the Chief Priest of Ulu and what I have told you is his will not mine. Do not forget that I too have yam-fields and that my children, my kinsmen and my friends – yourselves among them – have also planted yams. It could not be my wish to ruin all these people. It could not be my wish to make the smallest man in Umuaro suffer. But this is not my doing. The gods sometimes use us as a whip.’
‘Did Ulu tell you what his annoyance was? Is there no sacrifice that would appease him?’
‘I will not hide anything from you. Ulu did say that two new moons came and went and there was no one to break kolanut to him and Umuaro kept silent.’
‘What did he expect us to say?’ asked Ofoka, a little hotly.
‘I don’t know what he expected you to say, Ofoka. Nnanyelugo asked me a question and I answered.’
‘But if Ulu—’
‘Let us not quarrel about that, Ofoka. We asked Ezeulu what was Ulu’s grievance and he has told us. Our concern now should be how to appease him. Let us ask Ezeulu to go back and tell the deity that we have heard his grievance and we are prepared to make amends. Every offence has its sacrifice, from a few cowries to a cow or a human being. Let us wait for an answer.’
‘If you ask me to go back to Ulu I shall do so. But I must warn you that a god who demands the sacrifice of a chick might raise it to a goat if you went to ask a second time.’
‘Do not say that I am fond of questions,’ said Ofoka. ‘But I should like to know on whose side you are, Ezeulu. I think you have just said that you have become the whip with which Ulu flogs Umuaro…’
‘If you will listen to me, Ofoka, let us not quarrel about that,’ said Ezekwesili. ‘We have come to the end of our present mission. Our duty now is to watch Ezeulu’s mouth for a message from Ulu. We have planted our yams in the farm of Anaba-nti.’
The others agreed and Nnanyelugo deftly steered the conversation to the subject of change. He gave numerous examples of customs that had been altered in the past when they began to work hardship on the people. They all talked at length about these customs which had either died in full bloom or had been stillborn. Nnanyelugo reminded them that even in the matter of taking titles there had been a change. Long, long ago there had been a fifth title in Umuaro – the title of king. But the conditions for its attainment had been so severe that no man had ever taken it, one of the conditions being that the man aspiring to be king must first pay the debts of every man and every woman in Umuaro. Ezeulu said nothing throughout this discussion.
As he promised the leaders of Umuaro Ezeulu returned to the shrine of Ulu in the morning. He entered the bare, outer room and looked round vacantly. Then he placed his back against the door of the inner room which not even his assistants dared enter. The door gave under the pressure of his body and he walked in backwards. He guided himself by running his left hand along one of the side walls. When he got to the end of it he moved a few steps to the right and stood directly in front of the earth mound which represented Ulu. From the rafters right round the room the skulls of all past chief priests looked down on the mound and on their descendant and successor. Even in the hottest day a damp chill always possessed the shrine because of the giant trees outside which p
ut their heads together to cut off the sun, but more especially because of the great, cold, underground river flowing under the earth mound. Even the approaches to the shrine were cold and, all year round, there was always some ntu-nanya-mili dropping tears from the top of the ancient trees.
As Ezeulu cast his string of cowries the bell of Oduche’s people began to ring. For one brief moment he was distracted by its sad, measured monotone and he thought how strange it was that it should sound so near – much nearer than it did in his compound.
Ezeulu’s announcement that his consultation with the deity had produced no result and that the six villages would be locked in the old year for two moons longer spread such alarm as had not been known in Umuaro in living memory.
Meanwhile the rains thinned out. There was one last heavy downpour to usher in a new moon. It brought down the harmattan as well, and each new day made the earth harder so that the eventual task of digging up whatever remained of the harvest grew daily.
Disagreement was not new in Umuaro. The rulers of the clan had often quarrelled about one thing or another. There was a long-drawn-out dispute before face marks were finally abolished and there had been other disagreements of more or less weight before it and since. But none of them had quite filtered down to the ground – to the women and even the children – like the present crisis. It was not a remote argument which could end one way or the other and still leave the ground untouched. Even children in their mother’s belly took sides in this one.
Yesterday Nwafo had had to wrestle with his friend, Obielue. It had all started from the moment they went to inspect the bird-snare they had set with resin on the top of two icheku trees. Obielue’s trap held a very small nza while Nwafo’s was empty. This had happened before, and Obielue began to boast about his skill. In exasperation Nwafo called him ‘Never-a-dry-season-in-the-nose’. Now, Obielue did not care for this name because his nose ran constantly and left the precincts of his nostrils red and sore. He called Nwafo ‘Anthill-nose’; but it was not nearly as appropriate as the other and could not be turned into a song as readily. So he put Ezeulu’s name in the song children sang whenever they saw an Udo ram, one of those fierce animals that belong to the shrine of Udo and could come and go as they wished. Children enjoyed teasing them from a good distance. The song, which was accompanied by the clapping of hands, implored the ram to remove the ugly lumps in its scrotum. To which the singers answered (on behalf of the ram): How does one remove yam tubers? The request and the response were sung in time with the swinging of the tubers. In place of ebunu Obielue sang Ezeulu. Nwafo could not stand this and gave his friend a blow in the mouth which brought blood to his front teeth.
Almost overnight Ezeulu had become something of a public enemy in the eyes of all and, as was to be expected, his entire family shared in his guilt. His children came up against it on their way to the stream and his wives suffered hostility in the market. The other day at the Nkwo Matefi had gone to buy a small basket of prepared cassava from Ojinika, wife of Ndulue. She knew Ojinika quite well and had bought from her and sold to her countless times. But on this day Ojinika spoke to her as if she was a stranger from another clan.
‘I shall pay ego nato,’ said Matefi.
‘I have told you the price is ego nese.’
‘I think ego nato suits it well; it’s only a tiny basket.’ She picked up the basket to show that it was small. Ojinika seemed to have forgotten all about her and was engrossed in arranging her okro in little lots on the mat.
‘What do you say?’
‘Put that basket down at once!’ Then she changed her tone and sneered. ‘You want to take it for nothing. You wait till the yams are ruined and come and buy a basket of cassava for eighteen cowries.’
Matefi was not the kind of person another woman could tie into her lappa and carry away. She gave Ojinika more than she got – told her the bride-price they paid for her mother. But when she got home she began to think about the hostility that was visibly encircling them all in Ezeulu’s compound. Something told her that someone was going to pay a big price for it and she was afraid.
‘Go and call me Obika,’ she told her daughter, Ojiugo.
She was preparing some cocoyams for thickening soup when Obika came in and sat on the bare floor with his back on the wooden post in the middle of the entrance. He wore a very thin strip of cloth which was passed between the legs and between the buttocks and wound around the waist. He sat down heavily like a tired man. His mother went on with her work of dressing the cocoyams.
‘Ojiugo says you called me.’
‘Yes.’ She went on with what she was doing.
‘To watch you prepare cocoyams?’
She went on with her work.
‘What is it?’
‘I want you to go and talk to your father.’
‘About what?’
‘About what? About his… Are you a stranger in Umuaro? Do you not see the trouble that is coming?’
‘What do you expect him to do? To disobey Ulu?’
‘I knew you would not listen to me.’ She managed to hang all her sorrows and disappointments on those words.
‘How can I listen to you when you join outsiders in urging your husband to put his head in a cooking pot?’
‘Sometimes I want to agree with those who say the man has caught his mother’s madness,’ said Ogbuefi Ofoka. ‘When he came back from Okperi I went to his house and he talked like a sane man. I reminded him of his saying that a man must dance the dance prevailing in his time and told him that we had come – too late – to accept its wisdom. But today he would rather see the six villages ruined than eat two yams.’
‘I have had the same thoughts myself,’ said Akuebue who was visiting his in-law. ‘I know Ezeulu better than most people. He is a proud man and the most stubborn person you know is only his messenger; but he would not falsify the decision of Ulu. If he did it Ulu would not spare him to begin with. So, I don’t know.’
‘I have not said that Ezeulu is telling a lie with the name of Ulu or that he is not. What we told him was to go and eat the yams and we would take the consequences. But he would not do it. Why? Because the six villages allowed the white man to take him away. That is the reason. He has been trying to see how he could punish Umuaro and now he has the chance. The house he has been planning to pull down has caught fire and saved him the labour.’
‘I do not doubt that he has had a grievance for a long time, but I do not think it goes as deep as this. Remember he has his own yam-fields like the rest of us…’
‘That was what he told us. But, my friend, when a man as proud as this wants to fight he does not care if his own head rolls as well in the conflict. And besides he forgot to mention that whether our harvest is ruined or not we would still take one yam each to Ulu.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Let me tell you one thing. A priest like Ezeulu leads a god to ruin himself. It has happened before.’
‘Or perhaps a god like Ulu leads a priest to ruin himself.’
There was one man who saw the mounting crisis in Umuaro as a blessing and an opportunity sent by God. His name was John Jaja Goodcountry, Catechist of St Mark’s C.M.S. Church, Umuaro. His home was in the Niger Delta which had been in contact with Europe and the world for hundreds of years. Although he had been in Umuaro only a year he could show as much progress in his church and school as many other teachers and pastors would have been proud to record after five or more years. His catechumen class had grown from a mere fourteen to nearly thirty – mostly young men and boys who also went to school. There had been one baptism in St Mark’s Church itself and three in the parish church at Okperi. Altogether Mr Goodcountry’s young church presented nine candidates for these occasions. He had not been able to field any candidates for confirmation, but that was hardly surprising in a new church among some of the most difficult people in the Ibo country.
The progress of St Mark’s came about in a somewhat unusual way. Mr Goodcountry with his background
of the Niger Delta Pastorate which could already count native martyrs like Joshua Hart to its credit was not prepared to compromise with the heathen over such things as sacred animals. Within weeks of his sojourn in Umuaro he was ready for a little war against the royal python in the same spirit as his own people had fought and conquered the sacred iguana. Unfortunately he came up against a local stumbling block in Moses Unachukwu, the most important Christian in Umuaro.
From the beginning Mr Goodcountry had taken exception to Unachukwu’s know-all airs which the last catechist, Mr Molokwu, had done nothing to curb. Goodcountry had seen elsewhere how easy it was for a half-educated and half-converted Christian to mislead a whole congregation when the pastor or catechist was weak; so he wanted to establish his leadership from the very beginning. His intention was not originally to antagonize Unachukwu more than was necessary for making his point; after all he was a strong pillar in the church and could not be easily replaced. But Unachukwu did not give Mr Goodcountry a chance; he challenged him openly on the question of the python and so deserved the public rebuke and humiliation he got.
Having made his point Mr Goodcountry was prepared to forget the whole thing. He had no idea what kind of person he was dealing with. Unachukwu got a clerk in Okperi to write a petition on behalf of the priest of Idemili to the Bishop on the Niger. Although it was called a petition it was more of a threat. It warned the bishop that unless his followers in Umuaro left the royal python alone they would regret the day they ever set foot on the soil of the clan. Being the work of one of the knowledgeable clerks on Government Hill the petition made allusions to such potent words as law and order and the King’s peace.
The bishop had just had a very serious situation in another part of his diocese on this same matter of the python. A young, energetic ordinand had led his people on a shrine-burning adventure and had killed a python in the process, whereupon the villagers had chased out all the Christians among them and burnt their houses. Things might have got out of hand had the Administration not stepped in with troops for a show of force. After this incident the Lieutenant- Governor had written a sharp letter to the bishop to apply the reins on his boys.