Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe PDF

PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS Arrow of God Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centres of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966,...

PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS Arrow of God Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centres of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund- raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years he was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. Chinua Achebe has written over twenty books – novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry – including Things Fall Apart (1958), which has now sold over ten million copies worldwide and been translated into more than fifty languages; Arrow of God (1964); Beware, Soul Brother and Other Poems (1971), winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; Anthills of the Savannah (1987), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (1988); and Home and Exile (2000). Achebe has received numerous honours from around the world, including the Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honorary doctorates from more than thirty colleges and universities. He is also the recipient of Nigeria’s highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. In 2007, he won the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction. CHINUA ACHEBE Arrow of God PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN CLASSICS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England www.penguin.com First published in the African Writers Series 1965 First published in the African Writers Series 1965 Published in Penguin Classics 2010 Copyright © Chinua Achebe, 2010 All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser ISBN: 978-0-14-193068-8 To the memory of my father ISAIAH OKAFOR ACHEBE  Preface to Second Edition Whenever people have asked me which among my novels is my favourite I have always evaded a direct answer, being strongly of the mind that in sheer invidiousness that question is fully comparable to asking a man to list his children in the order in which he loves them. A paterfamilias worth his salt will, if he must, speak about the peculiar attractiveness of each child. For Arrow of God that peculiar quality may lie in the fact that it is the novel which I am most likely to be caught sitting down to read again. On account of that I have also become aware of certain structural weaknesses in it which I now take the opportunity of a new edition to remove. Arrow of God has ardent admirers as well as ardent detractors. To the latter nothing more need be said. To the others I can only express the hope that the changes I have made will meet with their approval. But in the nature of things there may well be some so steadfast in their original affection that they will see these changes as uncalled for or even unjustified. Perhaps changes are rarely called for or justified, and yet we keep making them. We should be ready at the very least to salute those who stand fast, the spiritual descendants of that magnificent man, Ezeulu, in the hope that they will forgive us. For had he been spared Ezeulu might have come to see his fate as perfectly consistent with his high historic destiny as victim, consecrating by his agony – thus raising to the stature of a ritual passage – the defection of his people. And he would gladly have forgiven them. Chinua Achebe  Chapter One This was the third nightfall since he began to look for signs of the new moon. He knew it would come today but he always began his watch three days early because he must not take a risk. In this season of the year his task was not too difficult; he did not have to peer and search the sky as he might do when the rains came. Then the new moon sometimes hid itself for days behind rain clouds so that when it finally came out it was already halfgrown. And while it played its game the Chief Priest sat up every evening waiting. His obi was built differently from other men’s huts. There was the usual, long threshold in front but also a shorter one on the right as you entered. The eaves on this additional entrance were cut back so that sitting on the floor Ezeulu could watch that part of the sky where the moon had its door. It was getting darker and he constantly blinked to clear his eyes of the water that formed from gazing so intently. Ezeulu did not like to think that his sight was no longer as good as it used to be and that some day he would have to rely on someone else’s eyes as his grandfather had done when his sight failed. Of course he had lived to such a great age that his blindness became like an ornament on him. If Ezeulu lived to be so old he too would accept such a loss. But for the present he was as good as any young man, or better because young men were no longer what they used to be. There was one game Ezeulu never tired of playing on them. Whenever they shook hands with him he never tired of playing on them. Whenever they shook hands with him he tensed his arm and put all his power into the grip, and being unprepared for it they winced and recoiled with pain. The moon he saw that day was as thin as an orphan fed grudgingly by a cruel foster-mother. He peered more closely to make sure he was not deceived by a feather of cloud. At the same time he reached nervously for his ogene. It was the same at every new moon. He was now an old man but the fear of the new moon which he felt as a little boy still hovered round him. It was true that when he became Chief Priest of Ulu the fear was often overpowered by the joy of his high office; but it was not killed. It lay on the ground in the grip of the joy. He beat his ogene GOME GOME GOME GOME… and immediately children’s voices took up the news on all sides. Onwa atuo!… onwa atuo!… onwa atuo!… He put the stick back into the iron gong and leaned it on the wall. The little children in his compound joined the rest in welcoming the moon. Obiageli’s tiny voice stood out like a small ogene among drums and flutes. He could also make out the voice of his youngest son, Nwafo. The women too were in the open, talking. ‘Moon,’ said the senior wife, Matefi, ‘may your face meeting mine bring good fortune.’ ‘Where is it?’ asked Ugoye, the younger wife. ‘I don’t see it. Or am I blind?’ ‘Don’t you see beyond the top of the ukwa tree? Not there. Follow my finger.’ ‘Oho, I see it. Moon, may your face meeting mine bring good fortune. But how is it sitting? I don’t like its posture.’ ‘Why?’ asked Matefi.  ‘Why?’ asked Matefi. ‘I think it sits awkwardly – like an evil moon.’ ‘No,’ said Matefi. ‘A bad moon does not leave anyone in doubt. Like the one under which Okuata died. Its legs were up in the air.’ ‘Does the moon kill people?’ asked Obiageli, tugging at her mother’s cloth. ‘What have I done to this child? Do you want to strip me naked?’ ‘I said does the moon kill people?’ ‘It kills little girls,’ said Nwafo, her brother. ‘I did not ask you, ant-hill nose.’ ‘You will soon cry, long throat.’ The moon kills little boys The moon kills ant-hill nose The moon kills little boys… Obiageli turned everything into a song. * Ezeulu went into his barn and took down one yam from the bamboo platform built specially for the twelve sacred yams. There were eight left. He knew there would be eight; nevertheless he counted them carefully. He had already eaten three and had the fourth in his hand. He checked the remaining ones again and went back to his obi, shutting the door of the barn carefully after him. His log fire was smouldering. He reached for a few sticks of firewood stacked in the corner, set them carefully on the fire and placed the yam, like a sacrifice, on top. As he waited for it to roast he planned the coming event in his mind. It was Oye. Tomorrow would be Afo and the next day Nkwo, the day of It was Oye. Tomorrow would be Afo and the next day Nkwo, the day of the great market. The festival of the Pumpkin Leaves would fall on the third Nkwo from that day. Tomorrow he would send for his assistants and tell them to announce the day to the six villages of Umuaro. Whenever Ezeulu considered the immensity of his power over the year and the crops and, therefore, over the people he wondered if it was real. It was true he named the day for the feast of the Pumpkin Leaves and for the New Yam feast; but he did not choose it. He was merely a watchman. His power was no more than the power of a child over a goat that was said to be his. As long as the goat was alive it could be his; he would find it food and take care of it. But the day it was slaughtered he would know soon enough who the real owner was. No! the Chief Priest of Ulu was more than that, must be more than that. If he should refuse to name the day there would be no festival – no planting and no reaping. But could he refuse? No Chief Priest had ever refused. So it could not be done. He would not dare. Ezeulu was stung to anger by this as though his enemy had spoken it. ‘Take away that word dare,’ he replied to this enemy. ‘Yes I say take it away. No man in all Umuaro can stand up and say that I dare not. The woman who will bear the man who will say it has not been born yet.’ But this rebuke brought only momentary satisfaction. His mind never content with shallow satisfactions crept again to the brink of knowing. What kind of power was it if it would never be used? Better to say that it was not there, that it was no more than the power in the anus of the proud dog who sought to put out a furnace with his puny fart… He turned the yam with a stick. His youngest son, Nwafo, now came into the obi, saluted Ezeulu by name and took his favourite position on the mud-bed at the far end, close to the shorter threshold. Although he was still only a child it looked as though the deity had already marked him out as his future Chief Priest. Even before he had learnt to speak more than a few words he had been strongly drawn to the god’s ritual. It could almost be said that he already knew more about it than even the eldest. Nevertheless no one would be so rash as to say openly that Ulu would do this or do that. When the time came that Ezeulu was no longer found in his place Ulu might choose the least likely of his sons to succeed him. It had happened before. Ezeulu attended the yam very closely, rolling it over with the stick again and again. His eldest son, Edogo, came in from his own hut. ‘Ezeulu!’ he saluted. ‘E-e-i!’ Edogo passed through the hut into the inner compound to his sister Akueke’s temporary home. ‘Go and call Edogo,’ said Ezeulu to Nwafo. The two came back and sat down on the mud-bed. Ezeulu turned his yam once more before he spoke. ‘Did I ever tell you anything about carving a deity?’ Edogo did not reply. Ezeulu looked in his direction but did not see him clearly because that part of the obi was in darkness. Edogo on his part saw his father’s face lit up by the fire on which he was roasting the sacred yam. ‘Is Edogo not there?’ ‘I am here.’ ‘I said what did I tell you about carving the image of gods? Perhaps you did not hear my first question; perhaps I spoke with water in my mouth.’ mouth.’ ‘You told me to avoid it.’ ‘I told you that, did I? What is this story I hear then – that you are carving an alusi for a man of Umuagu?’ ‘Who told you?’ ‘Who told me? Is it true or not is what I want to know, not who told me.’ ‘I want to know who told you because I don’t think he can tell the difference between the face of a deity and the face of a Mask.’ ‘I see. You may go, my son. And if you like you may carve all the gods in Umuaro. If you hear me asking you about it again take my name and give it to a dog.’ ‘What I am carving for the man of Umuagu is not…’ ‘It is not me you are talking to. I have finished with you.’ Nwafo tried in vain to make sense out of these words. When his father’s temper cooled he would ask. Then his sister, Obiageli, came in from the inner compound, saluted Ezeulu and made to sit on the mud- bed. ‘Have you finished preparing the bitter-leaf?’ asked Nwafo. ‘Don’t you know how to prepare bitter-leaf? Or are your fingers broken?’ ‘Keep quiet there, you two.’ Ezeulu rolled the yam out of the fire with the stick and quickly felt it between his thumb and first finger, and was satisfied. He brought down a two-edged knife from the rafters and began to scrape off the coat of black on the roast yam. His hands were covered in soot when he had finished, and he clapped them together a few times to get them clean again. His wooden bowl was near at hand and he cut the yam into it and waited for it to cool. the yam into it and waited for it to cool. When he began eating Obiageli started to sing quietly to herself. She should have known by now that her father never gave out even the smallest crumbs of the yam he ate without palm oil at every new moon. But she never ceased hoping. He ate in silence. He had moved away from the fire and now sat with his back against the wall, looking outwards. As was usual with him on these occasions his mind seemed to be fixed on distant thoughts. Now and again he drank from a calabash of cold water which Nwafo had brought for him. As he took the last piece Obiageli returned to her mother’s hut. Nwafo put away the wooden bowl and the calabash and stuck the knife again between two rafters. Ezeulu rose from his goatskin and moved to the household shrine on a flat board behind the central dwarf wall at the entrance. His ikenga, about as tall as a man’s forearm, its animal horn as long as the rest of its human body, jostled with faceless okposi of the ancestors black with the blood of sacrifice, and his short personal staff of ofo. Nwafo’s eyes picked out the special okposi which belonged to him. It had been carved for him because of the convulsions he used to have at night. They told him to call it Namesake, and he did. Gradually the convulsions had left him. Ezeulu took the ofo staff from the others and sat in front of the shrine, not astride in a man’s fashion but with his legs stretched in front of him to one side of the shrine, like a woman. He held one end of the short staff in his right hand and with the other end hit the earth to punctuate his prayer: Ulu, I thank you for making me see another new moon. May I see it again and again. This household may it be healthy and prosperous. As this is the moon of planting may the six villages plant with profit. May we escape danger in the farm – the bite of a snake or the sting of the scorpion, the mighty one of the scrubland. May we not cut our shinbone with the matchet or the hoe. And let our wives bear male children. May we increase in numbers at the next counting of the villages so that we shall sacrifice to you a cow, not a chicken as we did after the last New Yam feast. May children put their fathers into the earth and not fathers their children. May good meet the face of every man and every woman. Let it come to the land of the riverain folk and to the land of the forest peoples. He put the ofo back among the ikenga and the okposi, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and returned to his place. Every time he prayed for Umuaro bitterness rose into his mouth, a great smouldering anger for the division which had come to the six villages and which his enemies sought to lay on his head. And for what reason? Because he had spoken the truth before the white man. But how could a man who held the holy staff of Ulu know that a thing was a lie and speak it? How could he fail to tell the story as he had heard it from his own father? Even the white man, Wintabota, understood, though he came from a land no one knew. He had called Ezeulu the only witness of truth. That was what riled his enemies – that the white man whose father or mother no one knew should come to tell them the truth they knew but hated to hear. It was an augury of the world’s ruin. The voices of women returning from the stream broke into Ezeulu’s thoughts. He could not see them because of the darkness outside. The new moon having shown itself had retired again. But the night bore marks of its visit. The darkness was not impenetrable as it had been lately, but open and airy like a forest from which the under-growth had been cut. As the women called out ‘Ezeulu’ one after another he saw their vague forms and returned their greeting. They left the obi to their right and went into the inner compound through the only other entrance – a high, carved door in the red, earth walls. ‘Are these not the people I saw going to the stream before the sun went down?’ ‘Yes,’ said Nwafo. ‘They went to Nwangene.’ ‘I see.’ Ezeulu had forgotten temporarily that the nearer stream, Ota, had been abandoned since the oracle announced yesterday that the enormous boulder resting on two other rocks at its source was about to fall and would take a softer pillow for its head. Until the alusi who owned the stream and whose name it bore had been placated no one would go near it. Still, Ezeulu thought, he would speak his mind to whoever brought him a late supper tonight. If they knew they had to go to Nwangene they should have set out earlier. He was tired of having his meal sent to him when other men had eaten and forgotten. Obika’s great, manly voice rose louder and louder into the night air as he approached home. Even his whistling carried farther than some men’s voices. He sang and whistled alternately. ‘Obika is returning,’ said Nwafo. ‘The night bird is early coming home today,’ said Ezeulu, at the same time. ‘One day soon he will see Eru again,’ said Nwafo, referring to the apparition Obika had once seen at night. The story had been told so often that Nwafo imagined he was there. ‘This time it will be Idemili or Ogwugwu,’ said Ezeulu with a smile, and Nwafo was full of happiness. and Nwafo was full of happiness. * About three years ago Obika had rushed into the obi one night and flung himself at his father shivering with terror. It was a dark night and rain was preparing to fall. Thunder rumbled with a deep, liquid voice and flash answered flash. ‘What is it, my son?’ Ezeulu asked again and again, but Obika trembled and said nothing. ‘What is it, Obika?’ asked his mother, Matefi, who had run into the obi and was now shaking worse than her son. ‘Keep quiet there,’ said Ezeulu. ‘What did you see, Obika?’ When he had cooled a little Obika began to tell his father what he had seen at a flash of lightning near the ugili tree between their village, Umuachala, and Umunneora. As soon as he had mentioned the place Ezeulu had known what it was. ‘What happened when you saw It?’ ‘I knew it was a spirit; my head swelled.’ ‘Did he not turn into the Bush That Ruined Little Birds? On the left?’ His father’s confidence revived Obika. He nodded and Ezeulu nodded twice. The other women were now ranged round the door. ‘What did he look like?’ ‘Taller than any man I know.’ He swallowed a lump. ‘His skin was very light… like… like…’ ‘Was he dressed like a poor man or was it like a man of great wealth?’ ‘He was dressed like a wealthy man. He had an eagle’s feather in his red cap.’ red cap.’ His teeth began to knock together again. ‘Hold yourself together. You are not a woman. Had he an elephant tusk?’ ‘Yes. He carried a big tusk across his shoulder.’ The rain had now begun to fall, at first in big drops that sounded like pebbles on the thatch. ‘There is no cause to be afraid, my son. You have seen Eru, the Magnificent, the One that gives wealth to those who find favour with him. People sometimes see him at that place in this kind of weather. Perhaps he was returning home from a visit to Idemili or the other deities. Eru only harms those who swear falsely before his shrine.’ Ezeulu was carried away by his praise of the god of wealth. The way he spoke one would have thought he was the proud priest of Eru rather than Ulu who stood above Eru and all the other deities. ‘When he likes a man wealth flows like a river into his house; his yams grow as big as human beings, his goats produce threes and his hens hatch nines.’ Matefi’s daughter, Ojiugo, brought in a bowl of foofoo and a bowl of soup, saluted her father and set them before him. Then she turned to Nwafo and said: ‘Go to your mother’s hut; she has finished cooking.’ ‘Leave the boy alone,’ said Ezeulu who knew that Matefi and her daughter resented his partiality for his other wife’s son. ‘Go and call your mother for me.’ He made no move to start eating and Ojiugo knew there was going to be trouble. She went back to her mother’s hut and called her. ‘I don’t know how many times I have said in this house that I shall not eat my supper when every other man in Umuaro is retiring to sleep,’ not eat my supper when every other man in Umuaro is retiring to sleep,’ he said as soon as Matefi came in. ‘But you will not listen. To you whatever I say in this house is no more effective than the fart a dog breaks to put out a fire…’ ‘I went all the way to Nwangene to fetch water and…’ ‘If you like you may go to Nkisa. What I am saying is that if you want that madness of yours to be cured, bring my supper at this time another day…’ When Ojiugo came to collect the bowls she found Nwafo polishing off the soup. She waited for him to finish, full of anger. Then she gathered the bowls and went to tell her mother about it. This was not the first time or the second or third. It happened every day. ‘Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?’ said Matefi. ‘What do you expect a boy to do when his mother cooks soup with locust beans for fish? She saves her money to buy ivory bracelets. But Ezeulu will never see anything wrong in what she does. If it is me then he knows what to say.’ Ojiugo was looking towards the other woman’s hut which was separated from theirs by the whole length of the compound. All she could see was the yellowish glow of the palm oil lamp between the low eaves and the threshold. There was a third hut which formed a half moon with the other two. It had belonged to Ezeulu’s first wife, Okuata, who died many years ago. Ojiugo hardly knew her; she only remembered she used to give a piece of fish and some locust beans to every child who went to her hut when she was making her soup. She was the mother of Adeze, Edogo and Akueke. After her death her children lived in the hut until the girls married. Then Edogo lived there children lived in the hut until the girls married. Then Edogo lived there alone until he married two years ago and built a small compound of his own besides his father’s. Now Akueke had been living in the hut again since she left her husband’s house. They said the man ill-treated her. But Ojiugo’s mother said it was a lie and that Akueke was headstrong and proud, the kind of woman who carried her father’s compound into the house of her husband. Just when Ojiugo and her mother were about to begin their meal, Obika came home singing and whistling. ‘Bring me his bowl,’ said Matefi. ‘He is early today.’ Obika stooped at the low eaves and came in hands first. He saluted his mother and she said ‘Nno’ without any warmth. He sat down heavily on the mud-bed. Ojiugo had brought his soup bowl of fired clay and was now bringing down his foofoo from the bamboo ledge. Matefi blew into the soup bowl to remove dust and ash and ladled soup into it. Ojiugo set it before her brother and went outside to bring water in a gourd. After the first swallow Obika tilted the bowl of soup towards the light and inspected it critically. ‘What do you call this, soup or cocoyam porridge.’ The women ignored him and went on with their own interrupted meal. It was clear he had drunk too much palm wine again. Obika was one of the handsomest young men in Umuaro and all the surrounding districts. His face was very finely cut and his nose stood gem, like the note of a gong. His skin was, like his father’s, the colour of terracotta. People said of him (as they always did when they saw great comeliness) that he was not born for these parts among the Igbo people of the forests; that in his previous life he must have sojourned among the riverain folk whom the Igbo called Olu. But two things spoilt Obika. He drank palm wine to excess, and he  But two things spoilt Obika. He drank palm wine to excess, and he was given to sudden and fiery anger. And being as strong as rock he was always inflicting injury on others. His father who preferred him to Edogo, his quiet and brooding half-brother, nevertheless said to him often: ‘It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, my son, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live. The man who has never submitted to anything will soon submit to the burial mat.’ But for all that Ezeulu would rather have a sharp boy who broke utensils in his haste than a slow and careful snail. Not very long ago Obika had come very close indeed to committing murder. His half-sister, Akueke, often came home to say that her husband had beaten her. One early morning she came again with her face all swollen. Without waiting to hear the rest of the story Obika set out for Umuogwugwu, the village of his brother-in-law. On the way he stopped to call his friend, Ofoedu, who was never absent from the scene of a fight. As they approached Umuogwugwu Obika explained to Ofoedu that he must not help in beating Akueke’s husband. ‘Why have you called me then?’ asked the other, angrily. ‘To carry your bag?’ ‘There may be work for you. If Umuogwugwu people are what I take them to be they will come out in force to defend their brother. Then there will be work for you.’ No one in Ezeulu’s compound knew where Obika had gone until he returned a little before noon with Ofoedu. On their heads was Akueke’s husband tied to a bed, almost dead. They set him down under the ukwa tree and dared anyone to move him. The women and the neighbours pleaded with Obika and showed him the threatening ripe fruit on the pleaded with Obika and showed him the threatening ripe fruit on the tree, as big as water pots. ‘Yes. I put him there on purpose, to be crushed by the fruit – the beast.’ Eventually the commotion brought Ezeulu, who had gone into the near-by bush, hurrying home. When he saw what was happening he wailed a lament on the destruction Obika would bring to his house and ordered him to release his in-law. For three markets Ibe could barely rise from his bed. Then one evening his kinsmen came to seek satisfaction from Ezeulu. Most of them had gone out to their farms when it had all happened. For three markets and more they had waited patiently for someone to explain why their kinsman should be beaten up and carried away. ‘What is this story we hear about Ibe?’ they asked. Ezeulu tried to placate them without admitting that his son had done anything seriously wrong. He called his daughter, Akueke, to stand before them. ‘You should have seen her the day she came home. Is this how you marry women in your place? If it is your way then I say you will not marry my daughter like that.’ The men agreed that Ibe had stretched his arm too far, and so no one could blame Obika for defending his sister. ‘Why do we pray to Ulu and to our ancestors to increase our numbers if not for this thing?’ said their leader. ‘No one eats numbers. But if we are many nobody will dare molest us, and our daughters will hold their heads up in their husbands’ houses. So we do not blame Obika too much. Do I speak well?’ His companions answered yes and he continued. ‘We cannot say that your son did wrong to fight for his sister. What  ‘We cannot say that your son did wrong to fight for his sister. What we do not understand, however, is why a man with a penis between his legs should be carried away from his house and village. It is as if to say: You are nothing and your kinsmen can do nothing. This is the part we do not understand. We have not come with wisdom but with foolishness because a man does not go to his in-law with wisdom. We want you to say to us: You are wrong; this is how it is or that is how it is. And we shall be satisfied and go home. If someone says to us afterwards: Your kinsman was beaten up and carried away; we shall know what to reply. Our great in-law, I salute you.’ Ezeulu employed all his skill in speaking to pacify his in-laws. They went home happier than they came. But it was hardly likely that they would press Ibe to carry palm wine to Ezeulu and ask for his wife’s return. It looked as if she would live in her father’s compound for a long time. * When he finished his meal Obika joined the others in Ezeulu’s hut. As usual Edogo spoke for all of them. As well as Obika, Oduche and Nwafo were there also. ‘Tomorrow is Afo,’ said Edogo, ‘and we have come to find out what work you have for us.’ Ezeulu thought for a while as though he was unprepared for the proposal. Then he asked Obika how much of the work on his new homestead was still undone. ‘Only the woman’s barn,’ he replied. ‘But that could wait. There will be no cocoyam to put into it until harvest time.’ ‘Nothing will wait,’ said Ezeulu. ‘A new wife should not come into an  ‘Nothing will wait,’ said Ezeulu. ‘A new wife should not come into an unfinished homestead. I know such a thing does not trouble the present age. But as long as we are there we shall continue to point out the right way… Edogo, instead of working for me tomorrow take your brothers and the women to build the barn. If Obika has no shame, the rest of us have.’ ‘Father, I have a word to say.’ It was Oduche. ‘I am listening.’ Oduche cleared his throat as if he was afraid to begin. ‘Perhaps they are forbidden to help their brothers build a barn,’ said Obika thickly. ‘You are always talking like a fool,’ Edogo snapped at him. ‘Has Oduche not worked as hard as yourself on your homestead? I should say harder.’ ‘It is Oduche I am waiting to hear,’ said Ezeulu, ‘not you two jealous wives.’ ‘I am one of those they have chosen to go to Okperi tomorrow and bring the loads of our new teacher.’ ‘Oduche!’ ‘Father!’ ‘Listen to what I shall say now. When a handshake goes beyond the elbow we know it has turned to another thing. It was I who sent you to join those people because of my friendship to the white man, Wintabota. He asked me to send one of my children to learn the ways of his people and I agreed to send you. I did not send you so that you might leave your duty in my household. Do you hear me? Go and tell the people who chose you to go to Okperi that I said no. Tell them that tomorrow is the day on which my sons and my wives and my son’s wife work for me. day on which my sons and my wives and my son’s wife work for me. Your people should know the custom of this land; if they don’t you must tell them. Do you hear me?’ ‘I hear you.’ ‘Go and call your mother for me. I think it is her turn to cook tomorrow.’  Chapter Two Ezeulu often said that the dead fathers of Umuaro looking at the world from Ani-Mmo must be utterly bewildered by the ways of the new age. At no other time but now could Umuaro have taken war to Okperi in the circumstances in which they did. Who would have imagined that Umuaro would go to war so sorely divided? Who would have thought that they would disregard the warning of the priest of Ulu who originally brought the six villages together and made them what they were? But Umuaro had grown wise and strong in its own conceit and had become like the little bird, nza, who ate and drank and challenged his personal god to single combat. Umuaro challenged the deity which laid the foundation of their villages. And – what did they expect? – he thrashed them, thrashed them enough for today and for tomorrow! In the very distant past, when lizards were still few and far between, the six villages – Umuachala, Umunneora, Umuagu, Umuezeani, Umuogwugwu and Umuisiuzo – lived as different peoples, and each worshipped its own deity. Then the hired soldiers of Abam used to strike in the dead of night, set fire to the houses and carry men, women and children into slavery. Things were so bad for the six villages that their leaders came together to save themselves. They hired a strong team of medicine-men to install a common deity for them. This deity which the fathers of the six villages made was called Ulu. Half of the medicine was buried at a place which became Nkwo market and the other half thrown buried at a place which became Nkwo market and the other half thrown into the stream which became Mili Ulu. The six villages then took the name of Umuaro, and the priest of Ulu became their Chief Priest. From that day they were never again beaten by an enemy. How could such a people disregard the god who founded their town and protected it? Ezeulu saw it as the ruin of the world. On the day, five years ago, when the leaders of Umuaro decided to send an emissary to Okperi with white clay for peace or new palm frond for war, Ezeulu spoke in vain. He told the men of Umuaro that Ulu would not fight an unjust war. ‘I know,’ he told them, ‘my father said this to me that when our village first came here to live the land belonged to Okperi. It was Okperi who gave us a piece of their land to live in. They also gave us their deities – their Udo and their Ogwugwu. But they said to our ancestors – mark my words – the people of Okperi said to our fathers: We give you our Udo and our Ogwugwu; but you must call the deity we give you not Udo but the son of Udo, and not Ogwugwu but the son of Ogwugwu. This is the story as I heard it from my father. If you choose to fight a man for a piece of farmland that belongs to him I shall have no hand in it.’ But Nwaka had carried the day. He was one of the three people in all the six villages who had taken the highest title in the land, Eru, which was called after the lord of wealth himself. Nwaka came from a long line of prosperous men and from a village which called itself first in Umuaro. They said that when the six villages first came together they offered the priesthood of Ulu to the weakest among them to ensure that none in the alliance became too powerful. ‘Umuaro kwenu!’ Nwaka roared.  ‘Umuaro kwenu!’ Nwaka roared. ‘Hem!’ replied the men of Umuaro. ‘Kwenu!’ ‘Hem!’ ‘Kwezuenu!’ ‘Hem!’ He began to speak almost softly in the silence he had created with his salutation. ‘Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own. Knowledge of the land is also like that. Ezeulu has told us what his father told him about the olden days. We know that a father does not speak falsely to his son. But we also know that the lore of the land is beyond the knowledge of many fathers. If Ezeulu had spoken about the great deity of Umuaro which he carries and which his fathers carried before him I would have paid attention to his voice. But he speaks about events which are older than Umuaro itself. I shall not be afraid to say that neither Ezeulu nor any other in this village can tell us about these events.’ There were murmurs of approval and of disapproval but more of approval from the assembly of elders and men of title. Nwaka walked forward and back as he spoke; the eagle feather in his red cap and bronze band on his ankle marked him out as one of the lords of the land – a man favoured by Eru, the god of riches. ‘My father told me a different story. He told me that Okperi people were wanderers. He told me three or four different places where they sojourned for a while and moved on again. They were driven away by Umuofia, then by Abame and Aninta. Would they go today and claim all those sites? Would they have laid claim on our farmland in the days before the white man turned us upside down? Elders and Ndichie of before the white man turned us upside down? Elders and Ndichie of Umuaro, let everyone return to his house if we have no heart in the fight. We shall not be the first people who abandoned their farmland or even their homestead to avoid war. But let us not tell ourselves or our children that we did it because the land belonged to other people. Let us rather tell them that their fathers did not choose to fight. Let us tell them also that we marry the daughters of Okperi and their men marry our daughters, and that where there is this mingling men often lose the heart to fight. Umuaro Kwenu!’ ‘Hem!’ ‘Kwezuenu!’ ‘Hem!’ ‘I salute you all.’ The long uproar that followed was largely of approbation. Nwaka had totally destroyed Ezeulu’s speech. The last glancing blow which killed it was the hint that the Chief Priest’s mother had been a daughter of Okperi. The assembly broke up into numerous little groups of people talking to those who sat nearest to them. One man said that Ezeulu had forgotten whether it was his father or his mother who told him about the farmland. Speaker after speaker rose and spoke to the assembly until it was clear that all the six villages stood behind Nwaka. Ezeulu was not the only man of Umuaro whose mother had come from Okperi. But none of the others dared go to his support. In fact one of them, Akukalia, whose language never wandered far from ‘kill and despoil’, was so fiery that he was chosen to carry the white clay and the new palm frond to his motherland, Okperi. The last man to speak that day was the oldest man from Akukalia’s village. His voice was now shaky but his salute to the assembly was village. His voice was now shaky but his salute to the assembly was heard clearly in all corners of the Nkwo market place. The men of Umuaro responded to his great effort with the loudest Hem! of the day. He said quietly that he must rest to recover his breath, and those who heard laughed. ‘I want to speak to the man we are sending to Okperi. It is now a long time since we fought a war and many of you may not remember the custom. I am not saying that Akukalia needs to be reminded. But I am an old man, and an old man is there to talk. If the lizard of the homestead should neglect to do the things for which its kind is known, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmland. ‘From the way Akukalia spoke I saw that he was in great anger. It is right that he should feel like that. But we are not sending him to his motherland to fight. We are sending you, Akukalia, to place the choice of war or peace before them. Do I speak for Umuaro?’ They gave him power to carry on. ‘We do not want Okperi to choose war; nobody eats war. If they choose peace we shall rejoice. But whatever they say you are not to dispute with them. Your duty is to bring word back to us. We all know you are a fearless man but while you are there put your fearlessness in your bag. If the young men who will go with you talk with too loud a voice it shall be your duty to cover their fault. I have in my younger days gone on such errands and know the temptations too well. I salute you.’ Ezeulu who had taken in everything with a sad smile now sprang to his feet like one stung in the buttocks by a black ant. ‘Umuaro Kwenu!’ he cried.  ‘Umuaro Kwenu!’ he cried. ‘Hem!’ ‘I salute you all.’ It was like the salute of an enraged Mask. ‘When an adult is in the house the she-goat is not left to suffer the pains of parturition on its tether. That is what our ancestors have said. But what have we seen here today? We have seen people speak because they are afraid to be called cowards. Others have spoken the way they spoke because they are hungry for war. Let us leave all that aside. If in truth the farmland is ours, Ulu will fight on our side. But if it is not we shall know soon enough. I would not have spoken again today if I had not seen adults in the house neglecting their duty. Ogbuefi Egonwanne, as one of the three oldest men in Umuaro, should have reminded us that our fathers did not fight a war of blame. But instead of that he wants to teach our emissary how to carry fire and water in the same mouth. Have we not heard that a boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet? Why does Egonwanne trouble himself about small things when big ones are overlooked? We want war. How Akukalia speaks to his mother’s people is a small thing. He can spit into their face if he likes. When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it? I salute you all.’ Akukalia and his two companions set out for Okperi at cock-crow on the following day. In his goatskin bag he carried a lump of white chalk and a few yellow palm fronds cut from the summit of the tree before they had unfurled to the sun. Each man also carried a sheathed matchet. The day was Eke, and before long Akukalia and his companions began to pass women from all the neighbouring villages on their way to the famous Eke Okperi market. They were mostly women from Elumelu the famous Eke Okperi market. They were mostly women from Elumelu and Abame who made the best pots in all the surrounding country. Everyone carried a towering load of five or six or even more big water pots held together with a net of ropes on a long basket, and seemed in the half light like a spirit with a fantastic head. As the men of Umuaro passed company after company of these market women they talked about the great Eke market in Okperi to which folk from every part of Igbo and Olu went. ‘It is the result of an ancient medicine,’ Akukalia explained. ‘My mother’s people are great medicine-men.’ There was pride in his voice. ‘At first Eke was a very small market. Other markets in the neighbourhood were drawing it dry. Then one day the men of Okperi made a powerful deity and placed their market in its care. From that day Eke grew and grew until it became the biggest market in these parts. This deity which is called Nwanyieke is an old woman. Every Eke day before cock-crow she appears in the market place with a broom in her right hand and dances round the vast open space beckoning with her broom in all directions of the earth and drawing folk from every land. That is why people will not come near the market before cock-crow; if they did they would see the ancient lady in her task.’ ‘They tell the same story of the Nkwo market beside the great river at Umuru,’ said one of Akukalia’s companions. ‘There the medicine has worked so well that the market no longer assembles only on Nkwo days.’ ‘Umuru is no match for my mother’s people in medicine,’ said Akukalia. ‘Their market has grown because the white man took his merchandise there.’ ‘Why did he take his merchandise there,’ asked the other man, ‘if not because of their medicine? The old woman of the market has swept the world with her broom, even the land of the white men where they say world with her broom, even the land of the white men where they say the sun never shines.’ ‘Is it true that one of their women in Umuru went outside without the white hat and melted like sleeping palm oil in the sun?’ asked the other companion. ‘I have also heard it,’ said Akukalia. ‘But many lies are told about the white man. It was once said that he had no toes.’ As the sun rose the men came to the disputed farmland. It had not been cultivated for many years and was thick with browned spear grass. ‘I remember coming with my father to this very place to cut grass for our thatches,’ said Akukalia. ‘It is a thing of surprise to me that my mother’s people are claiming it today.’ ‘It is all due to the white man who says, like an elder to two fighting children: You will not fight while I am around. And so the younger and weaker of the two begins to swell himself up and to boast.’ ‘You have spoken the truth,’ said Akukalia. ‘Things like this would never have happened when I was a young man, to say nothing of the days of my father. I remember all this very well,’ he waved over the land. ‘That ebenebe tree over there was once hit by thunder, and people cutting thatch under it were hurled away in every direction.’ ‘What you should ask them,’ said the other companion who had spoken very little since they set out, ‘what they should tell us is why, if the land was indeed theirs, why they let us farm it and cut thatch from it for generation after generation, until the white man came and reminded them.’ ‘It is not our mission to ask them any question, except the one question which Umuaro wants them to answer,’ said Akukalia. ‘And I think I should remind you again to hold your tongues in your hand when think I should remind you again to hold your tongues in your hand when we get there and leave the talking to me. They are very difficult people; my mother was no exception. But I know what they know. If a man of Okperi says to you come, he means run away with all your strength. If you are not used to their ways you may sit with them from cock-crow until roosting-time and join in their talk and their food, but all the while you will be floating on the surface of the water. So leave them to me because when a man of cunning dies a man of cunning buries him.’ The three emissaries entered Okperi about the time when most people finished their morning meal. They made straight for the compound of Uduezue, the nearest living relation to Akukalia’s mother. Perhaps it was the men’s unsmiling faces that told Uduezue, or maybe Okperi was not altogether unprepared for the mission from Umuaro. Nevertheless Uduezue asked them about their people at home. ‘They are well,’ replied Akukalia impatiently. ‘We have an urgent message which we must give to the rulers of Okperi at once.’ ‘True?’ asked Uduezue. ‘I was saying to myself: What could bring my son and his people all this way so early? If my sister, your mother, were still alive, I would have thought that something had happened to her.’ He paused for a very little while. ‘An important mission; yes. We have a saying that a toad does not run in the day unless something is after it. I do not want to delay your mission, but I must offer you a piece of kolanut.’ He made to rise. ‘Do not worry yourself. Perhaps we shall return after our mission. It is a big load on our head, and until we put it down we cannot understand anything we are told.’ ‘I know what it is like. Here is a piece of white clay then. Let me  ‘I know what it is like. Here is a piece of white clay then. Let me agree with you and leave the kolanut until you return.’ But the men declined even to draw lines on the floor with the clay. After that there was nothing else to say. They had rebuffed the token of goodwill between host and guest, their mission must indeed be grave. Uduezue went into his inner compound and soon returned with his goatskin bag and sheathed matchet. ‘I shall take you to the man who will receive your message,’ he said. He led the way and the others followed silently. They passed an ever- thickening crowd of market people. As the planting season was near many of them carried long baskets of seed-yams. Some of the men carried goats also in long baskets. But now and again there was a man clutching a fowl; such a man never trod the earth firmly, especially when he was a man who had known better times. Many of the women talked boisterously as they went; the silent ones were those who had come from far away and had exhausted themselves. Akukalia thought he recognized some of the towering headloads of water pots they had left behind on their way. Akukalia had not visited his mother’s land for about three years and he now felt strangely tender towards it. When as a little boy he had first come here with his mother he had wondered why the earth and sand looked white instead of red-brown as in Umuaro. His mother had told him the reason was that in Okperi people washed every day and were clean while in Umuaro they never touched water for the whole four days of the week. His mother was very harsh to him and very quarrelsome, but now Akukalia felt tender even towards her. Uduezue took his three visitors to the house of Otikpo, the town-crier of Okperi. He was in his obi preparing seed-yams for the market. He rose to greet his visitors. He called Uduezue by his name and title and called Akukalia Son of our Daughter. He merely shook hands with the other two whom he did not know. Otikpo was very tall and of spare frame. He still looked like the great runner he had been in his youth. He went into an inner room and returned with a rolled mat which he spread on the mud-bed for his visitors. A little girl came in from the inner compound calling, ‘Father, Father.’ ‘Go away, Ogbanje,’ he said. ‘Don’t you see I have strangers?’ ‘Nweke slapped me.’ ‘I shall whip him later. Go and tell him I shall whip him.’ ‘Otikpo, let us go outside and whisper together,’ said Uduezue. They did not stay very long. When they came back Otikpo brought a kolanut in a wooden bowl. Akukalia thanked him but said that he and his companions carried such heavy loads on their heads that they could neither eat nor drink until the burden was set down. ‘True?’ asked Otikpo. ‘Can this burden you speak of come down before me and Uduezue, or does it require the elders of Okperi?’ ‘It requires the elders.’ ‘Then you have come at a bad time. Everybody in Igboland knows that Okperi people do not have other business on their Eke day. You should have come yesterday or the day before, or tomorrow or the day after. Son of our Daughter, you should know our habits.’ ‘Your habits are not different from the habits of other people,’ said Akukalia. ‘But our mission could not wait.’ ‘True?’ Otikpo went outside and raising his voice called his neighbour, Ebo, and came in again. ‘The mission could not wait. What shall we do now? I think you  ‘The mission could not wait. What shall we do now? I think you should sleep in Okperi today and see the elders tomorrow.’ Ebo came in and saluted generally. He was surprised to see so many people, and was temporarily at a loss. Then he began to shake hands all round, but when Akukalia’s turn came he refused to take Ebo’s hand. ‘Sit down, Ebo,’ said Otikpo. ‘Akukalia has a message for Okperi which forbids him to eat kolanut or shake hands. He wants to see the elders and I have told him it is not possible today.’ ‘Why did they choose today to bring their message? Have they no market where they come from? If that is all you are calling me for I must go back and prepare for market.’ ‘Our message cannot wait, I have said that before.’ ‘I have not yet heard of a message that could not wait. Or have you brought us news that Chukwu, the high god, is about to remove the foot that holds the world? If not then you must know that Eke Okperi does not break up because three men have come to town. If you listen carefully even now you can hear its voice; and it is not even half full yet. When it is full you can hear it from Umuda. Do you think a market like that will stop to hear your message?’ He sat down for a while; nobody else spoke. ‘You can now see, Son of our Daughter, that we cannot get our elders together before tomorrow,’ said Otikpo. ‘If war came suddenly to your town how do you call your men together, Father of my Mother? Do you wait till tomorrow? Do you not beat your ikolo?’ Ebo and Otikpo burst into laughter. The three men from Umuaro exchanged glances. Akukalia’s face began to look dangerous. Uduezue sat as he had done since they first came in, his chin in his left hand. sat as he had done since they first came in, his chin in his left hand. ‘Different people have different customs,’ said Otikpo after his laugh. ‘In Okperi it is not our custom to welcome strangers to our market with the ikolo.’ ‘Are you telling us, Father of my Mother, that you regard us as market women? I have borne your insults patiently. Let me remind you that my name is Okeke Akukalia of Umuaro.’ ‘Ooh, of Umuaro,’ said Ebo, still smarting from the rebuffed handshake. ‘I am happy you have said of Umuaro. The name of this town is Okperi.’ ‘Go back to your house,’ shouted Akukalia, ‘or I will make you eat shit.’ ‘If you want to shout like a castrated bull you must wait until you return to Umuaro. I have told you this place is called Okperi.’ Perhaps it was deliberate, perhaps accidental. But Ebo had just said the one thing that nobody should ever have told Akukalia who was impotent and whose two wives were secretly given to other men to bear his children. The ensuing fight was grim. Ebo was no match for Akukalia and soon had a broken head, streaming with blood. Maddened by pain and shame he made for his house to get a matchet. Women and children from all the near-by compounds were now out, some of them screaming with fright. Passers-by also rushed in, making futile motions of intervention. What happened next was the work of Ekwensu, the bringer of evil. Akukalia rushed after Ebo, went into the obi, took the ikenga from his shrine, rushed outside again and, while everyone stood aghast, split it in two.  Ebo was last to see the abomination. He had been struggling with Otikpo who wanted to take the matchet from him and so prevent bloodshed. But when the crowd saw what Akukalia had done they called on Otikpo to leave the man alone. The two men came out of the hut together. Ebo rushed towards Akukalia and then seeing what he had done stopped dead. He did not know, for one brief moment, whether he was awake or dreaming. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his left hand. Akukalia stood in front of him. The two pieces of his ikenga lay where their violator had kicked them in the dust. ‘Move another step if you call yourself a man. Yes I did it. What can you do?’ So it was true. Still Ebo turned round and went into his obi. At his shrine he knelt down to have a close look. Yes, the gap where his ikenga, the strength of his right arm, had stood stared back at him – an empty patch, without dust, on the wooden board. ‘Nna doh! Nna doh!’ he wept, calling on his dead father to come to his aid. Then he got up and went into his sleeping-room. He was there a little while before Otikpo, thinking he might be doing violence to himself, rushed into the room to see. But it was too late. Ebo pushed him aside and came into the obi with his loaded gun. At the threshold he knelt down and aimed. Akukalia, seeing the danger, dashed forward. Although the bullet had caught him in the chest he continued running with his matchet held high until he fell at the threshold, his face hitting the low thatch before he went down. When the body was brought home to Umuaro everyone was stunned. It had never happened before that an emissary of Umuaro was killed abroad. But after the first shock people began to say that their clansman abroad. But after the first shock people began to say that their clansman had done an unforgivable thing. ‘Let us put ourselves in the place of the man he made a corpse before his own eyes,’ they said. ‘Who would bear such a thing? What propitiation or sacrifice would atone for such sacrilege? How would the victim set about putting himself right again with his fathers unless he could say to them: Rest, for the man that did it has paid with his head? Nothing short of that would have been adequate.’ Umuaro might have left the matter there, and perhaps the whole land dispute with it as Ekwensu seemed to have taken a hand in it. But one small thing worried them. It was small but at the same time it was very great. Why had Okperi not deigned to send a message to Umuaro to say this was what happened and that was what happened? Everyone agreed that the man who killed Akukalia had been sorely provoked. It was also true that Akukalia was not only a son of Umuaro; he was also the son of a daughter of Okperi, and what had happened might be likened to he- goat’s head dropping into he-goat’s bag. Yet when a man was killed something had to be said, some explanation given. That Okperi had not cared to say anything beyond returning the corpse was a mark of the contempt in which they now held Umuaro. And that could not be overlooked. Four days after Akukalia’s death criers went through the six villages at nightfall. The assembly in the morning was very solemn. Almost everyone who spoke said that although it was not right to blame a corpse it must be admitted that their kinsman did a great wrong. Many of them, especially the older men, asked Umuaro to let the matter drop. But there were others who, as the saying was, pulled out their hair and chewed it. They swore that they would not live and see Umuaro spat upon. They were, as swore that they would not live and see Umuaro spat upon. They were, as before, led by Nwaka. He spoke with his usual eloquence and stirred many hearts. Ezeulu did not speak until the last. He saluted Umuaro quietly and with great sadness. ‘Umuaro kwenu!’ ‘Hem!’ ‘Umuaro obodonesi kwenu!’ ‘Hem!’ ‘Kwezuenu!’ ‘Hem!’ ‘The reed we were blowing is now crushed. When I spoke two markets ago in this very place I used the proverb of the she-goat. I was then talking to Ogbuefi Egonwanne who was the adult in the house. I told him that he should have spoken up against what we were planning, instead of which he put a piece of live coal into the child’s palm and asked him to carry it with care. We all have seen with what care he carried it. I was not then talking to Egonwanne alone but to all the elders here who left what they should have done and did another, who were in the house and yet the she-goat suffered in her parturition. ‘Once there was a great wrestler whose back had never known the ground. He wrestled from village to village until he had thrown every man in the world. Then he decided that he must go and wrestle in the land of the spirits, and become champion there as well. He went, and beat every spirit that came forward. Some had seven heads, some ten; but he beat them all. His companion who sang his praise on the flute begged him to come away, but he would not, his blood was roused, his ear nailed up. Rather than heed the call to go home he gave a challenge ear nailed up. Rather than heed the call to go home he gave a challenge to the spirits to bring out their best and strongest wrestler. So they sent him his personal god, a little wiry spirit who seized him with one hand and smashed him on the stony earth. ‘Men of Umuaro, why do you think our fathers told us this story? They told it because they wanted to teach us that no matter how strong or great a man was he should never challenge his chi. This is what our kinsman did – he challenged his chi. We were his flute player, but we did not plead with him to come away from death. Where is he today? The fly that has no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave. But let us leave Akukalia aside; he has gone the way his chi ordained. ‘But let the slave who sees another cast into a shallow grave know that he will be buried in the same way when his day comes. Umuaro is today challenging its chi. Is there any man or woman in Umuaro who does not know Ulu, the deity that destroys a man when his life is sweetest to him? Some people are still talking of carrying war to Okperi. Do they think that Ulu will fight in blame? Today the world is spoilt and there is no longer head or tail in anything that is done. But Ulu is not spoilt with it. If you go to war to avenge a man who passed shit on the head of his mother’s father, Ulu will not follow you to be soiled in the corruption. Umuaro, I salute you.’ The meeting ended in confusion. Umuaro was divided in two. Many people gathered round Ezeulu and said they stood with him. But there were others who went with Nwaka. That night he held another meeting with them in his compound and they agreed that three or four Okperi heads must fall to settle the matter. Nwaka ensured that no one came to that night meeting from Ezeulu’s village, Umuachala. He held up his palm-oil lamp against the face of any village, Umuachala. He held up his palm-oil lamp against the face of any who came to see him clearly. Altogether he sent fifteen people away. Nwaka began by telling the assembly that Umuaro must not allow itself to be led by the Chief Priest of Ulu. ‘My father did not tell me that before Umuaro went to war it took leave from the priest of Ulu,’ he said. ‘The man who carries a deity is not a king. He is there to perform his god’s ritual and to carry sacrifice to him. But I have been watching this Ezeulu for many years. He is a man of ambition; he wants to be king, priest, diviner, all. His father, they said, was like that too. But Umuaro showed him that Igbo people knew no kings. The time has come to tell his son also. ‘We have no quarrel with Ulu. He is still our protector, even though we no longer fear Abam warriors at night. But I will not see with these eyes of mine his priest making himself lord over us. My father told me many things, but he did not tell me that Ezeulu was king in Umuaro. Who is he, anyway? Does anybody here enter his compound through the man’s gate? If Umuaro decided to have a king we know where he would come from. Since when did Umuachala become head of the six villages? We all know that it was jealousy among the big villages that made them give the priesthood to the weakest. We shall fight for our farmland and for the contempt Okperi has poured on us. Let us not listen to anyone trying to frighten us with the name of Ulu. If a man says yes his chi also says yes. And we have all heard how the people of Aninta dealt with their deity when he failed them. Did they not carry him to the boundary between them and their neighbours and set fire on him? I salute you.’ The war was waged from one Afo to the next. On the day it began Umuaro killed two men of Okperi. The next day was Nkwo, and so there Umuaro killed two men of Okperi. The next day was Nkwo, and so there was no fighting. On the two following days, Eke and Oye, the fighting grew fierce. Umuaro killed four men and Okperi replied with three, one of the three being Akukalia’s brother, Okoye. The next day, Afo, saw the war brought to a sudden close. The white man, Wintabota, brought soldiers to Umuaro and stopped it. The story of what these soldiers did in Abame was still told with fear, and so Umuaro made no effort to resist but laid down their arms. Although they were not yet satisfied they could say without shame that Akukalia’s death had been avenged, that they had provided him with three men on whom to rest his head. It was also a good thing perhaps that the war was stopped. The death of Akukalia and his brother in one and the same dispute showed that Ekwensu’s hand was in it. The white man, not satisfied that he had stopped the war, had gathered all the guns in Umuaro and asked the soldiers to break them in the face of all, except three or four which he carried away. Afterwards he sat in judgement over Umuaro and Okperi and gave the disputed land to Okperi.  Chapter Three Captain T. K. Winterbottom stood at the veranda of his bungalow on Government Hill to watch the riot of the year’s first rain. For the past month or two the heat had been building up to an unbearable pitch. The grass had long been burnt out, and the leaves of the more hardy trees had taken on the red and brown earth colour of the country. There was only two hours’ respite in the morning before the country turned into a furnace and perspiration came down in little streams from the head and neck. The most exasperating was the little stream that always coursed down behind the ear like a fly, walking. There was another moment of temporary relief at sundown when a cool wind blew. But this treacherous beguiling wind was the great danger of Africa. The unwary European who bared himself to it received the death-kiss. Captain Winterbottom had not known real sleep since the dry, cool harmattan wind stopped abruptly in December; and it was now mid- February. He had grown pale and thin, and in spite of the heat his feet often felt cold. Every morning after the bath which he would have preferred cold but must have hot to stay alive (since Africa never spared those who did what they liked instead of what they had to do), he looked into the mirror and saw his gums getting whiter and whiter. Perhaps another bout of fever was on the way. At night he had to imprison himself inside a mosquito-net which shut out whatever air movement there was outside. His bedclothes were sodden and his head movement there was outside. His bedclothes were sodden and his head formed a waterlogged basin on the pillow. After the first stretch of unrestful sleep he would lie awake, tossing about until he was caught in the distant throb of drums. He would wonder what unspeakable rites went on in the forest at night, or was it the heart-beat of the African darkness? Then one night he was terrified when it suddenly occurred to him that no matter where he lay awake at night in Nigeria the beating of the drums came with the same constancy and from the same elusive distance. Could it be that the throbbing came from his own heat-stricken brain? He attempted to smile it off but the skin on his face felt too tight. This dear old land of waking nightmares! Fifteen years ago Winterbottom might have been so depressed by the climate and the food as to have doubts about service in Nigeria. But he was now a hardened coaster, and although the climate still made him irritable and limp, he would not now exchange the life for the comfort of Europe. His strong belief in the value of the British mission in Africa was, strangely enough, strengthened during the Cameroon campaign of 1916 when he fought against the Germans. That was how he had got the title of captain but unlike many other colonial administrators who also saw active service in the Cameroon he carried his into peacetime. Although the first rain was overdue, when it did come it took people by surprise. Throughout the day the sun had breathed fire as usual and the world had lain prostrate with shock. The birds which sang in the morning were silenced. The air stood in one spot, vibrating with the heat; the trees hung limp. Then without any sign a great wind arose and the sky darkened. Dust and flying leaves filled the air. Palm trees and coconut trees swayed from their waists; their tops gave them the look of giants fleeing against the wind, their long hair streaming behind them. giants fleeing against the wind, their long hair streaming behind them. Winterbottom’s servant, John, rushed around closing doors and windows and picking up papers and photographs from the floor. Sharp and dry barks of thunder broke into the tumult. The world which had dozed for months was suddenly full of life again, smelling of new leaves to be born. Winterbottom, at the railing of his veranda, was also a changed man. He let the dust blow into his eyes and for once envied the native children running around naked and singing to the coming rain. ‘What are they saying?’ he asked John, who was now carrying in the deck-chairs. ‘Dem talk say make rain come quick quick.’ Four other children ran in from the direction of the Boys’ quarters to join the rest on Winterbottom’s lawn which was the only space big enough for their play. ‘Are all these your pickin, John?’ There was something like envy in his voice. ‘No, sir,’ said John, putting down the chair and pointing. ‘My pickin na dat two wey de run yonder and dat yellow gal. Di oder two na Cook im pickin. Di oder one yonder na Gardener him brodder pickin.’ They had to shout to be heard. The sky was now covered with restless, black clouds except at the far horizon where a narrow rim of lightness persisted. Long streaks of lightning cracked the clouds angrily and impatiently only to be wiped off again. When it began the rain fell like large pebbles. The children intensified their singing as the first frozen drops hit them. Sometimes it was quite painful, but it only made them laugh the more. They scrambled to pick up the frozen drops and throw them into their mouths before they melted. melted. It rained for almost an hour and stopped clean. The trees were washed green and the leaves fluttered happily. Winterbottom looked at his watch and it was almost six. In the excitement of the year’s first rain he had forgotten his tea and biscuits which John had brought in just before five; he picked up a biscuit and began to munch. Then he remembered that Clarke was coming to dinner and went to the kitchen to see what Cook was doing. Okperi was not a very big station. There were only five Europeans living on Government Hill: Captain Winterbottom, Mr Clarke, Roberts, Wade and Wright. Captain Winterbottom was the District Officer. The Union Jack flying in front of his bungalow declared he was the King’s representative in the district. He took the salute on Empire Day at the march past of all the school-children in the area – one of the few occasions when he wore his white uniform and sword. Mr Clarke was his Assistant District Officer. He was only four weeks old in the station, and had come to replace poor John Macmillan, who had died from cerebral malaria. The other Europeans did not belong to the Administration. Roberts was an Assistant Superintendent of Police in charge of the local detachment. Wade was in charge of the prison; he was also called Assistant Superintendent. The other man, Wright, did not really belong to the station. He was a Public Works Department man supervising the new road to Umuaro. Captain Winterbottom had already had cause to talk to him seriously about his behaviour, especially with native women. It was absolutely imperative, he told him, that every European in Nigeria, particularly those in such a lonely outpost as Okperi, should not lower themselves in the eyes of the natives. In such a place the District lower themselves in the eyes of the natives. In such a place the District Officer was something of a school prefect, and Captain Winterbottom was determined to do his duty. He would go as far as barring Wright from the club unless he showed a marked change. The club was the old Regimental Mess the army left behind when their work of pacification was done in these parts and then moved on. It was a small wooden bungalow containing the mess-room, ante-room, and a veranda. At present the mess-room was used as bar and lounge, the ante-room as library where members saw the papers of two or three months ago and read Reuter’s telegrams – ten words twice a week. Tony Clarke was dressed for dinner, although he still had more than an hour to go. Dressing for dinner was very irksome in the heat, but he had been told by many experienced coasters that it was quite imperative. They said it was a general tonic which one must take if one was to survive in this demoralizing country. For to neglect it could become the first step on the slippery gradient of ever profounder repudiations. Today was quite pleasant because the rain had brought some coolness. But there had been days when Tony Clarke had foregone a proper dinner to avoid the torment of a starched shirt and tie. He was now reading the final chapter of The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, by George Allen, which Captain Winterbottom had lent him. From time to time he glanced at his gold watch, a present from his father when he left home for service in Nigeria or, as George Allen would have said, to answer the call. He had now had the book for over a fortnight and must finish and take it back this evening. One of the ways in which the tropics were affecting him was the speed of his reading, although in its own right the book was also pretty dull; much too smug for his taste. But he was now finding the last few paragraphs quite stirring. The chapter was headed THE CALL. ‘For those seeking but a comfortable living and a quiet occupation Nigeria is closed and will be closed until the earth has lost some of its deadly fertility and until the people live under something like sanitary conditions. But for those in search of strenuous life, for those who can deal with men as others deal with material, who can grasp great situations, coax events, shape destinies and ride on the crest of the wave of time Nigeria is holding out her hands. For the men who in India have made the Briton the law-maker, the organizer, the engineer of the world this new, old land has great rewards and honourable work. I know we can find the men. Our mothers do not draw us with nervous grip back to the fireside of boyhood, back into the home circle, back to the purposeless sports of middle life; it is our greatest pride that they do – albeit tearfully – send us fearless and erect, to lead the backward races into line. “Surely we are the people!” Shall it be the Little Englander for whom the Norman fought the Saxon on his field? Was it for him the archers bled at Crecy and Poitiers, or Cromwell drilled his men? Is it only for the desk our youngsters read of Drake and Frobisher, of Nelson, Clive and men like Mungo Park? Is it for the counting-house they learn of Carthage, Greece and Rome? No, no; a thousand times no! The British race will take its place, the British blood will tell. Son after son will leave the Mersey, strong in the will of his parents today, stronger in the deed of his fathers in the past, braving the climate, taking the risks, playing his best in the game of life.’ ‘That’s rather good,’ said Mr Clarke, and glanced at his watch again. Captain Winterbottom’s bungalow was only two minutes’ walk away, so there was plenty of time. Before he came to Okperi Clarke had spent two months at Headquarters being broken in, and he would never forget the day he was invited to dinner by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor. For some curious reason he had imagined that the time was eight o’clock and arrived at Government House on the dot. The glittering Reception Hall was empty and Clarke would have gone into the front garden to wait had not one of the stewards come forward and offered him a drink. He sat uneasily on the edge of a chair with a glass of sherry in his hand, wondering whether he should not even now withdraw into the shade of wondering whether he should not even now withdraw into the shade of one of the trees in the garden until the other guests arrived. Then it was too late. Someone was descending the stairs at a run, whistling uninhibitedly. Clarke sprang to his feet. His Honour glowered at him for a brief moment before he came forward to shake hands. Clarke introduced himself and was about to apologize. But H.H. gave him no chance. ‘I was under the impression that dinner was at eight-fifteen.’ Just then his aide-de-camp came in and, seeing a guest, looked worried, shook his watch and listened for its ticking. ‘Don’t worry, John. Come and meet Mr Clarke who came a little early.’ He left the two together and went upstairs again. Throughout the dinner he never spoke to Clarke again. Very soon other guests began to arrive. But they were all very senior people and took no interest at all in poor Clarke. Two of them had their wives; the rest including H.H. were either unmarried or had wisely left their wives at home in England. The worst moment for Clarke came when H.H. led his guests into the Dining-Room and Clarke could not find his name anywhere. The rest took no notice; as soon as H.H. was seated they all took their places. After what looked to Clarke like hours the A.D.C. noticed him and sent one of the stewards to get a chair. Then he must have had second thoughts, for he stood up and offered his own place to Clarke. Captain Winterbottom was drinking brandy and ginger ale when Tony Clarke arrived. ‘It’s nice and cool today, thank God.’ ‘Yes, the first rain was pretty much overdue,’ said Captain Winterbottom. ‘I had no idea what a tropical storm looked like. It will be cooler now,  ‘I had no idea what a tropical storm looked like. It will be cooler now, I suppose.’ ‘Well, not exactly. It will be fairly cool for a couple of days that’s all. You see, the rainy season doesn’t really begin until May or even June. Do sit down. Did you enjoy that?’ ‘Yes, thank you very much. I found it most interesting. Perhaps Mr Allen is a trifle too dogmatic. One could even say a little smug.’ Captain Winterbottom’s Small Boy, Boniface, came forward with a silver tray. ‘What Massa go drink?’ ‘I wonder.’ ‘Why not try some Old Coaster?’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Brandy and ginger ale.’ ‘Right. That’s fine.’ For the first time he looked at the Small Boy in his starched white uniform and saw that he was remarkably handsome. Captain Winterbottom seemed to read his thought. ‘He’s a fine specimen, isn’t he? He’s been with me four years. He was a little boy of about thirteen – by my own calculation, they’ve no idea of years – when I took him on. He was absolutely raw.’ ‘When you say they’ve no idea of years…’ ‘They understand seasons, I don’t mean that. But ask a man how old he is and he doesn’t begin to have an idea.’ The Small Boy came back with the drink. ‘Thank you very much,’ said Mr Clarke as he took it. ‘Yessah.’ Thousands of flying ants swarmed around the tilley lamp on a stand at the far corner. They soon lost their wings and crawled on the floor. at the far corner. They soon lost their wings and crawled on the floor. Clarke watched them with great interest, and then asked if they stung. ‘No, they are quite harmless. They are driven out of the ground by the rain.’ The crawling ones were sometimes hooked up in twos at their tails. ‘It was rather interesting what you said about Allen. A little smug, I think you said.’ ‘That was the impression I had – sometimes. He doesn’t allow, for instance, for there being anything of value in native institutions. He might really be one of the missionary people.’ ‘I see you are one of the progressive ones. When you’ve been here as long as Allen was and understood the native a little more you might begin to see things in a slightly different light. If you saw, as I did, a man buried alive up to his neck with a piece of roast yam on his head to attract vultures you know… Well, never mind. We British are a curious bunch, doing everything half-heartedly. Look at the French. They are not ashamed to teach their culture to backward races under their charge. Their attitude to the native ruler is clear. They say to him: “This land has belonged to you because you have been strong enough to hold it. By the same token it now belongs to us. If you are not satisfied come out and fight us.” What do we British do? We flounder from one expedient to its opposite. We do not only promise to secure old savage tyrants on their thrones – or more likely filthy animal skins – we not only do that, but we now go out of our way to invent chiefs where there were none before. They make me sick.’ He swallowed what was left in his glass and shouted to Boniface for another glass. ‘I wouldn’t really mind if this dithering was left to old fossils in Lagos, but when young Political Officers get infected I just give up. If someone is positive we call him Officers get infected I just give up. If someone is positive we call him smug.’ Mr Clarke admitted that whatever judgement he made was made in ignorance and that he was open to correction. ‘Boniface!’ ‘Yessah.’ ‘Bring another drink for Mr Clarke.’ ‘No really I think I’ve had…’ ‘Nonsense. Dinner won’t be ready for another hour at least. Try something else if you prefer. Whisky?’ Clarke accepted another brandy with great reluctance. ‘That’s a very interesting collection of firearms.’ Mr Clarke had been desperately searching for a new subject. Then luckily he lit on a collection of quaint-looking guns arranged like trophies near the low window of the living-room. ‘Are they native guns?’ He had stumbled on a redeeming theme. Captain Winterbottom was transformed. ‘Those guns have a long and interesting history. The people of Okperi and their neighbours, Umuaro, are great enemies. Or they were before I came into the story. A big savage war had broken out between them over a piece of land. This feud was made worse by the fact that Okperi welcomed missionaries and government while Umuaro, on the other hand, has remained backward. It was only in the last four or five years that any kind of impression has been made there. I think I can say with all modesty that this change came about after I had gathered and publicly destroyed all firearms in the place except, of course, this collection here. You will be going there frequently on tour. If you hear anyone talking about Otiji-Egbe, you know they are talking about me. anyone talking about Otiji-Egbe, you know they are talking about me. Otiji-Egbe means Breaker of Guns. I am even told that all children born in that year belong to a new age-grade of the Breaking of the Guns.’ ‘That’s most interesting. How far is this other village, Umuaro?’ Clarke knew instinctively that the more ignorant he seemed the better. ‘Oh, about six miles, not more. But to the native that’s a foreign country. Unlike some of the more advanced tribes in Northern Nigeria, and to some extent Western Nigeria, the Ibos never developed any kind of central authority. That’s what our headquarters people fail to appreciate.’ ‘Yes. I see.’ ‘This war between Umuaro and Okperi began in a rather interesting way. I went into it in considerable detail… Boniface! How are you doing, Mr Clarke? Fine? You ought to drink more; it’s good for malaria… As I was saying, this war started because a man from Umuaro went to visit a friend in Okperi one fine morning and after he’d had one or two gallons of palm wine – it’s quite incredible how much of that dreadful stuff they can tuck away – anyhow, this man from Umuaro having drunk his friend’s palm wine reached for his ikenga and split it in two. I may explain that ikenga is the most important fetish in the Ibo man’s arsenal, so to speak. It represents his ancestors to whom he must make daily sacrifice. When he dies it is split in two; one half is buried with him and the other half is thrown away. So you can see the implication of what our friend from Umuaro did in splitting his host’s fetish. This was, of course, the greatest sacrilege. The outraged host reached for his gun and blew the other fellow’s head off. And so a regular war developed between the two villages, until I stepped in. I went into the question of the ownership of the piece of land which was the remote cause of all the unrest and found without any shade of doubt that it belonged to Okperi. I should mention that every witness who testified before me – from both sides without exception – perjured themselves. One thing you must remember in dealing with natives is that like children they are great liars. They don’t lie simply to get out of trouble. Sometimes they would spoil a good case by a pointless lie. Only one man – a kind of priest-king in Umuaro – witnessed against his own people. I have not found out what it was, but I think he must have had some pretty fierce tabu working on him. But he was a most impressive figure of a man. He was very light in complexion, almost red. One finds people like that now and again among the Ibos. I have a theory that the Ibos in the distant past assimilated a small non-negroid tribe of the same complexion as the Red Indians.’ Winterbottom stood up. ‘Now what about some dinner,’ he said.  Chapter Four In the five years since the white man broke the guns of Umuaro the enmity between Ezeulu and Nwaka of Umunneora grew and grew until they were at the point which Umuaro people called kill and take the head. As was to be expected this enmity spread through their two villages and before long there were several stories of poisoning. From then on few people from the one village would touch palm wine or kolanut which had passed through the hands of a man from the other. Nwaka was known for speaking his mind; he never paused to bite his words. But many people trembled for him that night in his compound when he had all but threatened Ulu by reminding him of the fate of another deity that failed his people. It was true that the people of Aninta burnt one of their deities and drove away his priest. But it did not follow that Ulu would also allow himself to be bullied and disgraced. Perhaps Nwaka counted on the protection of the personal god of his village. But the elders were not foolish when they said that a man might have Ngwu and still be killed by Ojukwu. But Nwaka survived his rashness. His head did not ache, nor his belly; and he did not groan in the middle of the night. Perhaps this was the meaning of the recitative he sang at the Idemili festival that year. He had a great Mask which he assumed on this and other important occasions. The Mask was called Ogalanya or Man of Riches, and at every Idemili festival crowds of people from all the villages and their neighbours came to the ilo of Umunneora to see this great Mask bedecked with mirrors and rich cloths of many colours. That year the Mask spoke a monologue full of boast. Some of those who knew the language of ancestral spirits said that Nwaka spoke of his challenge to Ulu. Folk assembled, listen and hear my words. There is a place, Beyond Knowing, where no man or spirit ventures unless he holds in his right hand his kith and in his left hand his kin. But I, Ogalanya, Evil Dog that Warms His Body through the Head, I took neither kith nor kin and yet went to this place. The flute called him Ogalanya Ajo Mmo, and the big drum replied. When I got there the first friend I made turned out to be a wizard. I made another friend and found he was a poisoner. I made my third friend and he was a leper. I, Ogalanya, who cuts kpom and pulls waa, I made friends with a leper from whom even a poisoner flees. The flute and the drum spoke again. Ogalanya danced a few steps to the right and then to the left, turned round sharply and saluted empty air with his matchet. I returned from my sojourn. Afo passed, Nkwo passed, Eke passed, Oye passed. Afo came round again. I listened, but my head did not ache, my belly did not ache; I did not feel dizzy. Tell me, folk assembled, a man who did this, is his arm strong or not? The crowd replied: ‘His arm is indeed very strong.’ The flute and all the drums joined in the reply. In the five years since these things happened people sometimes ask themselves how a man could defy Ulu and live to boast. It was better to say that it was not Ulu the man taunted; he had not called the god’s say that it was not Ulu the man taunted; he had not called the god’s name. But if it was, where did Nwaka get this power? For when we see a little bird dancing in the middle of the pathway we must know that its drummer is in the near-by bush. Nwaka’s drummer and praise-singer was none other than the priest of Idemili, the personal deity of Umunneora. This man, Ezidemili, was Nwaka’s great friend and mentor. It was he who fortified Nwaka and sent him forward. For a long time no one knew this. There were few things happening in Umuaro which Ezeulu did not know. He knew that the priest of Idemili and Ogwugwu and Eru and Udo had never been happy with their secondary role since the villages got together and made Ulu and put him over the older deities. But he would not have thought that one of them would go so far as to set someone to challenge Ulu. It was only the incident of the sacred python that opened Ezeulu’s eyes. But that was later. The friendship between Nwaka and Ezidemili began in their youth. They were often seen together. Their mothers had told them that they were born within three days of each other, Nwaka being the younger. They were good wrestlers. But in other ways they were very different. Nwaka was tall and of a light skin; Ezidemili was very small and black as charcoal; and yet it was he who had the other like a goat on a lead. Later their lives took different paths, but Nwaka still sought the other’s advice before he did any important thing. This was strange because Nwaka was a great man and a great orator who was called Owner of Words by his friends. It was his friendship with Ezidemili which gradually turned him into Ezeulu’s mortal enemy. One of the ways Ezidemili accomplished this was Ezeulu’s mortal enemy. One of the ways Ezidemili accomplished this was to constantly assert that in the days before Ulu the true leaders of each village had been men of high title like Nwaka. One day as Nwaka sat with Ezidemili in his obi drinking palm wine and talking about the affairs of Umuaro their conversation turned, as it often did, on Ezeulu. ‘Has anybody ever asked why the head of the priest of Ulu is removed from the body at death and hung up in the shrine?’ asked Ezidemili rather abruptly. It was as though the question having waited for generations to be asked had now broken through by itself. Nwaka had no answer to it. He knew that when an Ezeulu or an Ezidemili died their heads were separated from their body and placed in their shrine. But no one had ever told him why this happened. ‘In truth I do not know,’ he said. ‘I can tell you that even Ezeulu does not know.’ Nwaka emptied the wine in his horn and hit it twice on the floor. He knew that a great story was coming, but did not want to appear too expectant. He poured himself another hornful. ‘It is a good story, but I do not think that I have ever told it to anyone before. I heard it from the mouth of the last Ezidemili just before he died.’ He paused and drank a little from his horn. ‘This palm wine has water in it. Every boy in Umuaro knows that Ulu was made by our fathers long ago. But Idemili was there at the beginning of things. Nobody made it. Do you know the meaning of Idemili?’ Nwaka shook his head slightly because of the horn at his lips. ‘Idemili means Pillar of Water. As the pillar of this house holds the roof so does Idemili hold up the Raincloud in the sky so that it does not fall down. Idemili belongs to the sky and that is why I, his priest, cannot fall down. Idemili belongs to the sky and that is why I, his priest, cannot sit on bare earth.’ Nwaka nodded his head… Every boy in Umuaro knew that Ezidemili did not sit on bare earth. ‘And that is why when I die I am not buried in the earth, because the earth and the sky are two different things. But why is the priest of Ulu buried in the same way? Ulu has no quarrel with earth; when our fathers made it they did not say that his priest should not touch the earth. But the first Ezeulu was an envious man like the present one; it was he himself who asked his people to bury him with the ancient and awesome ritual accorded to the priest of Idemili. Another day when the present priest begins to talk about things he does not know, ask him about this.’ Nwaka nodded again in admiration and fillipped his fingers. The place where the Christians built their place of worship was not far from Ezeulu’s compound. As he sat in his obi thinking of the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves, he heard their bell: GOME, GOME, GOME, GOME, GOME. His mind turned from the festival to the new religion. He was not sure what to make of it. At first he had thought that since the white man had come with great power and conquest it was necessary that some people should learn the ways of his deity. That was why he had agreed to send his son, Oduche, to learn the new ritual. He also wanted him to learn the white man’s wisdom, for Ezeulu knew from what he saw of Wintabota and the stories he heard about his people that the white man was very wise. But now Ezeulu was becoming afraid that the new religion was like a leper. Allow him a handshake and he wants to embrace. Ezeulu had already spoken strongly to his son who was becoming more strange already spoken strongly to his son who was becoming more strange every day. Perhaps the time had come to bring him out again. But what would happen if, as many oracles prophesied, the white man had come to take over the land and rule? In such a case it would be wise to have a man of your family in his band. As he thought about these things Oduche came out from the inner compound wearing a white singlet and a towel which they had given him in the school. Nwafo came out with him, admiring his singlet. Oduche saluted his father and set out for the mission because it was Sunday morning. The bell continued ringing in its sad monotone. Nwafo came back to the obi and asked his father whether he knew what the bell was saying. Ezeulu shook his head. ‘It is saying: Leave your yam, leave your cocoyam and come to church. That is what Oduche says.’ ‘Yes,’ said Ezeulu thoughtfully. ‘It tells them to leave their yam and their cocoyam, does it? Then it is singing the song of extermination.’ They were interrupted by loud and confused talking inside the compound, and Nwafo ran out to see what it was. The voices were getting louder and Ezeulu who normally took no interest in women’s shouting began to strain his ear. But Nwafo soon rushed back. ‘Oduche’s box is moving,’ he said, out of breath with excitement. The tumult in the compound grew louder. As usual the voice of Ezeulu’s daughter, Akueke, stood out above all others. ‘What is called “Oduche’s box is moving”?’ he asked, rising with deliberate slowness to belie his curiosity. ‘It is moving about the floor.’ ‘There is nothing that a man will not hear nowadays.’ He went into his inner compound through the door at the back of his obi. Nwafo ran past him to the group of excited women outside his mother’s hut. Akueke and Matefi did most of the talking. Nwafo’s mother, Ugoye, was speechless. Now and again she rubbed her palms together and showed them to the sky. Akueke turned to Ezeulu as soon as she saw him. ‘Father, come and see what we are seeing. This new religion…’ ‘Shut your mouth,’ said Ezeulu, who did not want anybody, least of all his own daughter, to continue questioning his wisdom in sending one of his sons to join the new religion. The wooden box had been brought from the room where Oduche and Nwafo slept and placed in the central room of their mother’s hut where people sat during the day. The box, which was the only one of its kind in Ezeulu’s compound, had a lock. Only people of the church had such boxes made for them by the mission carpenter and they were highly valued in Umuaro. Oduche’s box was not actually moving; but it seemed to have something inside it struggling to be free. Ezeulu stood before it wondering what to do. Whatever was inside the box became more violent and actually moved the box around. Ezeulu waited for it to calm down a little, bent down and carried the box outside. The women and children scattered in all directions. ‘Whether it be bad medicine or good one, I shall see it today,’ he said as he carried the box at arm’s length like a potent sacrifice. He did not pass through his obi, but took the door in the red-earth wall of his compound. His second son, Obika, who had just come in followed him. Nwafo came closely behind Obika, and the women and children followed fearfully at a good distance. Ezeulu looked back and asked Obika to bring him a matchet. He took the box right outside his compound and finally put it down by the side of the common footpath. He looked back and saw Nwafo and the women and children. ‘Every one of you go back to the house. The inquisitive monkey gets a bullet in the face.’ They moved back not into the compound but in front of the obi. Obika took a matchet to his father who thought for a little while and put the matchet aside and sent him for the spear used in digging up yams. The struggling inside the box was as fierce as ever. For a brief moment Ezeulu wondered whether the wisest thing was not to leave the box there until its owner returned. But what would it mean? That he, Ezeulu, was afraid of whatever power his son had imprisoned in a box. Such a story must never be told of the priest of Ulu. He took the spear from Obika and wedged its thin end between the box and its lid. Obika tried to take th