‘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 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 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.
‘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 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 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 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 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 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.
‘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 had done an unforgivable thing.