My grandmother, her gods and I (Part III)
In Awka, my ancestral village is named Amudo – the land of peace. It presented such a prestigious position in the hierarchy of prominence amongst all other villages, about 33 of them, that made up the constituted town of Awka. Amudo lived up to its significant name in all aspect of life and existence. It complimented every good thing about the town. Awka, a town that is situated about 40 miles east of Onitsha, was regarded as the best and largest town in Igbo land, with the exception, perhaps, of the old Aro. The majority of the people were blacksmiths, who in pursuance of their skills and craft in blacksmithing, traveled to every part of Igbo land and even beyond its borders, spreading and perfecting their trade in the formation, manufacturing and repairs of various forms of iron and brass – guns, farming and other tools, and ornaments. They were also great carvers and woodwork experts. Awka people were the largest and most proficient gunmakers in Igbo land, and for this, they never seemed to be molested or invaded as they kept the peace with all their neighbours. Awka men and women lived very clean lives, and carried themselves with a dignified air of earned importance and swagger, and with such pride, but without arrogance.
The town had no King, but was structured within a properly stratified democracy that entrusted the headship of the affairs in the hands of the oldest male. If one wanted to lead the Awka people, he must indulge the benevolence of God to allow him outlive others. This form of governance worked so well, as the indisputable leader of the town was often supported and assisted by all, in his conduct of the affairs of the town within the ambit of distinctively laid – out rules, laws and regulations. Until “modernizations” polluted the town with the “kingship” aberration, Awka was a peaceful and well-structured democracy.
I was thrilled and enthralled with the intricacies of the skills of the blacksmith. There was something authentic about this trade. The esemplastic processes in the skills of a blacksmith were so resplendent to me. The assiduousness of it, presented a profession that upheld a constant application of dedicated effort of diligence at the tasks of an industrious and meticulous indefatigable profession. I wanted to be a blacksmith, principally because of my zealous love for guns and mechanical objects.
Without hesitation, I found my way to my father’s nephew’s blacksmithing workshop. Nwafa immediately employed me as a bellow-boy – his handy boy who bellowed the fire for his iron work. The manually operated bellow required a rhythmic sequence of a pair of devices constructed to furnish a strong blast of air through a pair of rigid boards with handles joined by flexible leather sides enclosing an airtight cavity which when filled with compressed air, blows on a fire to support it with air. This simple but intricate mechanism provides the blacksmith with a powerful and functional furnace for iron smelting. I worked this bellow with such musical proficiency, with Nwafa who was a great musician as well, supplying the voice and lyrics to the musical sounds of my bellowing. He did not pay me for my effort, but for every 10 snares or traps he manufactured, I was given one, and for every 20 dane guns he made, I was allowed to sell one and keep the revenue. The most valuable income I earned from working in the shop, was that I learned the skills and trade of gun-making. I also learnt how to make and play gongs used for the local music for various masquerades. These were very valuable lessons that I acquired by working at the blacksmith’s workshop, during my runaway trip to Awka.
I began to learn from Nwafa how to play the metal gongs forged in his workshop for the different masquerades, as each had its own peculiar form and pace of musical styles and sounds. The Agaba, Mgbedike and Okwomma masquerades had fast-paced and radicalized patterns, while the Idu, Okunambala and the Akum masquerades adopted slow paced and measured rhythms that suited their more subdued and milder temperaments. The songs were suitably allotted to these nomenclatures. I learned and perfected every little detail of the various forms of these musical aspects. My dexterity obtained within such a short period, baffled the natives who thought very little about the cultural acculturation of a city boy like myself. I adapted with effortless ease to the process of social, psychological, and cultural changes that I encountered in the village. I balanced the local culture by adapting to the prevailing mixtures of the cultures of the city of Kano, allowing myself to assimilate seamlessly with the local practices in Awka.
As the Imoka Festivals became imminent, I noticed that big masquerades that passed through our village on their way to the Imoka Shrine, called the Olulu, the venue of the festival, made detours into our compound, and together with their musical groups, stopped by to pay my grandmother respect. This was completely unusual as females, no matter their ages in most Igbo culture and tradition are not allowed anywhere near masquerades. It was an abomination for any woman to venture near a masquerade. It was forbidden, and the punishment for the flouting of this order, was dire and severe. I could not then, understand why they made exceptions for my grandmother.
READ ALSO: My grandmother, her gods and I (1)
My grandmother, her gods and I (Part II)
My grandmother’s charm and allure transcended many boundaries. One could not help but admire the rapid ascendency and elevation of Igwego Dike beyond the limitations of our culture and tradition when it pertained to the gender dichotomy that limited the participation of women in activities of masquerading in Awka in particular, and in Igbo land at large. My grandmother’s exemption from these limitations and discriminatory practice, was rare, and I believe, was in recognition of her status in the society, and her position in the upper echelon of our traditional hierarchy.
What most people could agree on, however, was that this elevated privilege and position granted to my grandmother, was earned from the consistent courtship that had existed between her and the powerful men of the society. The fruits of her pedigree, her industry and hard work, her decorum and her steadfastness, earned her an elevated place in the room full of men. She had become a man – she even married a woman as a companion and helper when her husband died.
This young woman became legally married to my grandmother, and bore her 3 children, all fathered by relations. My grandmother was powerful. She was a true multi-hyphenate; a woman, a grand dame, a wife, a husband, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother, and above all, a High Priest. Her life was most fascinating and presented an important conversation for our collective optimism in unraveling and understanding our culture and its advancement. She became everything that most successful men were, or desired to be – a great farmer, a large barn owner, the owner of large expanse of farm lands. She was a completely fulfilled person,and once told me that the meaning of success was not in counting how many yams one has in the barn, or how many goats or cows one possesses, but in the practice every day, of a life full of kindness and humility. She preached this sermon always, teaching me that to be great and successful, one must have soul, otherwise your greatness and success are meaningless.
The great Imoka Festival arrived and I was in the center of it all. I followed in the miles-long procession of masquerades that stretched from the Olulu Imoka to the outpost village of Umuokpu. This ritualistic visit to Umuokpu was a symbol of love and absolute kindred ablution and spiritual renewal of sort between all Awka indigenes. It was a process that enabled all masquerades and other participants who undertake the arduous walk to the village of Umuokpu, to kind of wash away all bad omens and enter back into a life of absolute cleansing and purity.
As all the masquerades and thousands of festival visitors gathered at the Imoka Shrine field, the masquerades engaged in flogging and whipping of anyone that entered the square. I got several whipping with bloody lacerations all over my back and legs. The canes were strong and caused a lot of pain. I took turns flogging others. It was a painful fun and an exhibition of strength and endurance.
From nowhere, I felt a jolt from behind, with a familiar voice screaming my name: “Okey, is that you… what are you doing here … so you are alive and well …? Oh my God, this boy will kill his parents ooo…” I turned, and there was Uncle Charlie Nwogbo, grabbing and shaking me violently. He was the father of Emeke and Clem, and was sure glad to see me, but was upset that I ran away from home. Uncle Charlie was one of my father’s closest relations who lived on Niger road, the next street from us in Kano. He had just returned the previous day to attend the Imoka Festival. I knew that my cover was blown. I broke away from him, and began to run back to my grandmother’s home still clutching the bunch of whips that I used to inflict pain on my fellow masqueraders. I instantly knew that my father was on his way to Awka the next day to get me, and my plan B was kicking in.
I rushed into my grandmother’s compound panting. She knew that something ominous was amiss. She held me and was trying to calm me down with questions about what was wrong. Before I could respond, the bulky Uncle Charlie had entered the compound puffing and gasping for air, as he had pursued me all the way from the festival venue. He began to narrate to my grandmother how my disappearance has thrown the entire city of Kano upside down, and how much pain I had caused my parents. My grandmother listened attentively to him without uttering a word. She only nodded gently to Uncle Charlie’s prolixity and verbiage. When he was done, my grandmother bid him goodbye, and took me into her room to nurse my bruised back and legs from the whippings I had received at the festival. She took off my shirt and began to dab the wounds with a cloth and liquid substance that smelled strange. Her touch was soothing and her kindness made the pain disappear. But the pain that remained etched in my mind and disturbing me terribly, was the face of my father storming his mother’s home to retrieve his missing son.
I had a sleepless night staying up and hatching another plan of taking off very early to go hide in my maternal grandmother’s home in the neighboring town of Amawbia. I was sure that my mother’s mother who was such a loving Christian woman would admit me to her home, but will be the first to inform my mother of my whereabouts. As ideas were floating in my head, my grandmother opened the door and entered the bedroom. She made herself comfortable by the bed and began to console me, telling me that the time to go back to Kano had arrived. She assured me that, in the morning, we will jointly make a sacrifice to one of her gods that was versatile in granting reprieve and mercy to soften my father’s heart. I was all for it, as I waited the morning to arrive.
As early as 7:00am, my grandmother had dressed up in her priestly attire of white garment and a clean pure white headscarf. Her ankles were adorned with corral beads. This morning, she was going to transcend the multiplicity of gods in her shrine and go straight to the high god called Chukwu – the Great Spirit. She was about to consult the all-powerful, all-knowing divinity who she regarded as the maker of the cosmos, and the creator of all the minor gods that make up the Awka pantheon. According to Chinua Achebe, in his novel “Anthill of the Savannah”; “Among the Igbo of Awka a man who arrives at a point in his life when he needs to set up a shrine to his chi (personal god) will invite a priest to perform a ritual of bringing down the spirit from the face of the Sun at daybreak”.
My grandmother who believed that Chukwu inhabits the sky and is often associated with the Sun, was presenting my matter before Chukwu as the Sun rose. My grandmother slaughtered a big white cock and sprinkled the blood on the god chanting praises and calling for an urgent intervention in a matter that was troubling her mind, and disturbing the peace of her grandson. She raised her voice to tones and pitches that I had never heard her do in the past. She was in a trance. As she pontified from a high wooden carved stool with me sitting on the bare floor, I could hear desperation in her voice, and I detected a sense of urgency in her supplication. She was garrulous and had a heliocentric gaze at the rising sun. She suddenly became fervent, passionately and intensely showing enthusiasm. She continued to adjudicate and make formal forceful plea about my problem and matter. My grandmother’s mansuetude, at the moment, disappeared. She was no longer meek or gentle, and was ready to do battle with her god in order to extract the god’s favourable intervention.
My grandmother’s morning ritual was elegiac, it was characteristic of an elegy; haunting, depressing, morbid, bleak and saturine. I was afraid that this god may be upset with me, and may not take kindly to my grandmother’s forceful plea. I was downcast and feared for the worst. Fearing that she may have lost my fellowship, she turned from her god and began to speak to me directly. She told me a story that was so somber and has chilled my heart for the remaining period of my entire life and being, the story of how her father died.
My grandmother’s prose was vividly inviting and fluid, and her storytelling skills were intimate and clear. She had her own unique voice, and ultimately used it to establish herself as an enigma in the rendering of her history and its stories with an unbelievably strong and lasting insight. Her stories served as springboards for a mania that was more contained and even malleable, and eventually steering in directions that left the recipient in no doubt about the value and authenticity of her tales. The validity of my grandmother’s stories stayed indelibly clear and clean in my head, giving me shivers when I compare what and how she told her stories, some 60 years ago, to today’s storytellers, otherwise referred to as conspiracy theorists, who advance their tales all around entertainment, unrealistic absurdist narratives woven around hate, racism, bigotry and tribal and religious grudges with very little obligation to truth and decency. My grandmother, a raconteur, instead, in her story-telling effulgence, offered hope, compassion and truthfulness.
She cleared her throat as if she had a big lump and a physical burden hidden between her throat and her mouth. She waited for a long minute before she began to talk about her father and the deadly fate he suffered. My grandmother’s father, Dike Nwancho was one of the most prominent men in Igbo land in the late 1800s. He was a very rich and successful farmer, trader and one of those who made early contacts with the white explorers that invaded Africa. He became a community leader and one of the highest ranking title holders in Awka. He was a well-respected and revered man. He carried himself with such dignity and flair that the mere mention of his name evoked sensational accolades and reverence.
As a mark of his power, his wealth and prestige, he had married many wives and extended his reign of power and influence beyond Awka to neighboring towns and domains. Above all, he was a very tall and a dashingly handsome man, with an exquisite sense of style and character. He exuded such charisma that stood Dike Nwancho out as one of the best and brightest in the entire town.
My grandmother began to tell me the story of how her father died within a certain poetic concept. It appeared that she was deliberately withholding certain parts of the story that I think she may have considered sepulchral or saturnine for a child to hear and absorb. I was all ears and with my mouth agape in wonderment, almost swallowed the old woman, as she discarded her traditional use of literary consonance, and spoke only in vowels.
Dike Nwancho and his immediate relations had been wronged, threatened and attacked by a notorious local troublemaker, and during the melee that ensued, the man who was the aggressor lost his life. The death of the troublemaker caused an uproar in the town that attracted the attention of the white colonial administrators. The local traditional authorities in Awka sat over the matter, and found the Dikes not guilty. However, for some inextricable reason, the white administrators insisted that the British court system that they had set up with its alien judicial procedures, must hear and determine the case which they termed to be a murder matter. They heard the case, and found the Dike party in the matter, guilty of murder with a death sentence by hanging passed on the Patriarch of the family, Dike Nwancho, my grandmother’s father.
Against Dike Nwancho’s wishes, his family whisked him away from the court premises to a hideout. He was hidden in one of my grandmother’s farms from where he would sneak into her house at nights for a bath and a good night’s sleep, until the next early morning when he would return to his safe house in the faraway farm. This dangerous routine continued as the colonial authorities were desperately searching for the fugitive from the law and from the hangman’s noose all over the town and the environs.
My grandmother as she recounted this somber tale, looked up in the sky over her shrine in a failed attempt to hold back tears dropping from her eyes and onto her sacrifices to her gods. But she continued, only this time, with lonely caution and trepidation. The hide-and-seek continued, until one day, the brave Dike Nwancho refused to return to the forest, insisting that as a man, he was ready to go take his punishment. He was ready to report to the authorities, even if he considered them to be out of order, and he, an innocent man, whose only crime was the defence of his family. He prepared himself with rapid and volcanic incantations before his daughter’s shrine speaking in deep incoherent native tongue and dialect that was even difficult for his daughter to decipher. According to my grandmother, her father, at that point had “swallowed his life in his stomach”, and was no longer human. He was communicating with his ancestors telling them to get ready to receive him. And to his gods, he asked why, despite his goodness to them, and to the world, they let him down, by allowing the white man, to not only invade his world, capture, enslave, rape and torture his people, and now were about to hang him?
My grandmother rose up from her stool and began to pace the compound muttering words that were strangely inaudible to me, not because of the low tone of her voice, but because of the deep dialectic difficulties inherent in the words she spoke – there are lgbo words, and there are Igbo words, many you may know, but some, you may never understand.
As my grandmother got back closer to me, she began to narrate her sordid story, but this time, with audible wailing and loud sobbing. I was overwhelmed with grief. Although I did not meet my about-to-be-hung great grandfather, I had heard so much about him and how he was one of the greatest products of the Awka people. He had raised a remarkable dynasty, and established an unsurpassed reputation of a gigantic giant amongst giants in all fields of endeavour. Now, his life was about to be vanquished under questionable circumstances, and surprisingly, the story from my grandmother was the first time I was hearing about how he died.
At this point in the tale, my grandmother exhibited a high level of avidity; an extreme eagerness or enthusiasm to end the story. This behaviour in my grandmother’s storytelling style that she rarely showed, signaled to me her unwillingness to continue with the story. She could not leave me in a limbo without finishing the story, so l asked her what became of Dike Nwancho.
In a soft but sorrowful voice, Igwego Dike finished the story: “My father was a great man. He went to the wicked whiteman, with a noose in his hand, and reported to take his punishment like a man… he refused to be a coward, he stopped running from death… He was a Dike, a bold and courageous man… They hung him and he died like a hero, like a champion without an iota of blemish… They killed my father, the symbol of life… the man who gave life and succour to many, to the poor, the sick, the widow and the hungry… Okechukwu nwam, my father is not dead… look up in the sky and you would see him smiling at us, and carrying your light so that you can see and never stumble.”
My grandmother stopped, and did not speak for what seemed like eternity. There was dead silence, the type you hear in a deserted graveyard. There were no chirping of birds or the twittering, of crickets, nor the stridulating harmony of any animal’s sounds. The silence was getting disturbing and uncomfortable. When I observed that my grandmother was transfixed with her eyes closed and clasping her hands in-between her two knees, I knew that she was not to be disturbed, so I kept my peace also, but refusing to shut my eyes for fear that Dike Nwancho may suddenly appear. That solemn moment remained etched in my life for a very long time.
Dike Nwancho accompanied by my grandfather, his son-in-law, and a multitude of other matured male relations, with a noose in his hands, submitted himself to the white District Officer. They took him to the village square adjacent to the court house where an already set up gallow was, and hung him. The hangman’s noose was affixed around his neck and released exactly at noon, when the sun was very high and centered on everyone’s head. Once the death boom was released, the entire town was engulfed in total darkness followed with thunderous lightening and torrential rain. This ominous happening signaled that a great man’s life was unjustly taken, and the gods were registering their anger.
My grandmother’s father exhibited immense bravery with courage, abhorring cowardice that even in death, earned him high honour. His daughter’s solemn and cautionary memory recall of this tragic story told to an eight – year old great grandson, was a trenchant moment in the history of the Igbo and in their cultural evolution. As I placed my faith in humanity’s capacity for rebirth and innovation as a means of digging up our history, I still cannot shake off the cruel history that capped my family’s inescapable destiny and the persistent reminder of the scourge of some issues that have animated me as a child growing up under such huge history; a period that invariably has become foundational to our own identities as Igbo people, and ultimately, as human beings.
My grandmother was completely exhausted. The telephone messenger from WO’s house arrived to ask my grandmother to come immediately to receive a call from her son, my father. This time, the messenger conveyed rapt urgency to the message. My grandmother ignored the messenger, and after the messenger had returned for the fourth time, asked that she never be disturbed about any telephone calls again. At that point, it was obvious that my father was on his way to Awka to get his son. With panic in my voice, l asked my grandmother what she thought my punishment was going to be. She looked at me and uttered these words: “Okechukwu nwam, stay put here and meet your father… don’t run away again, and like my father did, stay here and receive your punishment like a man … what we all sow, we must all reap… be strong, be courageous… and our gods will always defend you…”
At that moment, my otherwise energetic grandmother, had become frangible. She was instantly fragile and brittle, refusing to eat her breakfast. She called for her local “doctor” who was an old lady, that was nearing one hundred years of age. Even as my grandmother was touted as the village “doctor” versed in the making and dispensing of local medicines, she had a specialist in the old lady. My grandmother never took any conventional medicines. She cured herself and others of malaria, guinea worm, pneumonia, stomach ulcers, and all other diseases one can imagine. The specialist old lady was only responsible for my grandmother’s chiropractic and arthritis issues. I witnessed the old local “doctor” perform a procedure called ichi mbo, a process that involved the cutting of the skin at the points of pain and discomfort with a sharp razor-like knife, and the sucking up of the blood using a suction-like object made of calabash to extract the bad blood from the body. Once this procedure was completed on my grandmother, she became reinvigorated and well again.
At about 7pm, my father arrived Awka accompanied by 4 of his staff in 2 vehicles to retrieve his lost son. He alighted from his chauffeured vehicle, took a short glance at me, and walked past me into his mother’s bedroom. “Good evening, sir”, I said to him, and he ignored me. I shouted out another “Good evening, Papa”, and he snubbed me, and banged the door to his mother’s room in my face. I pressed my ear tightly to the huge thick mahogany wooden door to listen to the likely commotion coming from mother and son going at it over a little boy of 8. All I could hear was my grandmother’s booming voice admonishing my father to calm down and listen to her. Hear her: “Chuma, Okechukwu may have done wrong, but he is only a child… do you not remember the many wrongs and troubles you and your brothers brought upon me growing up? Did I kill any one of you? Did I not take all of that and still raised you to be great and successful…?
Your father died young, leaving me alone, Igwego Dike to bear the tough burden of raising you children… Did I not do a great Job?” My father tried to interject, but my grandmother interrupted with these strong words: “If I hear pim from you, I will put you across my laps and flog you … don’t you ever think that you are too big to receive a whipping from me… you are still my child and I have every right over everything you do or have… Okechukwu must never be touched by you… take your son and return him to his mother in Kano… if he is punished, you better come home to bury me…”
With that, my father meekly left his mother’s room pushing the door as I stumbled to the floor from the force of the door that was pushed against my eavesdropping ears. We prepared and left for Kano the next morning to a tumultuous welcome reminiscent of the prodigal son biblical story. My mother in tears, received me with a lavish dinner as visitors trooped our home to take a glimpse at the rascal that threw the entire city of Kano into panic.
Until my father died at the age of 100 years, he never discussed this incident with me, instead we reestablished and rekindled a long-lasting friendship that endured forever.
(This story series ends here. To continue on how my grandmother’s life was brutally taken by Nigerian Soldiers during the Biafra war, go to my book; Biafra, The Horrors of War, The Story of a Child Soldier. It is available on Amazon and the following bookstores: Quintessence Nig. Ltd, Roving Heights Books, Quramo Publishing, Laterna Ventures Ltd., Gbadamosi Bookshop, Murtala Mohammed 1, Ikeja – Lagos, The P.N.C Bookshop G.A.T II Arrival Hall Local Airport, Ikeja – Lagos, Dannic Hotel in New Haven Enugu, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Bookshop Awka, Anambra State. Etc.)
- Okey Anueyiagu, a professor of political economy is the author of: Biafra, The Horrors of War, The Story of A Child Soldier.