Peterson was walking along the beaten path, whistling his favourite tune of Oriental Brothers International music. He was barely four feet tall with all the features of a little boy. His face was hairless, and his scalp was covered with thick, black curly hair which he allowed to grow into an afro. Peterson could have been described as a midget but that would be a wrong description because his features were very regular. His head was proportional to his body, his legs were straight and even. With his special features, it was no wonder that most children made the grave error of thinking he was their mate. He was just coming from Amanze's house. Amanze had been his friend for more than a decade since he retired from the civil service and returned to spend his retirement in his country home. There, Peterson met Amanze's grandson, Kamsi that visited Amanze with his mother because it was a long vacation.
Kamsi was four years old but he was as tall as Peterson. While Peterson had a conversation with Amanze on the balcony, Kamsi went into his grandpa's room and materialized with his walking stick, made of wood that was made from a small tree that was forced to bend while growing, thereby forming the handle. With every good intention, he brought the stick next to Peterson and measured the man's height.
With an equal amount of good intention, Kamsi exclaimed, "Wow. Grandpa's walking stick is taller than you."
Peterson was intimately acquainted with his height, but he was not expecting a toddler to remind him that his height was not up to par. He looked at the boy to determine if he seriously measured him against a walking stick, but Kamsi was done with his experiment and he quietly walked away to return the stick back to his grandpa's bedroom. Amanze, on the other hand sat there and pretended the boy did not say anything, and after a few minutes, the awkward moment passed. After Peterson left, he began to hum his favourite tunes to calm his nerves. If that boy was older, Peterson thought, he would have received the business end of my boot. As he walked, the gong sounded, reminding him of why he had gone to Amanze's house: their in-laws were arriving any moment and they needed to assemble in their ancestral home to receive them.
Peterson did not know who was getting married. The information he had was that the girl was born and lived in the United States of America. It did not matter that he had never met her or any member of her family. She was a daughter of his kindred and that was all that mattered. Peterson lived for these events. It was the tradition. If any person decided that they had lived abroad long enough that they were no longer bound by the culture of their kindred, then they might as well remain there. As Peterson liked to say, he would be waiting for them at Amen. By that, he meant that he would wait until such people died. The traditions were established such that one cannot practice them when they wanted and turn around to ignore them when it does not suit their needs.
There were traditional guidelines for everything starting from birth. When a child was born, the women observed the traditions concerning childbirth celebration that involved invitation of their in-laws and certain practices. If such in-laws were not invited to celebrate childbirth, they might claim ignorance of the existence of such a child if they were invited to the wedding of such a child eventually. And one could not hope that the elders would forget because the information is passed along to the younger generation as time passed. So the only way to avoid the traditions was to avoid it completely but to avoid it completely was tantamount to uprooting oneself from one's home, never to return. Peterson smiled at the wisdom of his ancestors who had laid this foundation.
By the time Peterson arrived, there were twelve senior men seated in front of the bride's father's residence under a canopy. Each man had a cup of palm wine in his hand and, Peterson did not waste time to grab a cup and fill it up. Under a separate shelter sat about two dozen men and women who Peterson presumed were their prospective in-laws. He sat down, drank from the cup and made a face.
"This wine is sour. Who brought this wine here?" he demanded as if the person was in real trouble. His fellow kinsmen concurred that the wine was of bad quality and was unacceptable. Each one refilled his cup until there was nothing left in the kegs. When the last drop had been poured into the cup of the eldest among them, he cleared his throat loudly and asked:
"Who brought this wine and all the goodies in front of us and for what purpose?"
Nne, the bride, was in her room getting ready for the ceremony. It was Frank, a friend of Nne's who hailed from Neji's village that answered the question. Frank was fairly new to traditional marriages so he found it odd that these men should empty the kegs of wine before asking to know the purpose of it. However, he knew that it was going to be a difficult task when he accepted to be the intermediary between Nne's family and Neji's family.
"Elders of Umunkwo, I greet. Our in-laws, I greet you all," he responded. "It is said that the frog does not run in the daytime for running sake; either it is chasing prey, or a predator is after it. We are the friends and family of Neji Asuquo's family. We are here today because our son, Neji has found something beautiful and sweet in your household and this is our way of knocking on your door to ask of her."
Peterson landed on the centre stage. By then he had had his fair share of the wine. The effect of the wine was visible in him by the way he moved from one foot to the other like someone standing on hot coals. He did not quite stagger, perhaps because of the size of his legs or maybe it was due to his centre of gravity being so low. He was perspiring profusely, on his nose only. The in-laws were tempted to ask the Umunkwo people to take away the child so that the bride price negotiations could begin. They were glad for their show of restraint when they learned that Peterson was no child. Peterson addressed the crowd for five minutes, but no one heard a single word he spoke because of how he tended to draw one word into the next whenever he was drunk. When he was done, he returned to his seat. Then the two parties brought out their list of requirements for marriage. The in-laws had obtained the list about a week before that date, so they were prepared to meet the requirements of that list or at least they thought they were.
Nne's parents had told her long ago that the bride price in their community was five Naira. So when Neji showed her the list that her people had prepared for him to pay, she could not believe it. She had told Neji to ignore it, suggesting that they could elope or better still do a church wedding and court wedding. She did not understand why the approval of a bunch of old men she had never met in her life mattered. She had admitted as much to her father who was a practising cardiothoracic surgeon in the US, but he insisted that the traditional wedding mattered.
"Then, come home and conduct it yourself," she suggested.
"Believe me; everything would be ten times more difficult and more expensive if I show up there. You guys will figure it out. I know you will," he said over the phone.
It was the Umunkwo people that supplied their in-laws with the bride price list, but as they both began to cross items off the list, it seemed that the Umunkwo people had an entirely different menu from the one their in-laws had because no single thing on the two lists seemed to match; the in-laws were always short on the requirements. Each time the in-laws presented a list item, there would be arguments on how the article was not enough. Nne was getting increasingly infuriated by her people's antics that she called one of the eldest men into her room. He could see that she was fuming.
Before Nne could say what was on her mind, they both heard noises outside. Gongs were being beaten, and there were loud voices. Nne and the elder went to see what was happening and they saw more than twenty young men, most of them shirtless, demanding to be paid off, or else they would not allow their visitors to leave the village with Nne. Some of them carried sticks, and others carried machetes. They looked formidable, but the old man did not seem bothered once he realised who they were. He pulled Nne by the arm back into the room and asked her to ignore the commotion outside.
"With all due respect," she began. Well, this one still has it well under control, he thought, keeping his face as expressionless as a hole in the wall.
"Yes, continue, my daughter," he said, trying to will genuine concern onto his very wrinkled face.
"Sir, this list seems endless and my suitor is losing patience," she lied. "If you continue hiking the cost of this bride price, he might change his mind, and I would be left with no choice to return to this village and take the king's throne as my father should have done."
"My daughter, you are right about that. Your father is the rightful heir to the king's throne, but with him not here, it falls to you, but I daresay that this is not your main concern. Please take a look at this list and tell me, can you help me identify where it said 'Bride Price'?" he asked handing over the long list to her. She thought he was asking because his eyes were bad or he could not read. She looked through the list, but there was no bride price on the list. The only thing that came close to it was "Bride Calabash", and the only money mentioned in the list was five Naira.
"There you have it. The bride price is five Naira which would be placed in that calabash. In truth, the bride price is so little that the government does not make it anymore. The palm-wine tapper in this village gets married. The cobbler gets married. Did you see that beggar near the Nkwo market? He got married. One thing is for sure: no matter how rich you are, you are going to have difficulties marrying one of our daughters, and it is not possible to meet all the requirements, we make sure of that because we are not selling you to him. When he remembers what he went through to marry you, he would not want to go through it again. It is also for that reason that we do not conclude marriages in one day. Our in-laws must become conversant with us and us with them because this relationship is not for a day," he concluded.
"How about those boys outside?"
"Do not worry, my daughter. What we are doing here is tying a knot the calloused hand of an elder; no child can untie it. Their needs shall be met," he assured her
Nne was smiling by the time the elderly man went back to continue the negotiation. She watched as different emotions registered on Neji's face as they went through the ceremony. By the time the negotiations were over, and Nne was invited to identify the man that had come to marry her, Neji was filled with a sense of accomplishment for having met the requirements of his in-laws. When she found him in the crowd, in the midst of his friends and family, she knelt and handed him the drink she carried in her hands, he drank from the cup and stood. They both danced with arms linked to receive the blessings of both families. Neji was filled with pride as he looked at the beauty in his arm and he never looked at her differently again.
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