My friends all, like the sonorous proverb do we drum the agidigbo; it is the wise who dance to it, and
the learned who understand its language. The story which follows is a veritable agidigbo; it is I who will
drum it, and you the wise heads who will interpret it. Our elders have a favourite proverb—are you not dying to ask me how it goes?—they tell it thus, ‘When our masquerade dances well, our heads swell and do a spin.’ Forgive my forwardness, it is the proverb which speaks.
Now I do not want you to dance to my drumming as a mosquito to the deep bembe drums, its legs
twitching haphazardly, at loggerheads with the drums. Dance my friends, in harmony, with joy and laughter, that your audience may ring your brows with coins and pave your path with clothing; that men may prostrate before you and women curtsey in sheer pleasure at your dancing. But for a start, if you want this dance to be a success, here are two things I must request of you. Firstly, whenever a character in my story speaks in his own person, you must put yourselves in his place and speak as if you are that very man. And when the other replies, you must relate the story to yourselves as if you, sitting down, had been addressed and now respond to the first speaker. In addition, as men of discerning and this is the second task you must perform you will yourselves extract various wisdoms from the story as you follow its progress.
Well, I do not want to say too much at the start lest I become a loquacious fool, one who deserts the clearly blazed path and beats about the bush. I will rather now take up my drum and set to it, and I request
you to adjust your agbada, toss its sleeve properly over your shoulder, prepare yourselves for dancing, that the affair may dovetail neatly in the spirit of the saying, ‘I can dance and you can drum; this is the meeting of two grubs.’ That, forgive me, is a proverb of our elders.
It all began one beautiful morning; a clear daybreak it was, the harmattan haze had retreated home, the creatures of the forest were still asleep, those of the backyard were feeding on the day’s providence and
birds were singing praises of their Maker. A beatific breeze rustled the dark leaves of the forest, deep dark and shimmering leaves, the sun rose from the East in God’s own splendour, spread its light into the world and the sons of men began their daily perambulations. As for me I sat in my favourite chair, settled into it with voluptuous contentment, enjoying my very existence.
Not long after I was seated an old man came up to me and greeted me. I returned him courtesy for courtesy. Observing what appeared to be a desire to stay I offered him a chair and turned it to face me. Once seated, we began to exchange pleasantries and share jokes like old acquaintances. But it was not very long after when I heard the man sigh deeply as one whose mind was troubled by a heavy thought. Even as I began to consider asking him the cause, he began himself to speak thus: ‘Take up your pen and paper and write down the story which I will now tell. Do not delay it till another day lest the benefit of it pass you over. I would not myself have come to you today, but I am concerned about the future and there is this fear that I may die unexpectedly and my story die with me. But if I pass it on to you now and you take it all down diligently, even when the day comes that I must meet my Maker, the world will not forget me.’ When he had spoken thus I hurried to fetch my writing things, brought them over to my table, settled myself in comfort, and let the stranger know that I was now prepared for his tale. And he began in the words that follow to tell me the story of his life:
My name is Akara-ogun, Compound-of-Spells, one of the formidable hunters of a bygone age. My own
father was a hunter, he was also a great one for medicines and spells. He had a thousand powder gourdlets, eight hundred ato, and his amulets numbered six hundred. Two hundred and sixty incubi lived in that house and the birds of divination were without number.
It was the spirits who guarded the house when he was away, and no one dared enter that house when my father was absent—it was unthinkable. But deep as he was in the art of the supernatural, he was no match for my mother, for she was a deep seasoned witch from the cauldrons of hell.
Once my father had nine children, of whom I was the eldest; four wives and my mother was the most senior of them. She had four children, the wife who was next to her had three, the next two and the fourth had none at all. One day my mother and another of these wives had a quarrel and took the case to my father for settlement.
He found my mother at fault and this so angered her that she resolved to take vengeance for the slight. She became so ruthless in her witching, that, before the year was out, eight of my father’s children were dead and three of his wives had gone the same way. Thus was I left the only child and my mother the
only wife. Look on me, my friend, and if you are not yet married I implore you to consider the matter well before you do. True, your wife ought to be beautiful lest you tire of each other quickly; and a lack of brains is not to be recommended since you must needs hold converse with each other, but this is not the heart of the matter.
The important requisite is that your wife should not be prone to evil, for it is your wife who gives you meat and gives you drink and is admitted most to your secrets.God has created them such close creatures that there hardly exists any manner in which they cannot come at a man; and when I tell you what my father suffered at the hands of this wife of his, you will be truly terrified. It happened one day that my father prepared himself and set off to hunt. After he had hunted a long while, he felt somewhat tired and sat on a tree stump to rest. He was not long seated when, happening to look up, he saw the ground in front of him begin to split and smoke pour upwards from the rent. In a moment the smoke had filled the entire area where my father sat so thickly that he could not see a thing; all about him had turned impenetrably black. Even as he began to seek a way of escape he observed that the smoke had begun to fuse together in one spot and, before he could so much as blink, it fused completely and a stocky beingemerged sword in hand and came towards my father.
My father took to his heels instantly but the man called on him to stop and began to address him thus:
‘Can you not see that I am not of the human race? I arrived even today from the vault of the heavens and
it was on your account that I am come hither, my purpose being to kill you. Run where you will this day; kill you I most resolutely will.’ When he had spoken thus, my father was truly afraid but even so he steeled his heart like a man and said, ‘Truly, as I observe you, I know you are not of this world, and I see also that the sword in your hand spells mortal danger for me. Nevertheless, I implore you, and I charge you in the name of the immortal God, do not fail to tell me the nature of my offence.’ The man replied to him, saying, ‘Do you not know that you have grievously offended your Maker? That you have ruined his handiwork even to this extent, that you sent eleven souls to heaven when it was not yet the hour allotted them by their God?’ These words of his were a great astonishment to my father, for while it was true that he was well versed in magic and charms, he did no one any evil. So he replied to him, ‘If this is indeed your complaint then your mission is to a different man; it certainly is not I.
Since the day I was born I have never harmed anyone: I do not see a man going about his business and take umbrage at his existence; I do not see a rich man and suffer thereby from envy. When I see a man at his dinner I continue on my own way. I have never inflicted wounds on any man, I have not shot a man down in my life, so how can you claim my life, and for a crime of which I am innocent!’ He waited for my father to finish his speech and then he replied, ‘True, you have not with your own hand killed anyone, but you have been responsible for the suffering of poor innocents. With your eyes wide open to what you did you married a deep-dyed witch for the mere beauty of her body—is that an act of goodness? Does the blood of your many wives not call out to you? Does the crime against your eight children not hang round your neck? And, despite all of this, do you have the gall to tell me that you have never been guilty
of evil? Indeed there is no remedy; kill you I must.’ Only then did my father call to mind the kind of
woman he had taken to wife, and so he replied to him, ‘Truly I see now that I have sinned. I have a wife whom I cannot control, I strut like a husband merely in name. What I should have done I have left undone, the path I should have trodden I have neglected, the creature who deserved to die at my hand I have indulged with praises.
Ah, stranger from the dome of heaven, forgive me.’ When he heard this, the man forgave my father
and desisted from killing him, but he warned him that he must, the moment he returned home, put my mother to death. So saying, he turned into the forest and continued his travels that way. When he had gone my father took up his gun and returned home. And it so happened that the path he took led him past a field of okro on the way to the town. It was evening when he came there, the moon was already up, and, coming up to the field he looked over to the other side and observed someone approaching from that direction. Quickly he climbed up a tree, waiting to see what this person was about. The figure came on unswerving until it vanished into a large anthill. Shortly afterwards, an antelope emerged from this
anthill, entered the field and began to feed on the okro. My father brought his gun to bear on the creature and drove furnaces into its skull. The gun had no sooner roared than there came from the antelope a human cry and the words, ‘Ah, woe is me!’ That night my father slept in a little hut by the field. When daylight broke he went to the spot where the antelope was shot, but he found nothing there, only blood. He began to follow the trail of blood, and it was with increasing astonishment that he found that the trail led homewards. He followed it until he arrived right home. But in midtown the trail vanished completely
and he did not come upon it again until he was nearly at his own doorstep: then it led him straight into
my mother’s room.
I had not myself slept at home that night. Whenever my father was away I hated to spend the night at
home because the spirits gave one no peace all through the night. Even my mother rarely slept at home and then only when my father gave his permission. I returned to the house just as my father was opening the door to my mother’s room, and when he had opened the door and we entered, that moment when I caught sight of my mother, it was all I could do not to take flight. From her head down to her shoulders was human enough, but the rest of her was wholly antelope.
She was all covered in blood and swarms of flies. My father touched her; she was dead and had begun to rot. Indeed she was the antelope stealing out at night to feast in the field of okro. And so did my mother die, and hardly was a month over when my father also followed her. From that day was I orphaned, fatherless and motherless. And thus ends the story of my parents and comes the turn of my own. I greet your labour my friend.