Six Heads and the King’s Body
That night the moon was full, and we did not need to burn firewood to light up the yard for our night’s entertainment. Little children gathered around Pa Uche to listen to his moonlight tales. ‘Story, story,’ he cheered to the children in his old and rasping voice and the children eagerly cheered back, ‘Story!’ Their eager eyes shone like fireflies and their attention was so intense that, even if the sky had fallen, they would not have been distracted. The tale so beautifully narrated by Pa Uche left them thrilled. I sat close and listened; smiling at the ludicrousness of the story and the folk songs he blew their blameless minds with. In front of the Obi, on the raffia woven mat, Nkiru busied herself picking lice from our father’s bushy hair while Nneka was seated with our mother beside her hut, peeling bush-melon. Other than the wavering melodious note from our father’s carved, wooden flute that seemed to invite the spirits of sleep, the chirping crickets kept the still night active and we kept awake, taking pleasure in every moment.
It was one of those nights that made life in Okpoko a beauty. As we sat, merry, enjoying every further descent of the murk that coloured the sky, the men of the Nze fraternity from Okigwe village stormed into our yard and that fine-looking night suddenly turned frightful. The men from Okigwe, who were dressed in red loincloths and heavy beads, all had machetes with them. When they walked into our yard they ran their eyes around, and when one of them pointed to my direction, the six men strode towards me and surrounded me. One of the men grabbed me, lifted me up and placed me on his shoulder and they strode away. ‘Father! Father!’ I yelled desperately as I struggled with them, drowned in the horror of the moment. My father only stood there with his head bowed to the ground and his shoulders shrugging as when a man was trying to hold back a loud cry. My mother was thrown into -utter confusion. ‘Nnayi Ugo, do something! My son!’ she called as she helplessly ran after me, crying. She ran back towards my father, then towards me, then towards my father until she slumped to the ground with a shriek. I kept screaming ‘Papa! Mama!’ until we were out of the heart of the village and in the forest. I screamed until my voice box burned out. I screamed until I was one with the night.
Igwe Odiga had died three full moons ago and in our part of the world, when a king had a reign as great as he had, six human heads were to be buried along with him in his honour. It was a grim custom of ours but it was proudly carried out. The heads usually buried along with a chief’s body were often those of people from other villages who were unfortunate enough to be caught straying at an ungodly hour, or villagers who were found in the forest all by themselves. When children and youths were warned to stay within the heart of the village, especially late at night, it meant a great chief had died in one of the neighbouring villages. Two full-moons ago, the elders of Okpoko had held meetings with the different masquerade societies, and with the medicine men of the village, over the honouring of Igwe Odiga: as an Ama-nwu member, my father had attended. The evening of the day when they held the final meeting, my father returned home depressed. He wouldn’t say a word to anybody. When my mother served him his favourite pounded yam and Oha soup for supper, he refused to eat. The next day we learnt that he had been chosen as one of the six men of the Ama-nwu fraternity to produce the heads for the ritual rites of our Igwe. He sat in his Obi that evening with a member of his fraternity. I knelt by them to serve them kola nuts and pour palm wine into their tumblers when it was empty.
‘I do not want to be part of such barbaric tradition. I do not want to have anybody’s blood on my hands,’ my father raged.
‘Nnayi Ugo, you have been chosen! You cannot challenge long-standing tradition. You should see this as a thing of honour; you are sacrificing a human to honour an exceptional chief. You will become an Akata-ka; a man who has shown another great man an uncommon honour. You will be honoured. Your household shall be cared for by the royal house. And when you die, you shall be accepted in the bosom of our reverend ancestors. When men drink palm, they will pour some to the ground and call your name in reverence.’
‘I esteemed our late Igwe so very much,’ my father replied.
‘Then show Okpoko how much you regarded him.’
‘By killing another human being? No, I cannot take the life of another for nothing,’ my father insisted.
‘For nothing? You insult our custom, our chiefs and our elders when you say it is for nothing. This is for the honour of a gem. This is a ritual performed for the pride of our land and our people. You are doing it out of respect for our forefathers and our traditions!’
‘I am not a murderer!’ my father responded crossly.
‘You know the consequences of turning down the call of Ama-nwu. Your head could be the one to go down with the Igwe’s body and your wife and children will remain at the mercy of the gods. You don’t want that, Nnayi Ugo,’ the man warned as he took one big bite of the kola nut in his hand. My father bowed his head and, while he supported his face with his palms, he tapped his feet restlessly.
The six heads were buried to the ground along with Igwe Odiga’s body two market-weeks afterwards. Under those bright skies that mark the declining days of the rainy season, masqueraders, traditional songbirds, traditional dancers and titled men paraded in the afternoon heat with zest, showing artistry and skills in their traditional displays; sweating and smelling like stale cassava, their ebony skins shining under the yolk-yellow sun. It was a burial ceremony befitting of an Igwe. The star attraction was the dance of the six men of the Ama-nwu fraternity who enriched the king’s grave with human heads. They screeched their machetes on the ground and machete-fought themselves in a dance as the Ama-nwu songbird blew the wooden flute with all his heart and the drummers poured out their souls on the drums. It was a breathtaking performance. All the Ama-nwu men were agile and full of spirit as they displayed, except, noticeably, my father.
Igwes of villages near and far came to grace the occasion. But it was rather shocking that Igwe Okute of Okigwe village did not attend the burial ceremony. After the whole burial festivity and after Ibu Odiga was crowned the new Igwe of Okpoko, Igwe Okute sent words to our village. ‘I am here because one of my Igwe’s sons was killed by your men during the burial ritual of your late Igwe,’ the envoy from Okigwe announced. ‘If it had been his first son that was slain, I would have been here with his band of soldiers. But it was his second son that your men slayed. Nonetheless, the scent of war smells and Okigwe is as ready as always to fill the land with blood and tears.’
By this point, men and women, young and old present at the village square were shivering to their very bones. Okigwe was a very large and powerful village with an army of diabolical men; fearless fighters. Their medicine men were known to have unrivalled mastery of the black arts and their great army was led by Amadi ‘the lion’ who many believed had no soul. He was famed for his spite and ruthlessness in dealing with trespassers of taboos or victims of war or those who strayed into Okigwe uninvited. Every village lived in fear of them, especially now with Igwe Okute as their chief and Okanga ‘the vulture’ as their chief priest. No village ever wanted to challenge them in a land dispute or boundary conflict, whether or not that village was in the right.
‘My Igwe wants the son of the man by whose hands his son was slain; otherwise Amadi “the lion” will lead our men here before the moon is full. He wants the man who killed his son to share the same fate. If that man has no son then six human heads from Okpoko will have to be sacrificed and one of those heads must be one of your sons, Igwe Ibu Odiga,’ the envoy continued. There was a cold silence in the square and the look on Igwe Ibu Odiga’s face was one of an intimidated man. ‘I will return with Amadi “the lion” in seven days, it’s either the son of the guilty man or six human heads, or the blood of your sons and daughters and the wreckage of your land. Somebody must pay! You have two market weeks,’ he added as he turned and walked away from the meeting.
The medicine men of our village looked deep by means of their black power to find out which of the Ama-nwu men had killed the son of Igwe Okute. The elders had agreed that it was more sensible for that man’s son to be captive to Okigwe than the sacrifice of seven human heads including the head of our Igwe’s son or for our land to be soaked with the blood and tears of our people. Igwe Ibu Odiga made it clear that he would not go to war with Okigwe for any reason and he would not sacrifice his son for the error of another man. No villager wanted war or wanted innocent heads to fall for the blunder of one. But I knew my father had only obeyed the demands of our customs to honour his land. And those cruel hands of tradition also held him bound the night I was taken captive.
