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CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE GODS
By George Onmonya Daniel
[HARMATTAN is the winter season. It is a windy, dusty,
period from November to January in sub-saharan Africa.]
he fiendish eerie scream pierced into the heart of the quiet lonely night with strident supersonic ripples that traveled with the harmattan breeze. It was the chilliest egregious and most terrifying scream that sent my body shivering in febrile of fear. The incantations with its insipid monotony could be heard clearly adding to the tenterhooks of that night. The full moon wore a mystique mien with a placid obfuscation sitting there completely lonely without a single twinkling star as company.
She was so strong in that transcendental unrest that she had to be strapped to the wooden bed as she struggled violently. It was good to watch her sleep after the diabolic attack that would continue until the moon went to rest.
We had no electricity light in the village and I was too young to remember the exact or approximate time of that night with a saturnine countenance. The incantation had stopped. I could hear voices of Grandpa and Grandma talking indistinctively. The night was quiet again. She had probably fallen asleep. I could hear the wind blowing with a fierce propensity as I laid on the mat covered by a thick military blanket, my head uncovered, listening to every familiar sounds of the night out of fear to hear an unfamiliar one. The pungent smell of garlic forced its way into my throat that I could taste it. Dogs were barking far or near, I couldn’t tell because of the harmattan breeze that deceptively brought sounds nearer than normal this season. Most of what happened that night was lost to the tenuous memory of childhood. But I remembered I watched the moon sitting there looking down at me from tiny openings in the hut. Suddenly I felt a presence inside the room. I could even smell her perfume so strong. Someone invincible was inside the room with me. I could almost visualize her outline like a mirage looking down at me. I felt her touch as Grandma walked into the hut which was her room sprinkling ashes that made me cough.
“She wouldn’t disturb you.” Grandma had said, “She came in here.”
I couldn’t comprehend what she was talking about. But I felt the presence of someone before Grandma walked in and I knew it was the possessed woman strapped to the bed in the other hut distance away. After Grandma left the hut I fell asleep.
It was sound of melancholic drumming that woke me. Something terrible had happened. Some one had died. One was closer to death in the villages than anywhere and that sad drumming signified that a body had to be bathed with salt water for burial. The chickens and ducks were out already and the goats were bleating, waiting to be opened up to go out. Different birds were already singing. It would have been a beautiful morning, but it was a lonely morning for a little child of ten. And the forlorn sound of that drum spread gloom into the atmosphere. I woke up looking white and dirty. I rushed to open up the goats and sheep. They knew my footsteps and shouted happily, as they heard me coming. I could see they were in a very happy mood as they came out bleating, the kids jumping up and down, running here and there, to and fro. I loved the kids, they looked so beautiful. There is innocence even in child beast. I would watch them admiringly every morning as they sprang up and down welcoming morning. Even today I am fascinated with children and their innocence.
After the animals had gone out into the nearby bush to graze, I looked at the next room where she had screamed that night and wondered if she had gone over the possession. I looked up but the faint full moon still refused to vanish from the sky. It was there with the early morning sun.
Grandma came out from her hut. She had sensed the attraction between me and that beautiful patient from the big city. She smiled at me brightly. The drumming came clearly to both of us and she shook her head sadly.
“At last Papa Agada had decided to join the ancestors.” She announced to no one in particular. “It’s been long since they wanted him.”
She spoke as if it was just some normal occurrence of death as joining the ancestors, the ancestors that protected the land, the ancestors that they swore to when something happened, the ancestors that appeared in the form of masquerades, the ancestors that prophesied about ailments, and the future, the ancestors that were worshipped as gods.
Grandma knew things of the world and things beyond. How she knew them I could never tell. Things beyond that are beyond comprehension. I was scared at those spiritual things because I did not understand them. Her clairvoyance had made her the most sought native healer of the community and far beyond. Grandpa savvy in the area of herbs for curing the sick combined with her ability in the spiritual superimposed world made the duo the unbeatable. People came from all over to get charms and medicine, to get answers to their many problems, to know why they were jinxed and to cleanse themselves of evil charms by enemies or rivals. Grandpa was where the drum was beating.
No one knew Papa Agada’s age. All they knew was that he had lived for above two generations and he was still strong and healthy. He could even see around even though not clearly. Grandma had predicted he wouldn’t last through the harmattan and whatever she said came to pass. I remembered I saw him the previous morning and he had called me with the name of my Grandma’s father as if he was going to tell me something. I had stood there looking at the old man as he watched me keenly, and then walked unsteadily into his hut. His hair was as white as wool and his face was wrinkled, his hands holding the walking stick were dry and his skin was pale white. His eye ball had turned to that of the cat from its usual brown. They said he was blind but he called everyone by name, even when your steps were faint he would call your name, yet they said he was deaf.
“Father, go out and watch the animals.” She had said soothingly. “Have you washed your face?”
I hadn’t and she knew the weather was cold to use cold water that early. She knew what I enjoyed doing the most was acting as a shepherd. I was referred to as her father. Her father had reincarnated as me. So they said. The oracle had confirmed it even before I was born. For they knew I was a boy even before my mother was pregnant.
Childhood in the village was very confusing. The loneliness after the elders had gone to farms brought memories of mysteries that even adulthood could not explain. Childhood was full of fear of beliefs that could not be understood and shouldn’t be spoken about by women, even adults that were not in the cult. I cannot explain the various rites or what the masquerades signify. Why do dogs have to be openly sacrificed to some gods near the river and the vultures would be there ready to feed. That was to show the sacrifice has been accepted by the gods.
I took the animals around the house. I would chase butterflies as they grazed. My duty was to make sure they didn’t go into another compound to eat up the leaves of cocoa yam and to chase the dogs away from disturbing them. They didn’t need me though; they could chase away the dogs themselves.
It was a windy morning and the red dust of the Guinea savanna was blowing all over. The animals were not cold. It was a strange morning and the day I never forgot, perhaps because of Papa Agada’s demise.
As I was chasing butterflies out there I heard the sound of a car. Cars like that do not come around everyday. It was the most beautiful car I had seen around in that village. Sometimes we see cars like that when a dead wealthy man from the city is brought in for burial. I stood there watching as a man got out in an army uniform. He was a big man and walked straight and confidently like the man that acted Idi Amin in the movie. Even the animals had stood there watching the car and the man. They sensed and knew strangers. I had seen many people come to see Grandma and Grandpa from the city in different cars. They came for their various problems. Some even to kill an enemy or a friend, even family.
The soldier man stooped in front of Grandma in greeting then stood tall talking to her. Later they went inside to see the possessed woman. When the animals were fed and lost interest in grazing I drove them back into their house, then I went to see the car. Some other children had joined me but could not go near because they were afraid that Grandma would come out to spank them. After some time Grandma came out as another car drove in. It was an ambulance. They had come to take the woman away and I felt so sad. She was normal and talked to me like her child. Even though Grandma was terrified that she could go violent and harm me. She never did. She was responding to treatment. Even the soldier man confessed that he had never seen her so normal since Grandma’s treatment. But the family of his wife wanted to take her to the church. For they said it was only a man of God who could heal all ailments.
I watched as they took her out. She was sleeping from the herbs Grandma had given her. She looked so beautiful like an angel. I didn’t know how angels were supposed to look, but I thought she looked something like that. She was so beautiful. It was her perfume that had been in the room the previous night and her presence. I cannot explain it. When the car drove away with her, I knew profoundly that I would never see her again. I never did.
Many years later I wondered what was wrong with her and Grandma had told me. She had arranged for the head of the gods to be stolen and sold to a white merchant who deals in African antiquity. She paid some of the local boys well to get it for her. For her white friend needed it badly because it was ageless. All the people who were involved had died mysteriously under strange circumstances. Two had confessed that they had stolen the head of a masquerade. The gods were angry. Prominent sons and daughter of the land died in that season like no other.
Not long after that woman was taken away, my parents came to take me to the city of Lagos. They were Christians or had been converted to Christianity. I grew up as a Christian but I never forgot that childhood experience of my early life with Grandma and Grandpa. They were not Christians or Moslems and I do not agree they were pagan like my mother used to say. They did not give their religion a name and had no book of worship because Africa South of the Sahara never developed a form of writing. They have no prophets but ancestors who are believed to be spirits and guard over all of us. They believed in reincarnation. Every one born reincarnated as some one in the family, and they have the same behaviors and talk the same way. I was supposed to be my maternal great grand father.
You have to be in the cult to understand so many of their ways. Women were not allowed into many of these secrets except women like Grandma because of her powers. It was easy for people to convert into Islam and Christianity because they can easily understand everything. They have a book with everything documented and there were no secrets. The doors are open to everyone, male or female, and the teachings are not scary. Islam and Christianity also have an easy form of worship. They are religion of love, forgiveness and of a God who is accessible.
In the city most people go to church or mosque. They abandon the African religion which was shrouded in monopoly and mystery they are not allowed to know. More over you don’t have large beautiful painted edifices as shrine for the worship of the African gods like churches and mosques where followers meet each day to worship. It is only when there is serious problem that the church people hide and turn back to the African gods at night when all is asleep to ask for favor, even today. Both Christians and Moslems still go back to the villages when they are in difficulties to seek for the gods they had never really abandoned in their hearts. The churches have no amulet that can protect one against bullets or for disappearing in day light. The say they should pray and love their enemies. The African Christian does not believe in loving the enemy. No wonder most churches always talk about enemies nowadays.
I have seen Grandma healed evil spirit that possessed innocent souls. Jesus Himself said the devil cannot do that or his kingdom would fall apart. Grandma loved Christians and Moslems; she never collected money for her healings and treatments except what one wished to give to her as a gift. Most people brought her livestock’s or farm produce. Some gave money. Some she sacrificed to her gods.
I cannot agree with my mother and her Christian people or the Moslems that Grandma was using the devil to heal people. The Christian say the Moslems are being deceived by the devil, the Moslem say the same of the Christians. Even among themselves they hate, they kill. What their religions preaches against and they justify their actions by quoting their holy books to suit their interest and confusions. Grandma and her people love everyone and her love infects all. Grandma preached against evil, all evils. And she fought for good. Her religion was a religion of good and peace. We had no thieves in the villages. We never locked the doors. Who would dare touch what was not his? There was no need to hide anything. Our girls were given into marriage as virgins. Nowadays you can hardly find a virgin anywhere in church or in the mosque. So I cannot believe this corrupt people can judge the gods of Grandma, for they themselves are no good and do not understand even their own God.
That woman never made it. She died in one of the churches during prayer when they had beaten her to exorcise the demon of brain injury. She would have escaped the wrath of the gods they had allowed Grandma to do the necessary sacrifices. She had confessed everything but the gods would not forgive. The Christian and the Moslem God Would Have. The gods of Africa lost her children to the new religion because the gods were not friends of mortals. The foreign God is a friend to mortal man. So the new religions attracted more followers of black Africa.
Today many seek the African gods but they are angry for being abandoned for years and would not hear the crying of the children who betrayed them. Some find their favor because the gods are merciful and because many have not really left the gods in their hearts. Majority of the children of Africa fear the gods more than the foreign God and still secretly make sacrifices to appease the gods of the land.
Today, people blame the African gods falsely or ignorantly for accidents on the roads which is due to their own recklessness or for some mysterious death they cannot explain. And both Christianity and Islam have encouraged that so that the gods can be killed, buried, and forgotten, for they are responsible for all the falsity against the gods. But the gods are immortal.
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