CHAPTER TWO

A man named Akanpua hears a town crier announcing an emergency in Umuofia. He speculates that it may be war with a neighboring clan. The next morning, a large crowd gathers in the marketplace, where they learn that a daughter of Umuofia had been murdered in Mbeino. The crowd becomes angry and demands justice. An ultimatum is sent to Mbeino, offering them a choice between war or compensation. Umuofia is feared by its neighbors and is known for its powerful war medicine. The clan only goes to war if it is justified by their oracle. A young boy named Icamafuna is brought back to Umuofia as compensation. The clan decides to give the boy to a man named Ogbufi Yudo, and he is asked to take care of him temporarily. A man named A Conquo is described as ruling his household with fear and disliking anything that resembles his father's weaknesses. His son had just blown out the palm oil lamp, and stretched himself on his bamboo bed, when he heard the ajeen of the town crier piercing the still night air, gom, gom, gom, gom, boomed the hollow metal. Then the crier gave his message, and at the end of it beat his instrument again. And this was the message. Every man of Umuofia was asked to gather at the market place tomorrow morning. Akanpua wondered what was amiss, for he knew certainly that something was amiss. He had discerned a clear overtone of tragedy in the crier's voice, and even now he could still hear it as it grew dimmer and dimmer in the distance. The night was very quiet. It was always quiet except on moonlight nights. Darkness held a vague terror for these people, even the bravest among them. Children were warned not to whistle at night for fear of evil spirits. Dangerous animals became even more sinister and uncanny in the dark. A snake was never called by its name at night, because it was here. It was called a string. And so on this particular night as the crier's voice was gradually swallowed up in the distance, silence returned to the world, a vibrant silence made more intense by the universal trill of a million, million forest insects. On a moonlight night it would be different. The happy voices of children playing in open fields would then be heard, and perhaps those not so young would be playing in Paris in less open places, and old men and women would remember their youth. As the Igbo say, when the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk. But this particular night was dark and silent, and in all the nine villages of Umuafia a town crier with his Ajin asked every man to be present tomorrow morning. A Conquo on his bamboo bed tried to figure out the nature of the emergency, war with a neighboring clan. That seemed the most likely reason, and he was not afraid of war. He was a man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood. In Umuafia's latest war he was the first to bring home a human head. That was his fifth head, and he was not an old man yet. On great occasions such as the fifth he drank his palm wine from his first human head. In the morning the marketplace was full. There must have been about 10,000 men there, all talking in low voices. At last Agbufi-Azugo stood up in the midst of them and bellowed four times, Umuafia-Quinu, and on each occasion he faced a different direction, and seemed to push the air with a clenched fist, and 10,000 men answered ya, each time. Then there was perfect silence. Agbufi-Azugo was a powerful orator, and was always chosen to speak on such occasions. He moved his hand over his white head, and stroked his white beard. He then adjusted his cloth, which was passed under his right armpit and tight above his left shoulder. Umuafia-Quinu, he bellowed a fifth time, and the crowd yelled an answer, and then suddenly like one possessed, he shot out his left hand, and pointed in the direction of Mbeino, and said through gleaming white teeth firmly clenched, Those sons of wild animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuafia. He threw his head down and gnashed his teeth, and allowed a murmur of suppressed anger to sweep the crowd. When he began again, the anger on his face was gone, and in its place a sort of smile hovered, more terrible and more sinister than the anger. And in a clear unemotional voice, he told Umuafia how their daughter had gone to market at Mbeino, and had been killed. That woman, said Azugo, was the wife of Agbufi-Udo, and he pointed to a man who sat near him with a bowed head. The crowd then shouted with anger, and thirst for blood. Many others spoke, and at the end it was decided to follow the normal course of action. An ultimatum was immediately dispatched to Mbeino asking them to choose between war, on the one hand, and on the other the offer of a young man and a virgin as compensation. Umuafia was feared by all its neighbors. It was powerful in war and in magic, and its priests and medicine men were feared in all the surrounding country. Its most potent war medicine was as old as the clan itself. Nobody knew how old, but on one point there was general agreement. The active principle in that medicine had been an old woman with one leg. In fact, the medicine itself was called a getting-way, or old woman. It had its shrine in the center of Umuafia, in a cleared spot, and if anybody was so foolhardy, after dusk he was sure to see the old woman hopping about. And so the neighboring clans who naturally knew of these things feared Umuafia, and would not go to war against it without first trying a peaceful settlement, and in fairness to Umuafia it should be recorded that it never went to war unless its case was clear and just and was accepted as such by its oracle, the oracle of the hills and the caves. And there were indeed occasions when the oracle had forbidden Umuafia to wage a war. If the clan had disobeyed the oracle they would surely have been beaten, because their dreaded getting-way would never fight what the people call a fight of blame. But the war that now threatened was a just war. Even the enemy clan knew that, and so when a conquo of Umuafia arrived at Mbena as the proud and imperious emissary of war, he was treated with great honor and respect, and two days later he returned home with a lad of fifteen, and a young, virgin. The lad's name was Icamafuna, whose sad story is still told in Umuafia unto this day. The elders, Orndichi, met to hear a report of Icamafuna's mission. At the end they decided, as everybody knew they would, that the girl should go to Ogbufi Yudo to replace his murdered wife. As for the boy, he belonged to the clan as a whole, and there was no hurry to decide his fate. Icamafuna was, therefore, asked on behalf of the clan to look after him in the interim, and so for three years Icamafuna lived in a conquo's household. A conquo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart a conquo was not a cruel man, but his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods, and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. A conquo's fear was greater than these. It was not external, but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. Even as a little boy he had resented his father's failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was Agbala. That came to know that Agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken no title. And so a conquo was ruled by one passion, to hate everything that his father Yunoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness, and another was idleness. During the planting season a conquo worked daily on his farms from cockcrow until the chickens went to roost. He was a very strong man and rarely felt fatigue, but his wives and young children were not as strong, and so they suffered, but they dared not complain openly. A conquo's first son, Nwai, was then twelve years old, but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating. And so Nwai was developing into a sad-faced youth. A conquo's prosperity was visible in his household. He had a large compound enclosed by a thick wall of red earth. His own hut, or obi, stood immediately behind the only gate in the red walls. Each of his three wives had her own hut, which together formed a half-moon behind the obi. The barn was built against one end of the red walls, and long stacks of yam stood out prosperously in it. At the opposite end of the compound was a shed for the goats, and each wife built a small attachment to her hut for the hens. Near the barn was a small house, the medicine house, or shrine where a conquo kept the wooden symbols of his personal god and of his ancestral spirits. He worshipped them with sacrifices of kola nut, food, and palm wine, and offered prayers to them on behalf of himself, his three wives, and eight children. So when the daughter of Umulfia was killed in Baino, Aikamafuna came into a conquo's household. When a conquo brought him home that day he called his most senior wife and handed him over to her. He belongs to the clan, he told her, so look after him. Is he staying long? She asked, Do what you are told, woman. A conquo thundered and stammered. When did you become one of the Ndichi of Umulfia? He took Aikamafuna to her hut and asked no more questions. As for the boy himself, he was terribly afraid. He could not understand what was happening to him, or what he had done. How could he know that his father had taken a hand in killing a daughter of Umulfia? All he knew was that a few men had arrived at their house, conversing with his father in low tones, and at the end he had been taken out and handed over to a stranger. His mother had wept bitterly, but he had been too surprised to weep. And so the stranger had brought him, and a girl, a long, long way from home, through lonely forest paths. He did not know who the girl was, and he never saw her again.