CHAPTER ONE
Bearing children is as important to women as oxygen is to life in the town of Aragberi. Every wife wants to bear her own first fruit. Any wife with a slight delay always eats all sorts of child-inducing concoctions, her faith notwithstanding. Whether a Christian or a Muslim, she would silently shelve her faith and seek solution to her hitherto barrenness the traditional way. After finding solution to her problem, she would then go back and pick the remains of her faith from where she left it.
If the concoctions do not produce the expected result on time and the wife suspects she might not be the one responsible for the delay, she becomes frustrated. In her frustration, she goes as far as engaging in extramarital affairs just to have a child she could refer to as her own.
Her, engaging in extramarital affairs, is often with the hope of conceiving by all possible means in order to avoid the subtle, yet apparent mockery from her traducers. Apart from her traducers, her husband's family, relations, and clansmen are also bones to contend with. If she did not conceive earlier than necessary, some of her husband's family and relatives would begin to uncharitably visit with young female adults, sending a loud, deafening, resonating, yet unspoken message: since you refuse to bear children for our brother, here is a lady ripe enough for marriage, ready and willing to take your place.
It is not a me-and-my-husband alone affair as every family member and extended relations always have a say in the marriage, mostly to the detriment of the wife.
The partner responsible for the delay in conceiving does not matter, the blame is more often than not put on the wife. At the point of depression and high expectation, the wife would practically sleep naked, hoping against hope that yet another pounding from the rather lukewarm husband might lead to the exhaustively awaited pregnancy.
It was a patriarchal setting where the men rule ultimately while relegating the women to the background.
So, when the long-awaited Kolade, the only son of Owonikoko was born, he was treated, without reservations, to all the spoils of the world.
Kolade was a spoilt child whose rich father, Owonikoko, was famous for his cocoa business. Kolade literally had everything he wanted without fail. He would not sweat for anything except, of course, when he was into the business of eating hot, sweat-inducing meal. Kolade was raised in a society that placed premium on the male child. To make matters worse, he was the only male child out of the sixteen children that Owonikoko supposedly sired.
Owonikoko who suffered the fate of a male child for long had been pressured by family and friends to get himself a male child that would help preserve his name. Conceding to pressures, he went on a marrying spree until he married Segilola, a woman who later bore him Kolade. When Owonikoko finally sired Kolade, it was only reasonable and expected that he would treat the boy with excessive indulgence. Being treated preferentially, plus what obtained as the standard in the neighbourhood, it soon crashed into Kolade's consciousness that women are inferior to men.
To further embolden him of this chauvinistic myth, his mother, Segilola, a staunch, unrepentant student and local champion of male divine superiority always schooled him on how to relegate women to the background. He had been warned a number of times never to take part in anything related to domestic chores. For Segilola, domestic chores were the exclusive rights of the girl child.
"Subhanallah, Kolade, you have four heart chambers and each of them is for your future wives. How dare you wash your own clothes when your older sisters are still much alive. Exactly why did you have to follow your sisters to the stream?"
"Maami, but..."
"Kolade, but what?"
"Don't even give me the excuse that you only strolled with them without taking part in the water-fetching business. Don't you know that your sisters' heads are for carrying loads? They are not to be assisted at all."
"But..." interrupting Kolade, Segilola erroneously added:
"But what? God created you with nine ribs and seven ribs for your sisters. There is no such thing as an egalitarian and equitable world between you and them. Their job is to obsequiously serve and fawn over you. Even God had discriminated against the girl child. So, you have all the rights to abuse, exploit, violate, and oppress as you so wish. If your sisters are not commodity or sex object, God would have designed them in 'His image' like you. You see, the exclusive right of your father is to point to anyone of us for his sexual pleasure. He is a man, and I want you to be like him."
Though a lazy-boned, spoilt child, Kolade could not understand why his own mother was so bitter and hateful towards the girl child.
"But I love my sisters."
"You still don't get it. They are not to be loved or respected. I'm your mother, and I want the best for you."
"But Maami, Ralia has been the smartest student in my class and had clinched the first position, every term, for the past two years."
"You see, that is the point. It is not normal. She is a witch. She has strange, spiritual powers helping her to beat you boys to the first position. She will soon be caught and would confess all her evil atrocities very soon. Just wait and see."
The patriarchal value system and perpetuation of practices that entrenched male superiority to female was a core bane of Aragberi's town. The acceptable belief was that the male child is the only fit human capable of retaining the family name. If the people of Aragberi weren't oblivious of the fact that great people don't rely on their children for name retention, maybe the balance of power, equal opportunity, and mutual respect for all wouldn't have been a one-sided affair.
"Please, don't be a disappointment to manhood," Segilola concluded.
Armed with the information that the world belonged to the male child and with the confidence that he would inherit his father's estate, Kolade no longer fancied education.
"Of what essence is education when the end result of it all is to become rich in life," he thought.
Living up to expectation, it was not long before he lost interest in assisting as well as learning his father's cocoa business while waiting and hoping that sooner or later, his aging, diabetic father would join his ancestors and he, being the only son, would inherit his father's estate much to the chagrin of his older sisters and stepmothers. He would inherit all the cocoa farms, houses, and cars, and he would sell them off to the highest bidder. He would then move to city and treat himself to the spoils of the world. He would club, smoke, drink, and merry. He would employ the services of three sex workers at once and ease the stress of clubbing. Afterwards, he would pay them handsomely. After all, the money to be lavished was his rightful, providential inheritance, which he did not sweat for. He would wait for his father whom he now loathed with so much passion to pass away and show the world how to spend the money.
As time went by and the angel of death refused to murder his already aged father, he cursed and swore under his breath that the angel of death could at times be a derisive and frustrating bitch that would not play to the gallery especially when one needed 'him' to. However, if the angel of death refused to do his bidding earlier than necessary, he would be tempted to carry out the mission himself. He would accompany his father to the Aragberi Customary Court (the only court in the town at the time) as usual and slash his head open on their way back home. But the more he thought about the explanation he would give to his mother, stepmothers, and half sisters as to what killed their father, the more foolish the idea of slashing his father's head into two equal parts seemed to him. He soon abandoned the idea and resolved to wait, albeit frustratingly, for nature to take its course.
While waiting, the annual Egungun Festival in the town of Aragberi was around the corner. He would go to the king's palace where the main action of the Masquerade Festival would take place.
***
The ancient town of Aragberi had seven spirit beings. Every year, these spirit beings transform into humans to grace the Aragberi's Egungun Festival. These spirit beings usually come in form of young, tempting, beautiful ladies and would compellingly capture the attention of all. Once in form of humans, they could practically do everything humans do. It was common knowledge among the people of Aragberi that spirits transform into faultless females and invoke showers of blessings upon the town during its yearly Egungun Festival.
However, it was the Oba alone that had the exclusive rights to receive these spirit beings after carrying out the receptive rituals seven consecutive days to their arrival. Thereafter, the visiting spirits, now in form of humans, would leave the Oba's palace for town and then return to the palace for the main action of the festival that usually lasted for seven days.
The Masquerade Festival was always a clash between Abrahamic religions and traditional belief. Previous clashes had been diplomatically managed with the hope that no future conflicts would surface. At the time, Aragberi, a Muslim dominated town, with mosques at every corner and churches already springing up in their numbers, thought itself an exclusively religious town.
The Imams had consistently preached against idolatry and idolaters. And to these Imams, Egungun Festival qualified as an act of idolatry.
The Pastors too would preach Jesus and love, but were not always at par with the Muslims and especially the Traditionalists who unrepentantly believe, embrace, and perpetually uphold the tenets of their faith.
It wasn't long before a fatwa invalidating the Egungun Festival was declared much to the surprise of the liberal king who had given a level playing field to all for the development of the town.
Feeling slighted by the beating meted out to Ogunteru, the followers and lovers of the Egungun Festival soon picked up arms against the Muslims whose claim was that a particular mosque had been desecrated by the presence of Ogunteru, one of the popular and powerful masquerades. Ogunteru had desecrated the mosque by his presence in the course of their worship and as such, shouldn't go unpunished. Knowing that the Traditionalists would likely organise themselves in a bid to retaliate, the Muslims were already chanting, "Wa-inna jundana lahumualghaliboona," which literally means "we shall be victorious."
The raging fire which the Oba had hitherto tried to quench had escalated and his supporters — the followers and lovers of the Egungun Festival — full of charms were ready to serve it hot to the Muslims.
Meanwhile, the Pastors made no attempt to intervene. For them, it was not worth any intervention since it was a rift between two sects that had overtime refused to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
"Wa-inna jundana lahumu alighaliboona, wa-inna jundana lahumualighaliboona, wa-inna jundana lahumualighaliboona," the Muslims were repeatedly chanting.
The Traditionalists — armed with charms and machetes, while invoking the spirits of Ogun, Sopona, Obatala, Obatosa, Oya and every other god on the Muslims — approached menacingly. While some of the Traditionalists in the battlefield were ready for a fight, others in the situation room had started preparing a sacrifice for the Shigidi that would be sent to deal with the Muslims.
Shigidi is that deified, short and bulky nightmarish god that is made of a thick blunted cone of clay, which is ornamented with cowries and with an emblematic head.
Shigidi is an evil god that, when after ingratiating 'him' with due sacrifice, can be sent on an errand to avenge one's battle. He goes to the house of the enemy at night and kills them. His modus operandi is to squat upon the breast of his victim and sniff out their life.
It was however funny that the Traditionalists in the war room were so enraged and eager to fight with the Muslims that they could not remember that Shigidi only functions at night.
If the victim of the errant Shigidi is equally powerful, they wake up before the Shigidi could act. Since Shigidi only has power over his victim during sleep, upon waking up of the targeted victim, the Shigidi leaps off, falls upon the earthen floor, and disappears.
The employer of Shigidi who sends him out to kill is expected to stay awake while the Shigidi is still on mission. If the employer sleeps off, the Shigidi that is on a wind travel will turn back and the mission will fail.
After thinking it over, the Traditionalists in the war room soon discarded the idea of employing Shigidi to fight a day battle.
Also, the seven spirit beings that transformed into humans for the Egungun Festival were initially in support of the Traditionalists but soon got overwhelmed by the uprising.
The Muslims, terming Ogunteru's disruption of worship an affront, had apprehended him and his regalia burnt. This had really infuriated the Traditionalists and they were ready to slug it out with the Muslims.
The Traditionalists valued the egungun regalia as much as they valued their gods. And in this instance, it would cost them a huge amount of money to replace the regalia and prepare concoctions and sacrifices that would appease the spirit residing in the burnt regalia.
They would fight.
Smoke in the air, a Dane gun had been shot and one of the Traditionalists had fallen down in his huge frame with his mouth wide open, while gasping for air in the process.
It was considered machetes' fight and no one expected the usage of gun. But in war, people tend to quickly forget the rule of engagement, believing all is fair.
Two members of the Muslim fighters had also sustained deep cuts from the sharp machetes being fiercely daggered at them by the traditional warriors.
While the fight was ongoing, Kolade, the lazy-boned, pampered child of Owonikoko, had spotted one of the spirit beings at a far end of a cul-de-sac and had in his exuberance, approached her randomly. This particular spirit being — though initially in support of the Traditionalists — was already overwhelmed by the ongoing uprising and was rendering supplication to the gods to quench the raging fire between two foolish 'brothers' who had lost their senses to both religion and tradition.
During supplication, these spirit beings are not permitted to multitask. They would be powerless to any physical attack when rendering supplication that always assume the form of incantation, to their gods.
Nevertheless, they have the power to place everlasting and irreversible spell on anyone who takes undue advantage of their powerlessness during supplication.
Lacking this background knowledge, Kolade who had already become notorious for his randiness saw a beauty to behold in this spirit being that was praying at a dead end and had approached with the intent of shagging her with his third leg.
It was not long before the deed was done and the spot where the forceful, non-consensual mating took place, soon became a pool of blood. Kolade had raped a spirit being that was rendering supplication to the gods for a truce.
Are the gods to blame?
The raging fire that was the fight between the Muslims and the Traditionalists came to a no-victor, no-vanquished end after the warring parties had recorded two casualties each, on both sides.
As for Kolade, the spirit being, defeated and conquered of her most private chamber, ragingly placed generational curses on him.
It was a spell that would later spell doom for him and his offspring