Enaho stood up slowly and adjusted his Igbu attire properly around his body. He walked as slowly to Omongbon, his second wife, and newly delivered nursing mother, and took the baby from her.
The baby had calmed down, and his right thumb was stuck in his mouth.
"He soiled himself," Omongbon said, trying to hold on to her sanity. To her, the entire world seemed to have gone crazy.
She reached over and started removing the baby's diapers as Baba cradled him in his arms. As she did so, a strange object fell from the baby's left fist and dropped on the unclad diaper that was soiled with the baby's feces and urine.
It was the double-headed serpent talisman. The baby had grabbed hold of it during the collision between Anira and Omogbon, unconsciously, or maybe, more appropriately, providentially.
Enaho saw the talisman and recoiled in shock. The baby almost fell from him.
He recovered quickly, chiding himself for being so touchy. But what else do you expect of a guy who has been through so many tons of troubles, for so short an amount of time, in so small an area of space?
Yet, he steeled himself to retrieve the infamous amulet and studied it closely, then held it to his nose.
It remained a mystery to him, but curiously, he discovered something.
It was dead!
In mojo parlance, the amulet had gone flat. Whatever had affected it had rendered it impotent, it was now completely different from the doomsday weapon that had turned the tide against him in the battle with Anira.
The potency of a talisman or an amulet is graded by the degree of its vibes and fumes. This one has lost any iota of either vibe or fume. It had been negatived to just a feathery piece of dirt.
Just then the scream of a woman was heard. It emanated from the direction of Arina's erie, (real-life name), the female quarter of the controversial first wife of Enaho.
Enaho handed back the baby to the mother and went to stand by the blown-out window.
Arina's scream tore through the stillness of the dawn again. And again.
It went on in quick successions, like a fiendish percussion, and it brought everyone in the compound, and even in its vicinity, to a rude awaking.
Enaho shook his head solemnly, a sardonic wry smile flitting across his lips. He had expected this outcome.
As he watched from the open window, he saw, as he anticipated, Arina run out of her erie, scantily clad in a skimpy red lingerie garment, into the open and flung herself down in the middle of the egodo (open arena in the middle of the compound), to continue screaming and thrashing about on the ground.
The storm, indeed, had started.
For the second time in that azagba, just at the dawn of a new day, all hell had broken loose again.
Ehiga was the first to stagger out of his room and hit the spot Arina was flapping on the ground. She was flapping her arms up and down like a big bird that had been brought down by a hunter.
Other people soon rushed in, including those from nearby houses, and the gathering around her increased rapidly.
Chief Ikuora had also arrived. He was standing unobtrusively by himself watching calmly. He was soon joined by Baba, followed by Omogbon with the newborn baby.
The Chief and Baba nodded at each other, while Omogbon curtsied in greeting to the Chief, bending both knees, all in silence.
No one seemed to notice the trio.
Arina went on screaming. New arrivals tried to strain forward or stand on their toes to get a better view over the heads of those already in front. But the ones in front had formed a solid circle around her and were pushing back to maintain a safe distance from her.
She was potentially dangerous, for all they knew, or could see, so caution was an option.
Nobody was in a hurry to touch her, not just yet, not when whatever happened to her during the night was nothing they could see. It was still strange and could be contagious, who knows? Besides, to everybody in the village, it was an open secret that she was a big witch.
The crowd grew larger, and incredibly, there was a hushed silence, just hoarse whispers, only her screams kept erupting.
It was mid-year and the dawn light was swift in the rainforest. Soon everyone could see clearly.
No one in the gathering saw when Baba got to the fringe of the crowd, but they all heard the sharp yell of one onlooker following the cruel crack of Baba's flywhisk across his bare back.
There was a collective reaction from the gathering in different degrees of shock and gasps. The young man who caught the flywhisk in the back spun round to face Baba. Even the rest of the crowd turned in the direction of the sudden distraction.
Arina sensed the dramatic change in the gathering and paused her screams.
Baba, Chief Ikuora, and Omogbon with the baby faced the crowd.
The flywhisk swooshed out again and struck the next target, a heavily built woman. She let out a loud squeal and staggered backward. Her momentum displaced and pushed back the people directly behind her.
Baba had made his point. He stepped out of his slippers, left them in Omogbon's care, and cleared a pathway for himself and Chief to reach Arina.
Baba and Chief locked in on Arina and she lifted her upper trunk from the ground with her hands and looked at the two men with vacant eyes. She drew in a sharp breath, preparatory to launch another scream.
She did not quite make it.
Baba and Chief acted in practiced unison. Each of them was an accomplished witch medium venerable. She was no match to either of them in the daytime. At night, her astral powers could give them a good fight, but as in the way of witches, daylight was her weakest point.
Baba dug his big right toe into the ground and Chief pointed his walking stick at her temple, suppressing her completely.
The scream she had collated collapsed in her vocal cords and dwindled into a long, drawn-out whine. The sound was heard by all, it was sad and feline, like the sonorous meow of a cat.
Even then, it was not over.
She was not done yet.
A hideous image flashed into Arina's mind. Her head lolled from side to side with the last shreds of stubbornn resistance.
That evil face!
Only this time it had a finality that was etched in a mockery expression never featured before.
For the first time, she wanted to wish it away and shout out loud for him to leave her alone. That scarl face had become the scourge of her life and the source of her woes.
She had had enough.
At the climax of the night's terrible tango, she had gotten to the crucible and crossed the last line.
Last night was the Rubicon.
This moment was the time of reckoning.
She was done.
Her lolling head drooped and she lay still and prostrate at last.
It was only then Baba released his toe. Chief also lowered his walking stick.
Baba stood erect and surveyed the gathering, his sweeping gaze seeming to recognize everyone.
"Ulèh!" He ordered.
Just a word of command, and the sound was like a clap of thunder.
"Run!"
This interpretation is almost accurate, but the Esan word has more authority and urgency.
As one the gathering broke its silence.
Everyone started talking at the same time, ignoring the order in the interim.
"ULÈH!!" Baba thundered, brandishing the flywhisk.
It created the desired effect. The crowd broke and began to leave, continuing to clatter as they hurried away from the azagba.
One voice came out a bit louder to everybody's hearing: "Mèkawe onogbo nòn bh'ada." (I have always said she is a cat in the coven).
A distinct retort followed: "Ómusti ka bhòn'ujena." (She must confess this time around).
"Okhian ka bònmhe'an..."(Thorough confession)
The voices tailed off as the crowd, including Omogbon with her baby, vacated the arena, leaving Baba and Chief standing over the inert body of Arina on the ground.
Seven days were now gone since the fall of Arina, the Queen witch, and a chain of events had taken place.
After the crowd had dispersed, Chief Ikuora assisted Baba to carry Arina to the Shrine Temple. This was the sacred small hall that was the family aluebor, or center of animism. Here all the divinations, fortifications, and demystifications take place. It was the core of the family elimin, the locus of the Enaho historic eboh.
The Power House.
The hallowed abode of the ancestors.
It was here they debriefed her.
They laid her in the middle of a chalk-marked circle, stripped to the loincloth that served as a pant to cover only her pubis and positioned her to lie on her back in spread-eagle submission.
The ritual lasted half an hour.
It was usually much shorter, but she was a queen of witches and it required extra time even in the hands of two great sorcerers.
In the final stage, Baba Enaho n'oj'ioboh grabbed a standby live hen, ripped the chest open with his teeth, and pressed out the heart. As the hen cackled and struggled helplessly, he dug his mouth into the gaping torn chest and ripped out the heart with his teeth.
He threw the hen asides and chewed the heart into a bloody mixture of tissue, saliva, and slimy substance. Then he spewed the contents in his mouth progressively all over Arina beginning from her head to her feet.
The hen was flapping in the final death throes, tossing and turning blindly about the floor. Arina too started twisting and twitching in the circle as Chief held her down by the legs and Baba pinned her hands to her flanks and continued to spray her with the bloody froth in his mouth till she was fully lubricated with it.
As the struggles of the hen slowed, so did that of Arina, as if in choreographic simulation, until both stopped in the last spasms of capitulation, the hen in expiration, while Arina fell into a deep sleep.
They left her like that with a cloth wrapper by her side, she would need it when she woke up.
Baba took the dead sacrificial hen with him, it was now useful for the evening meal.
Arina slept for over seven hours and woke up at about two pm to a new reality.
She had been deactivated.
Neutralized.
Her power of witchcraft had been comprehensively compromised.
She was still a witch but she had been rendered impotent. Like a bird that had been de-feathered, she could no longer fly.
This was the beginning of a new life of shame and scorn.
Practically, she had been shorn of her jet-black wings and her golden crown and throne.
Ironically, she was now free.
The Life of a Witch is not all a bed of roses.
Roses, yes. But replete with deadly thorns.
She was free from the hassles and troubles of the life of a witch. The lot of a witch is like the surreal existence of a lunatic. There is a popular proverb of the madman in the rain forest: Madness would have been sweet, but the wandering is too much.
She sat up and found the pain had reduced. All the native analgesic bombardments from the two sorcerers had deadened the pains and reduced the burning sensations of being roasted in searing flames.
She took the wrapper by her side from the floor and stood up gingerly, tottering on her feet for a while, trying to get back her balance.
When she was a bit stable at last she tied the wrapper on her chest over her breasts and hobbed out of the shrine.
Slowly she started making her way back to her erie.
Expectedly, all eyes were on her.
No one was going to miss the next event.
The confession.
Arina's confession lasted five days.
It was the longest anyone had ever heard before then and ever since.
Witches were graded. As the Witch Queen of the deadliest coven in the land her fall was breaking news.
Her inevitable confession was therefore a must-see.
Many circumstances can lead to the fall of a witch.
The most common was the aftermath of communal calamities, such as unusual escalation of deaths among the youth, that resulted in an inquisition.
The procedure normally begins with the appointment of a three to five-person committee to consult one or more diviners, popularly known as native doctors. The members of the committee would be, generally, people of persons of proven good character in the locality, for their findings to be credible.
Their consultation with diviners was to find the causes of the particular calamity and the persons or forces behind it. This is the traditional witch-hunt, where suspects are pinpointed by the diviner. The next stage was for the committee to submit their findings to the Odionwele, or the Onojie, as the case may be, in public.
The causes and suggested solutions would be made known. If there were suspected witches behind the unwanted events they would be declared openly.
This was the highlight.
The Odionwele would then summon the suspects to appear the next day at the Village Square, where they would be given the option of either admitting to witchcraft or denying being so.
A suspect who admits is made to renounce the witchcraft, and swear before the èlimin'ègbè deity in the middle of the square never to commit any havoc again. The confessed is fined according to the gravity of the act, admonished on pain of death, and let go. A calabash is smashed on the head of the confessed as a final testimony of binding over.
In the event a suspect who refused to admit the case is referred to the umuazèn shrine seven days later.
There are a number of these shrines still in existence located in different parts of Esanland, such as Alanmònka in Agua Irrua, Iyasii in Ewu, Usianènè, and Osunèlè. There, suspects were subjected to the rituals of the shrine and given liquid substances to drink.
What followed next was the test of culpability. If the suspect swooned and fell, it was proof of guilt. The person is sent back from the shrine with a piece of charcoal as evidence of guilt. The fallen witch at that level is brought back to the village square and made to pass through a harsher degree of sanctions, including outright banishment from the village or Clan.
The suspect who passed the shrine test without falling is sent back with native chalk called èrhe or orhue. The acquitted suspect would go to the village to the welcoming throng of well-wishers to celebrate their innocence.
The fall of a witch in such shrines, oftentimes showcased dramatic moments, as some suspects do not go down without a fight. They would try to resist the effect of the liquid substance, staggering about, dozing off and startling awake, and dancing about crazily, before finally falling in rather comic positions.
Some suspects have been reputed to have outrightly defied and defeated the high priest of the shrine. They would toss away portion after portion of the liquid substance and go back morning fresh and sober.
High-caliber suspects like Arina belonged to this category. Their victorious returns with native chalks were hardly celebrated by welcoming crowds, and we're grudgingly acknowledged by the Odionwele as truly vindicated. They were tagged ekuyiwo, a pseudonym that meant cheating is no strength.
The Odionwele is the eldest man in a village setting, while the Onojie was a paramount Traditional Ruler in a Town setting. Villages, also called districts, make up a Town, also known as a Clan, in which the Onojie is the local king or clan head.
Succession to the crown in Esanland is mostly by the rule of primogeniture, from father to eldest son, except for a few clans, such as Idoa and Ukhun.
The Onojie lives in a Palace located in the head district called Eguare. He is a Prescribed Authority and Head of the Traditional Council made up of Chiefs appointed from the component villages or districts, whose roles were mainly advisory.
The Onojie, therefore, rules in Council and reigns in person. Within the confines of traditional matters in his Clan, his word is law, and he is addressed as and greeted with, Zaiki.
At the village level, the Odionwele ruled under the overriding authority of the Onojie, in a Council of four elders. They were called Edion n'enen, and he was primus inter pares, with some veto powers.
It was in the Village Square that fallen witches make open confessions before the Edion n'enen and the general public, including curious people from far and near.
The story of Arina's confession is still told in Ebelley clan to this day.
The circumstance sequel to Arina's confession was "the sudden fall" variant. Her notoriety as a high-caliber queen of the coven had been an open secret. She had survived so many inquisitions that the whole clan had left her to fate.
Her reign came eventually to a drastic end in that fateful sudden fall.
The news spread far and wide like the Harmattan fire.
Now it was time for her confession.
A must-see for all.
The four elders took their seats in the front row on cane chairs behind a fixed low bamboo table. Flanking them at both ends of the table were there Chiefs and witch doctors, including Enaho and Chief Ikuora, sitting next to each other to one end. Two rolls of benches were arranged behind them and were occupied by ten elders and Chiefs on each row.
Anita sat on the floor, facing them, very calm and unfazed by the thirty most influential men in the village and four observers from the Palace, who were looking down at her like eagles at a hen.
Behind her and facing the sitting presiders was a crowd of people who stood in a big circle to watch.
It was 4 pm and there was no cloud in the sky. The weather remained so throughout the five days. The Rain doctors were on duty.
Pa Owobu, the presiding Odionwele cleared his throat and called the assembly to session. First, the traditional breaking of kola nuts was observed, led by the head of the Palace representatives.
Without further delay, the Odionwele announced:
" Enikalo (Ancestors), Palace delegates, my kinsmen, my sons and daughters in Ologe, brethren and sons and daughters from Ebelley clan and beyond, I welcome you all to this solemn convocation in the land of the living and the witness of those beyond." He paused and cleared his phlegm-gutted throat again, looking straight ahead, somewhere above their heads, as in direct eye contact with the spirits.
He continued
"You all know why you are here. We have a long journey ahead of us. I will not waste any time any further."
With that opening statement and without shifting his gaze from the spot in space that was just above their heads, he said:
"Woman, speak."
Arina stood to her feet. She was clad in a long black wrapper that covered her from above the breast to her ankles. Her motion even in that situation was still fluid and graceful.
Her head was unbowed and her voice came out strong and clear. Her poise and tone held almost the entire gathering spellbound from that onset.
" I clashed with my lord, Enaho, to a stalemate at the doors of death, but I crashed in the hands of my junior, Omongbon, alas, she was protected by her beaded string amulet.
"That, reprehensible event, was how I, Arina, queen of the infamous and dreaded four junction coven, crashed!
"And lamentably, it was in the hands of Omongbon, a miserable nonentity!!!"
She zeroed in on Enaho and shook her head from side to side.
"My lord, little Omongbon saved our lives with that amulet. Otherwise, this gathering would not be here today. By now we would have been in the great aiwa."
She paused and looked the faces staring back at her over.
"You all have been waiting for me and this confession. You have to be patient with me because it will take a little while. I am over fifty years and I was bewitched at the age of eight..."
She started in Ernest and was to continue for the next four days from about 4 pm till midnight every day until she rounded up at about 6 pm on the fifth day.
She was initiated by her paternal aunty, Odegua, her father's elder sister, at the age of eight. Odegua had given her a potion of fried plantain, called idodo, and she later found herself that night in the coven with Odegua, where they gave her the first title of atatabikhui. The name was after a small black bird with an uncanny ability to disguise itself between the leaves of a tree.
Her first commission was to ruin the pot of soup that was being prepared during the open cooking event at a neighbour's housewarming ceremony. Opening a new house was a great event in those days, and even so to this present time.
A young man had come home from the city and built a big modern house for his parents and planned to open it in a big way. There would be a lot to eat and drink, and all the ingredients were there, including a large cow that was tied to the stake. The village women were to do all the cooking communally, as they wont to do, and Agelina, a renowned local caterer and bogafish merchant was to be in charge of the cooks. Her ogbonor soup was a highly sought-after local delicacy and all the villagers looked forward to it.
The night before, the witches resolved to throw a spanner in the works. They gave the assignment to Arina, the new initiate.
"My first assignment was after only one week of my initiation. l was the one that de-lubricated that ogbonor soup during the housewarming of the Udoko family."
It sounded vaguely familiar at first, taking a while to connect the elusive pieces, of what was otherwise a popular story.
Silent reflection.
Where?
When?
How?
Then the squeal of an old woman's voice broke the lull. It came from the direction where the aged women were congregated at the far left corner of the Square.
It was Agelina.
How could she even ever forget?
All eyes, except Arina's, turned towards her as she hobbled out a few steps forward and pointed an unsteady fist at Arina and said in a shaky voice, "So, it was you, yoouu, yoooouuu"
Arina did not turn, she did not even look back.
"It was my first act, and it was top grade."
Her eyes widened and brightened briefly as if affected by some distant feeling of nostalgia.
She went on, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I was not even with the cooks as I was too young at eight years. All I had to do was lace my lashes with the ahurior powder, looked at the soup through the window of the next house, as it was bubbling and pulsating pleasantly on the fire, and blink my eyes."
That was all it took, she explained, to cut the ogbonor soup of its lubrication and fragrance. The ahurior powder is a rainforest magic portion made from burnt ahurior mushroom. It has no English parallels or meaning, but it had the action and result of a decompression agent. Its effect on a bottle of beer, for lack of a better comparison, would render it flat.
That was how the story of the flat ogbonor soup originated and the secret behind it was finally revealed at Arina's confession. But her wicked act had taken its tow in many ways.
The hours warming celebration was substantially degraded by the failed soup and people went away disappointed. The culinary value of ogbonor is the level of its lubrication, viscosity, and fragrance, in that order. There is a saying in Esanland: "óhièlè ha hin'usun, òmiokan, (when ogbolor loses lubrication, it's useless), after all, it is called draw-soup in pidgin English.
The same evil act almost ruined Agelina's Catering business. Her local food Canteen went into decline and would have closed down but for her sheer determination and the support from her alternative bogafish trade. As she would often tell people much later: "Dat tin make me hear win."
Now in her eighties, and hearing Arina confessing to being the evil cause of that disgrace of almost fifty years ago, and remembering her consequent business ordeal, she could only remain standing on the same spot, to relive the experience as it was yesterday.
"But why, what did I dooo?", was all she could say next.
Arina turned slowly to favour her with a cold blank stare.
"About three years before that day you refused to sell bogafish to Odegua on credit. Witches don't forgive, witches don't forget, and an injury to one witch is avenged by all in the coven."
She turned back to the Odionwele.
"That was the beginning of my traverse in the astral domain."
Again everywhere was quiet for another while.
Then somebody stepped forward from among the youths to the middle of the gathering.
It was Ehiga.
He put his hands akimbo, spread his legs on the ground, threw back his head, and bellowed at the retreating evening sun:
"GBOMAZAAA!!!"
That broke the silence.
The crowd exploded in an uproar.
Preemptively, a coordinated group of twenty prearranged, able-bodied village guards dashed out and formed a protective ring around Arina. They were just in time to block another group of irate youths that surged forward spontaneously intent on lynching her.
A brief scuffle ensured and the guards managed to beat them back and restored some semblance of order.
For a short interlude, there was confusion as the crowd continued to yell and curse at Arina.
All the while Arina was unruffled, standing erect and regal, head unbowed, as if she was back in her coven, and was deriving some mysterious pleasure out of all the commotion, consternation, and outrage.
It was just the beginning.
"I was the one responsible for the drowning of Alumen, who was the only daughter of Ese the widow.
"I had brought her before the coven, and she was given the mentality of a frog.
"She had craved for water afterward got drowned in the Barber's well
"It was her punishment for not cooperating with me to copy from her work during exams in primary two."
It was the second bombshell.
Ehiga came out again to blast out his self-appointed role of exclaiming.
"GBOMAZAAA!!!
Agelina was the first victim.
She left the village square in tears. But she should have saved herself the self-pity as her experience paled into insignificance, compared to the plight others had to relive.
Ese was not alive to witness the confession. She had died heartbroken less than two months after the mysterious loss of her only daughter.
But a lot of people were still alive and many of them could still recall the sad events. The pattern was the same for the five-day confession period, and Arina was not short of victims, spanning her childhood time to the present day.
She would reel out the name of a victim, state the context, narrate the circumstance, and give the usual flimsy reason.
Then boom! GBOMAZAAA!!!
The misfortunes ranged from death, crippling, bareness, accidents, business failures, and arson, to ailments and afflictions, the list was endless.
At last, she rounded up on the fifth day just before 6 pm.
She chose the moment to still exhibit some drama.
The five days had taken a toll on her. She was now standing with her hands limp at her sides, and her head, once proud and held high, was now drooping, and her face drawn and haggard.
But she was now looking directly at the Odionwele who returned the look with practiced indifference. A smirk touched her lips and disappeared.
"Do you remember how long ago you used the 'little boy' between your legs?" she asked the Odionwele directly.
It came like a bolt out of the blue.
The Odionwele froze instantly.
That sudden loss of his manhood two years ago, was it her?
For the first time in a long time, he felt a cold sweat break out all over his body.
Arina grinned as if to confirm she had read his mind.
"I have it."
On that fifth day of her mind-boggling revelations, the crowd had thought that they had heard it all. Nothing could surprise them again, they concluded, as if by now they were all shell shocked, until she turned on the Odionwele himself.
It was the H Bomb going off on their heads.
She took the Odionwele's bulala!?
A short cackle of laughter spilled out from Arina and she nodded severally.
Then the narrative attained a poetic hue as she rapped on.
"Of course, I took it, it was I alone that dared to take the mission.
"It is locked safely under the waters of the Owu stream, you can be rest assured.
"It was your pride, you had such a legendary prowess down there, all the insiders knew.
"But then the coven queried, why did you ditch Idia, your luscious concubine, and one of our own, when you were so endowed?
"That early morning, two years ago, when you thought you accidentally saw me as I was doing the ladies, it was deliberate.
"It was a trap, I was waiting for you to go for your palm wine tapping round.
"The moment you spied my little bush down below, and was stirred, you were sunk.
"You were always one with a sharp eye for the fair ones, everybody knew.
"You stole past me, thinking I didn't know.
"Now you know, I knew.
"You should have looked away, that was Oj'ioboh's territory.
"You are fortunate it is not too late, it is still potent at the bottom of Owu stream.
"Another year, and it would have wilted.
"There are some here among you, who are not so lucky."
Another shellacking!
So it was not only the Odionwele, there were others in the pack whose gbolas had been stolen!!!
She directed her attention to Elder Enaho and curtsied.
Boom!!!
Was the great Oji'oboh the next victim?!
Baba stiffened, and it was noticed by many people, but it was nothing he could help.
For the gathered crowd too, it was nothing they could help either, seeing her taking on Baba next and the effect on him.
Everybody just waited in breath-stopping anticipation. In the silent interlude, some women could be heard sobbing. They had long reached their limits.
Arina curtsied again in mocked difference and said with false coyness:
"Am so sorry my lord, but it was only a mission.
"But then, this is a confession.
"My last mission was to kill the newborn baby, Omogbon's only son.
"She was not permitted to bear a son, so he was doomed and decreed to die.
"I undertook to execute the mission in person, I the great witch queen.
"You were in the way, and nobody blocks the queen.
"We had to clash without reserve, and we were about to die.
"Omogbon intervened, and it was a stalemate, she who was just a weak worm.
"I went for her, I ran into her beads.
"I was crushed, and I crashed.
"I crashed, and l would have chosen to die.
"But I bore the shame and opt to live, because I aim to know.
"That object Omogbon had, that even the demons failed to strike.
"My confession is finished, and so am I.
"I seek no pity, except to know."
Arina fell and lay still.
The confession was over.
All was quiet again.
Ehiga was the first to move once more.
He unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it over his head, hung it on his shoulder, and stalked away from the village square.