When the women retired, Obierika presented kola nuts to his in-laws. His
8. King from childhood (strong praise).
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eldest brother broke the first one. 'Life to all of us,' he said as he broke it.
'And let there be friendship between your family and ours.'
The crowd answered: 'Ee-e-e!'
'We are giving you our daughter today. She will be a good wife to you. She will bear you nine sons like the mother of our town.'
'Ee-e-e!'
The oldest man in the camp of the visitors replied: 'It will be good for you and it will be good for us.'
'Ee-e-e!'
'This is not the first time my people have come to marry your daughter. My mother was one of you.'
'Ee-e-e!'
'And this will not be the last, because you understand us and we understand you. You are a great family.'
'Ee-e-e!'
'Prosperous men and great warriors.' He looked in the direction of Okonkwo. 'Your daughter will bear us sons like you.'
'Ee-e-e!'
The kola was eaten and the drinking of palm-wine began. Groups of four or five men sat round with a pot in their midst. As the evening wore on, food was presented to the guests. There were huge bowls of foo-foo and steaming pots of soup. There were also pots of yam pottage. It was a great feast.
As night fell, burning torches were set on wooden tripods and the young men raised a song. The elders sat in a big circle and the singers went round singing each man's praise as they came before him. They had something to say for every man. Some were great farmers, some were orators who spoke for the clan; Okonkwo was the greatest wrestler and warrior alive. When they had gone round the circle they settled down in the centre, and girls came from the inner compound to dance. At first the bride was not among them. But when she finally appeared holding a cock in her right hand, a loud cheer rose from the crowd. All the other dancers made way for her. She presented the cock to the musicians and began to dance. Her brass anklets rattled as she danced and her body gleamed with cam wood in the soft yellow light. The musicians with their wood, clay and metal instruments went from song to song. And they were all gay. They sang the latest song in the village:
'If I hold her hand She says, 'Don't touch!' If I hold her foot She says, 'Don't touch!' But when I hold her waist-heads She pretends not to know.'
The night was already far spent when the guests rose to go, taking their bride home to spend seven market weeks with her suitor's family. They sang songs as they went, and on their way they paid short courtesy visits to prominent men like Okonkwo, before they finally left for their village. Okonkwo made a present of two cocks to them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Go-di-di-go-go-di-go. Di-go-go-di-go. It was the ekwe talking to the clan. One of the things every man learned was the language of the hollowed
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out wooden instrument. Diim! Diim! Diim! boomed the cannon at intervals.
The first cock had not crowed, and Umuofia was still swallowed up in sleep and silence when the ekwe began to talk, and the cannon shattered the silence. Men stirred on their bamboo beds and listened anxiously. Somebody was dead. The cannon seemed to rend the sky. Di-go-go-di-go-di-di-go-go floated in the message-laden night air. The faint and distant wailing of women settled like a sediment of sorrow on the earth. Now and again a full-chested lamentation rose above the wailing whenever a man came into the place of death. He raised his voice once or twice in manly sorrow and then sat down with the other men listening to the endless wailing of the women and the esoteric language of the ekwe. Now and again the cannon boomed. The wailing of the women would not be heard beyond the village, but the ekwe carried the news to all the nine villages and even beyond. It began by naming the clan: Umuofia obodo dike, 'the land of the brave.' Umuofia obodo dike! Umuofia obodo dike! It said this over and over again, and as it dwelt on it, anxiety mounted in every heart that heaved on a bamboo bed that night. Then it went nearer and named the village: Iguedo9 of the yellow grinding-stone! It was Okonkwo's village. Again and again Iguedo was called and men waited breathlessly in all the nine villages. At last the man was named and people sighed 'E-u-u, Ezeudu is dead.' A cold shiver ran down Okonkwo's back as he remembered the last time the old man had visited him. 'That boy calls you father,' he had said. 'Bear no hand in his death.'
Ezeudu was a great man, and so all the clan was at his funeral. The ancient drums of death beat, guns and cannon were fired, and men dashed about in frenzy, cutting down every tree or animal they saw, jumping over walls and dancing on the roof. It was a warrior's funeral, and from morning till night warriors came and went in their age-groups. They all wore smoked raffia skirts and their bodies were painted with chalk and charcoal. Now and again an ancestral spirit or egwugwu appeared from the underworld, speaking in a tremulous, unearthly voice and completely covered in raffia. Some of them were very violent, and there had been a mad rush for shelter earlier in the day when one appeared with a sharp matchet and was only prevented from doing serious harm by two men who restrained him with the help of a strong rope tied round his waist. Sometimes he turned round and chased those men, and they ran for their lives. But they always returned to the long rope he trailed behind. He sang, in a terrifying voice, that Ekwensu, or Evil Spirit, had entered his eye.
But the most dreaded of all was yet to come. He was always alone and was shaped like a coffin. A sickly odour hung in the air wherever he went, and flies went with him. Even the greatest medicine-men took shelter
