WOYE was in a very good mood. His grandmother watched him at play, with keen interest, smiling radiantly. Ever restless! Woye would engage himself in a hundred activities all at once, without the slightest trace of fatigue, all through bouncing with youth, energy and vigor.
He began kicking an orange football on bare ground and dribbling his playmates round and round.
He spun his old bicycle wheel at top speed along the village lanes, shouting on those carelessly crossing his
‘highway’ to keep off danger, warning them not to get involved in auto accident!
His bicycle wheel was terrific in speed! Next, he sat on a wooden stool, stretching his two legs fully out, waving a thickset staff which he told the people was the horse tail of a monarch! Woye announced to passers-by that he had become the Oba of Kufi village! All hail the King, his imperial majesty!
“Silly boy! A playful little rascal!” Yaremi mused. She knew what Woye loved to do, and what he hated to do. He loved to daydream. He hated walking alone in the dark. He loved keeping the company of goats and dogs, throwing remnants of food at them. He hated to be abused and scolded. He loved counting the stars in the sky on moonlit nights. Woye hated to take his bath with cold water. Water was Woye’s enemy. Food was his friend.
Whenever it was time for him to take his bath, he would reluctantly strip naked, and pour water only on his protuberant belly, shivering.
Whenever cold water touched other parts of his body, he would let forth a fearful yelp, his teeth grating. But, good food, oh merciful God! Woye would tear the meat with relish and munch morsels nosily. He would crack soft bones with alacrity and suck marrows with advertised enjoyment – an all-round glutton!
There he was now, playfully chasing the chicks home from the feeding ground with a palm frond. Mother hen, sensing danger, aggressively spread out both arms with a sudden rush of her fluffy feathers.
Woye screamed. The chicks ducked behind the falling mud walls in self-defence.
The Hawk and the Village’s Fear
A hawk hovering in the sky tore down fiercely – this was the little aeroplane of heaven; the grey-coloured owner of the incinerator; kinsman of the falcon; emperor of the woodland.
Woye watched as the hawk swooped down in acrobatic aerial manoeuvring. In another second, it soared high into space, its captured prey singing the song of death in its talons, as it flew through mountain tops and a region of forests, to the burial ground of desolate escarpments in the far-away horizon.
“Protect me, Mama!” Woye shouted, “Please. The hawk might return to carry somebody away.”
“That is not possible, Woye,” Mama replied.
“Hawks only feed on insects, chickens, lizards and rodents. They chase the chicks to the roosting shed, and the silent lizards to the crevices of mud walls. They rush to kidnap, from behind, the unwary rodents fleeing the smoke-filled savannah where the orange flame burns.”
“Our chicks must be protected, Mama.”
“Yes, Woye. That we have always been doing. See now…” Yaremi rolled a long stick round in quick circles to scare off another hawk prowling in the sky. She brought the stick down heavily into the dry sand and watched the wind carry small dust up to the arrogant landlord of refuse dump prowling above. That was real magic to Woye. Next, Yaremi dressed up the stump of an old tree, right in front of the house, like a man.
She gave the stump two outstretched arms, one leg, and an unusually long neck, then an oversize cap, to make it appear like some kind of sullen-looking monster, perpetually watching the happenings in heaven!
That was a real miracle to Woye. He gazed in stunned silence, at his grandmother’s one-legged scarecrow, wondering how the scarecrow would one day breathe into life and begin chasing away the hawks on the high akoko tree, near the roosting shed at the back of the house.
“Look, Woye, if, right now, we can get a long needle to pin down the shadow of the hawk perching on that akoko tree in front, the hawk will come rolling straight down-stone dead, in a matter of seconds!”
This was yet another miracle to Woye…even sorcery!
Whispers of the Village
The people of Kufi were ever suspicious of all feathered creatures, hawks especially. They were suspicious of the round-faced owl with the big eye, neighing in the cool night wind; the tiny sparrows wailing in the snakelike branches of slender trees in the woodland forest regions: the weaver bird building its dwelling place along the thick foliage in the herbages of banana plantations…
The dozing vultures waiting for the fresh carcass of a dead antelope on the camwood tree, in the tangles of an abandoned cassava farm; the white egret dancing a slow-motion dance in the sky; the proud flaming flamingo, resting on one leg in front of the forest lake, contemplating the secret of the horizon; the robin piercing the still night air with its distant shrill; and the scarlet-eyed falcon nailed to the sky in flight, like a black flag.
There was something really enigmatic to the people in the colours of the forest birds. They shrank to see the pale grey back and the yellow coverts of the ega bird; the white terminal bars across the trailing edge on the beak of the opri; the green rump of the aase, its red masquerade tail and its swollen neck dipped in an iridescent hue. The birds were all like transformed witches to the people, arriving from the forest of Aku at night, causing confusion in the sky, flapping mystic wings, perching on the roofs of Kufi houses, and rocking buildings to their foundations.
Yaremi’s name had always been linked with the subject of human beings transforming into feathered creatures. When the people saw the hawk which perched on the roof of Ajumobi’s house on the day Ajumobi died, their suspicion was confirmed:
“This woman has taken her husband!”
“She turned into a hawk and took her man!”
“That’s not an ordinary bird, for sure, on the roof of the house.”
“Ever seen a hawk perch so adamantly, so confidently on a human house before? Refusing to move, even when shouts came out this loud?”
The topic was on everybody’s lips. They discussed it everywhere: on the farm, inside the kitchen, outside their homes, and by the riverside. The riverside, in particular, was the centre of gossip for the people of Kufi – the battle ground of unblended voices, where women’s gabble mixed with the shrieks of men, the hubbub of water fowls and the booming bass of toads.
Was there anybody who had ever had a natural passing here in Kufi? Nobody, This had always been coming at the instance of enemies within and without; through obvious means and through questionable means. The people were ever ready to advance reasons for sudden, unexpected passing.
Greedy members of an extended family, for instance, might be in a hurry to inherit the cocoa plantation of a successful village member, and plot his untimely death with potent juju.
Arrogance and self-conceit could engender sudden death by poisoning, with as little a reason as mere reluctance to prostrate in greetings before village elders! Seducing another man’s wife could bring instant passing through a majele secretly dipped into the aha of fresh palm of the culprit. A vindictive wife might evoke this vengeance through a medicine man on her wicked husband.
But heaven was Yaremi’s witness! Ajumobi died a natural death. He had returned from the farm feeling very tired and had refused his favourite food. Two days after, his condition had deteriorated. He was strangely talkative – as if by unburdening his mind, his typhoid would disappear.
“This early morning drizzle won’t allow me to go out to hunt today,” Ajumobi, that day, had lamented to his wife, “So I will remain indoors Yaremi, and keep for myself warm by the side of this fire you have made for me.”
Ajumobi’s mind had become filled up with dreams and hallucination…
“Is my gun safe at the corner of the room?” He had shouted. “Quickly find out! Quickly find out! Find my gun! Find my gun for me Yaremi! I can hear now, very clearly, the chuckle of the swan clearing the air with its hollow wings, and the footsteps of the zebra gliding in the shadow of darkness.
I must go out tonight to shoot game! Listen now to that sound, Yaremi: the sound of the eland scuttling in the thickets of the lemon grass. There, it is breaking into a sudden flight and spreading a cloud of dust in the air! Where is my gun? See a leopard under the tall idigbo tree, Yaremi, crushing the deer’s skull between its incisors – this animal whose eyeballs never rest. Where, for heaven’s sake, is my gun?
“Look, that is a giraffe picking leaves from the high branch of an arere – can’t you see! And thats a young deer too running in circles with its mother, eyeing a drowsy lion nestling in the long grass a little way off in the distance. Give me my gun! Are you deaf, Yaremi! You must be deaf!”
The village herbalist was brought in to examine Ajumobi. The oracle was consulted. Pronouncements were made in the esoteric language of the deity. The verdict of the herbalist was emphatic:
“The water jar has broken and its content spilled on the bare floor. All is over. Nobody can collect the spilled water with the five fingers of the hand, and try to restore it back into a broken jar. Now too late! The oracle has asked me to tell you this and it is the truth.” That seemed very unbelievable to the people.
“Let no one doubt the oracle!” The herbalist blared out. “The oracle is all-seeing and all-knowing; powerful beyond description; and unspeakably mighty. The oracle sees it all, feels it all and tells it all.
The oracle knows exactly when the days would be sunny; he knows when the clouds would gather and open its mouth for a rainful laughter. The oracle knows when to shed the light of hope, when to retrieve a lost child who prances in the tall yellow bush, heading straight for the setting sun. He knows how truth moves on steadily, acting as a guide, like light, overshadowing the evil paths of life.
The oracle tells the hard truth, which, like the blacksmith’s solid steel, is forged in the flaming tongue of hot fire.
“Here now is the truth, you people of Kufi. The jar has been broken, and the water inside spilled.. Take your diggers and hoes and shovels, and begin to dig, six feet deep into the soil. Let the farewell dirge rent the air, here and in the neighbouring villages of Kufi, for a departing soul!”.
Ahmad Nwabuzor is a Nigerian author and storyteller with a strong passion for writing and sharing meaningful stories. He is a graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), where he studied English and Literary Studies.
He writes across different forms of storytelling, including cultural narratives, emotional fiction, and moral stories that teach life lessons. His storytelling style is rooted in African life and shaped by a deep interest in how traditions influence people’s choices and emotions.