Before My Execution - Excerpt 3

                                                       Chapter Two

Omolewa and Ojebunmi were not just friends. They grew up together and both were beautiful enough to be called sunshine girls.

            Omolewa is tall, elegant with a bosom that is proportional to the frame. Her backside is twin to that of Ojebunmi whose gap tooth is a plus to the joint resume. Since the deportation of Ojebunmi from her husband’s village, the two have become inseparable. Ojebunmi had called at her house this morning to inform Omolewa about what Ifa had revealed on the reason behind her childlessness – that her husband is a woman; his banana is all water and no fertile juice. Omolewa could not digest the news and made an effort to get clarification, if it was possible for a man whose banana was rock solid was not to father a baby. Ojebunmi answered in the affirmative, because her father who was a repertoire of native knowledge also confirmed the possibility.

            Omolewa then suggested that she, too, might have to consult Ifa about her condition. Omolewa equally had been married without any babies from the marriage. That is why people have been gossiping about Ojebunmi and Omolewa as the beautiful

He-goats of Ilu-Nla! Some even went a bit too far by making a jest that the community should sacrifice the two of them to the gods of fertility. So that, infertility will no longer be the lot of young married women in Ilu-Nla again. Nevertheless, not all this was ever said aloud; whoever did deliberately went on a course of self-destruction.

 Ojeniyi, whose benevolence and notorious magical ability were at par, could cast a magical spell on such a person; within hours, funeral cry will happen in the domain of such individual and the spirit of such a person could only be met at bypaths.

            Before Ojebunmi forcefully relocated to Ilu-Nla, the opportunity to have a discussion and feel the warmth of friendship between her and Omolewa happened only once in five days at the marketplace on market days. Sometimes, they would discuss their state of childlessness and for Ojebunmi, having no child was a problem, but rubbing salt on the wound was worse. Her husband’s family did not see the situation as funny and they have started showing the bad side of their mien to her.

 Her husband was not acting a soothing balm either. He hardly gave money for housing keeping and Ojebunmi jokingly said her husband’s trousers had no pockets, a euphemism for saying her husband was a miser, wherein Omolewa joked that Ojebunmi’s husband was all bananas and no pockets. “No”, Ojebunmi interjected, “his trousers have pockets, but there was no thoroughfare for his hands.” “It looks like these days, some men’s trousers left their tailors’ shops without thoroughfare pockets”; Ojebunmi then postulated.

Whatever the case, Omolewa, concluded in her mind that she would have a date with the Ifa Priest.

Omolewa sat down reflecting about what her best friend had told her on the case of her husband. “What if the Ifa priest, now proclaimed the same situation for her husband? What if she was the one, who indeed was barren? What if, what if, and what if….” Her mind lingered for a while, with time, Omolewa became more mortified at the thought of being declared by the oracle to be a barren woman. The Ifa priest might indeed be enjoying the profound success of guesswork that they call divination. “Nevertheless,” she wondered “could the whole town and Kabiyesi be all fools in swallowing the result of divination from the Ifa oracle if this were to be true. If the Oracle had submitted that both she and her husband were barren, would that not have been by gone?” In spite of all, she must visit the Ifa Priest. Omolewa eventually visited the Priest.

            Ojebunmi was going to visit Omolewa when they met on the way, and Omolewa informed her she had been to the Ifa Priest, as they turned back moving towards Omolewa’s house. The Oracle had divined that Omolewa and her husband had no physical encumbrances having a child of their own. The only trouble was some woman must open the door for her in her husband’s house. When the meaning of this did not sink in well for Omolewa to decipher, the Priest told her pointedly that someone had to give her husband a child before she could give her husband fruits of the womb.

            Omolewa’s husband had been everything a woman could desire in a man. Not like, the all bananas no thoroughfare pockets. The families were nice, too.

Omolewa problem is how to share her husband with another woman. Ojebunmi had reminded her that her father had three wives before he died and her own father was not even done yet with two. Ojebunmi stated that what is more important in marriage is peace. If she had peace in her husband’s house, she would not mind having a junior, but then she would not have discovered that she might end up not having a child of her own. Probably that was the reason her husband’s first wife divorced him before marrying her.

            Ojebunmi advised Omolewa to let her husband know what the Ifa says and that she too should get her mind prepared for the inevitable fact of living with a second wife. Ojebunmi stood up and left. Ojebunmi had not gone far when Omolewa called to her. She went to her and whispered something into her ear. Ojebunmi burst into a roar of laughter and said it was such jokes that made her inseparable from Omolewa as she ran home.

                                                            Chapter Three

Kabiyesi gave order that the town crier should go round the town with his gong to inform all about the coming planting season anniversary that is taking place the next market day. All must take part in clearing and making the town Centre ready for the occasion.

            The leader of all the hunters had taken his orders from Kabiyesi and he had duly informed all members of the hunter’s guild to prepare for the great expedition. The  head-hunter and his deputy had come to the palace to receive Kabiyesi’s blessing more so since the previous day weather had not been anything witnessed by any living citizens of Ilu-Nla. Stories had been told about such happening, which had been handed down from generation to generation. However, no one could say with certainty that they had witnessed the eclipse of the sun and rainfall in the same day! It has been news all over the town with the young and the old giving different interpretations to the weather occurrence.

            Suddenly, the elderly now become the besought for explanations, and they all bask in the euphoria that when they now speak the young were all ears.

The head-hunter beseeched Kabiyesi for plenty of blessed palm wine for him to give all the participating hunters to drink that their ancestors might give their blessings in heaven. The head-hunter left the palace with the anointed palm-wine, Kola nuts, and palm fronds to talk to all members.

            From the harvest of the hunters’ expedition, the deer head will be used as a sacrifice and the remaining ones will be handed over to Kabiyesi to entertain his guests on the feast day.

            The hunting expedition main objective was to get a deer for the sole reason of using the head as offering while all the other animals killed would be presented to Kabiyesi who ordered the expedition.

            This current expedition was almost ending in disaster because despite killing so many animals, the hunters’ team had not succeeded in killing a deer and Nightfall was fast approaching.   Soon the moon had come out and no any deer yet in the count. Unlike the previous year when they deliberately stayed behind to get some more animals to present to Kabiyesi, their first kill had been a deer.

They all had to set their hunter’s lamp for the night and it had been agreed by all to hunt until the approach of dawn the following day when luck smiled on them. The hunters killed two deer at the same location and when they fetched them, they had been a male and a female, which made them extremely happy because they believed such occurrence to be of good omen from the gods. Now the planting season anniversary will go immediately the next market day.   

Kabiyesi looked forward to the anniversary because it will also be an opportunity to appease the gods that all the afflicted with smallpox might be healed and to halt the spread of the dreaded disease.

The disease has ravaged all the surrounding villages and is spreading all around Ilu-Nla and all efforts to halt it have been fruitless. It has been the reason Kabiyesi believes appeasing the gods will halt the contagious disease.

            Olori Atinuke was all over herself when the news came that the hunters had killed the deer that they would use as an offering to the gods. She now doubled efforts to endear herself to all who would be Kabiyesi’s guests.

Olu-Ode the great Head-hunter was in the palace to inform Kabiyesi that the task he gave him was a success.

From distance when the palace crier saw him, the crier started singing his praises. When such occasion came, the cognomen rendered would be as vibrant as the deep pockets of the beneficiary, and the  enthusiasm with which the crier rendered the eponym; the palace drummer using talking drum will give a hint to Kabiyesi if the visitor was welcomed or not.

            Any visitor who comes visiting has to put the team of the crier and drummer into consideration and one’s problem is half solved, or enhanced by these palace hands. They know the cognomen of every family in Ilu-Nla, including all the small towns that pay obeisance to the palace. They are the gauge visitors use to know the mood of the palace.