```There was a man who flourished in my village Umuju in the early 90s, He flourished because of his strong belief to the will of his Chi. This was a time before the gargantuan decadence in our culture, the time when men were men, when trees were still the lands of Chipmunks, when women were still Virgin until when their rightful husbands broke their virginity. This was when the gods were still reciprocating the sacrifices of their servants.
Egwu, was an eccentric and quite serious. A practical traditionalist who also accepted Christianity and was intoxicated by it. He became an intermediary between the white missionaries and the native. Because of his smartness and his love for the new religion, he joined the missionaries in spreading Christianity all over Umuju, and even beyond.
Like a young boy who learned how to brush newly, Egwu began to walk from one shrine to another preaching to the custodians. He preached in the name of Jeso Kristi.
“Turn from your bad ways and accept Jeso Kristi n’ ime mmụọ na eziokwu.”
Few accepted Christianity with faith and in spirit and many rebuffed him and his religion and tagged it “emebe”- something that has never happened, in other words “unprecedented”.
“Learning how to pray in Jesus, said a new convert, is like learning how to be left handed at old age “
Egwu’s fanaticism about his new religion became strong that he burnt his chi and that of others who relinquished to his new religion. His attitudes toward other people’s religion became obnoxious and a savage. He even went as far as burning the village deity of Justice, Ngeleishi.
In retrospect, he maintained that, prior his sudden turn-around, his Chi had gotten angry at him and was tormenting him. Despite this torment, he still persevered.
The severity of the torment to Egwu, left him alive for only a short period of time, leaving his offspring permanently mentally scarred as a result of the covenant their father had made.
His eldest son Ekwe tried all he could to stop the torment, but apparently, he could not stop what had begun.
A story was told about a man whose chi struck down on an Eke day for not feeding him. The furious deity demanded twelve she-goats, five pieces of white chalk, five red wrappers, as well as two gallons of palm wine for appeasement.
“The problem with contemporary Africans, is the problem of syncretism and the failure to accept the authenticity of the guard and guidance of these deities before the advent of the white man’s religion.
Everyone was a traditionalist because they gave us hope, when we’re shrouded by troubles”, said an old man.
The penalty of evil done to a chi boomerangs even when the perpetrator is dead.
Ekwe, the eldest of Egwu’s twelve sons, began seeing the torment of the burnt chi in his life and household. Life became harder than he had envisaged: poor harvest, imbecilic children and a broken home were all manifestations of the burnt as well as the inability to keep to the covenant agreed upon. He had yielded to despair, and everything he does became new like one starting life anew at old age.
Egwu, left enough land for his children before he died, lands meant primarily for cultivation and to solve problems that might come in the near future. As one Igbo proverb would say, “an idle man is an evil thinker”.
Ekwe, sold all the lands left for him by his father. None was left for his children and brothers. When he realizes he had sold all the lands, he became a drunk. Not too long after the news became an open secret, Ekwe died on his way coming back from his normal drinking hideout. After two weeks, his remnants were found in a nearby stream drenched with water.
“The powers of a chi are very potent upon whosoever’s forefathers had enjoyed its selfless services of generational guard and guidance. Hence, the wrath of an abused orthodoxy doesn’t harm somebody whose father had rebuffed its powers,” said one of the elders who were to do the last rite before Ekwe had been buried.
The mourners countenance was unsympathetic and obvious to read meaning to the kind of life lived by the deceased.
No one mourned Ekwe or felt empathetic for his children, rather people shook their heads in disagreement and prayed, “ụdị mmadụ gị abiakwana ụwa ọzọ“.
Life is most full of insatiability!```
By Azieze Augustine U.
Culled From
VOICE OF OHAIRE(VOO).
