ORIGIN - Chapter Seven

The news of Echi’s short display of insanity spread through the village, and Olanna was the first to admit it after a bitter argument with a neighbour that ended with her calling him a fool. Neighbours came in groups, so did relatives. One after the other, they asked about his mental state, they asked whether he was chasing a naked spirit with palm fronds or he had been visited by a lover who he had broken her heart with his treachery before his marriage. Olanna declared all of them false. She called them lies that were formed by her husband’s enemies to desecrate the name he had made for himself in the village. What annoyed her the most was the way the people she called his friends twisted words to fit their hate for her husband. A hate she had just discovered now. She also had her share of the hate too. There were rumours flying everywhere in clusters. Rumours that his short-lived madness was caused by her witchcraft, and this false rumor transpired among those she called her friends. The few who chose not to believe any of the things they heard about the previous night, condemned Echi for disgracing his manhood.

A neighbour passing by the hut at night, was the first to spot Echi. She decided to eavesdrop when she heard shouts coming from inside his hut. What her eyes saw next was unbelievable. An insane man curled up in one corner, repeating the same words over and over again. She waited for morning to come before she escalated hard-earned information to a village with one of the best gossipers. This neighbour had been involved in an earlier quarrel with Echi over her missing hen, which she claimed was with Olanna, but Echi refused to believe her while saying his wife was not known for theft.

“I suspected he was mad before yesterday’s event,” the neighbour said.

“I am not surprised at all. It flows in the blood of the family,” her companion replied.

*

Isiewu sent for his son to bring him some herbs. He was planning on using the herbs to solve a young woman’s case of infertility. She had come earlier in the morning to complain about her husband’s decision to marry a second wife if the last effort he put inside her did not yield anything. Isiewu, as usual, was lively and full of grace as he studied the woman’s curvy body. It was evident to him that the woman was not from Umuolu. She had tribal marks on her shoulders Marks drawn in a strange way to depict a python. A dying python. He had promised her before she left that her solution would be ready before evening. It was one of those assurances he made with a huge smile on his face before saying that all would be well.

“Why are you still standing there?” asked Isiewu.

“I am tired. I can’t do any work again,” said Nweke.

“Are you mad? Are you sure you are not mad? Are you sure you have not been mad before?”

Nweke kept quiet. He was Isiewu's first son. The one that should have been a joy to the old chief priest of Umuolu, but he was not. He was a very dull lad with bulgy eyes that seemed to always fall and fit in his eyes at the same time.

“I blame that your stupid mother that brought shame on me by sleeping with a he-goat of a man in that stupid he-goat house of his.” Isiewu anger was fierce.

“Father, she is dead. Let her soul rest in peace.”

“Will you shut up your mouth. What do you know about rest in peace? Have you ever been dead before?” 

The peace Isiewu felt, knowing full well that everyone had accepted what happened to Echi was an unimaginable false desecration that could not happen to men of Echi’s status, was divine. He felt further relief knowing he was not a part of the rumour that had circulated around the village. Although he did not want anyone to pry into Echi’s case, he did not show it.

He sat quietly, chewing a soft chewing stick while spitting at intervals as he thought of the previous night’s event. The question that bothered him the most was how the neighbour was capable of spreading such information without consulting him first. Two centuries ago, the neighbour would have been cut into pieces if it turns out the news was false. That was why men and women consulted with the chief priests before spilling such information, but things were different now. It couldn’t be heard that Umuolu killed a woman for spreading a lie. How would other villages think? Would they say to one another that there was a division in the land? Would they say let us strike now while the snake takes a tour? He knew deep down inside his diviner’s soul that Echi’s madness was not a rumour; it was real. Real madness that only comes by the scent of a maiden ancestral spirit with a bitter death.

He thought of what his son said. He knew he was spending too much time on Echi’s case, but he had no choice other than to continue because he was already too deep to go back. Too far away to pull out. And what was better than proving his potency as the most revered diviner in the whole of Umuolu, and the best diviner that existed in the whole village? It was this kind of job that gave him his name. It was this kind of job that brought him to where he was now. It was this kind of job that demanded huge sacrifices and confirmed his position as the spokesman of the gods.

“I am Isiewu. The great and only living breath of the gods. I am the son of Isiogwu that can present an ancestral masked spirit with the heart of his son. I fear no mortal. I am the only one who can put the grasshopper in its place when it is let out from its bag. I am the living mockery of the gods,” Isiewu soliloquized and made short laughter, which was not audible for the few guests in Echi’s hut to hear.