Bantu Immigration: The Road To Ekenwan The road to Benin is paved with good intentions. Laced also, it is, with heart-stopping craters—evidence, anthropologists suggest, of ancient contact between these ancient people and distant galaxies. There is a speed limit on this road. Despite the potholes, it is unadvisable to travel at less than the speed of sound. It is advisable, subsequently, to attempt to move faster than a speeding bullet, if such the thing can be managed. The reason people go to Benin is because, at some point in history, they left it. And so this road tells tales—of the Urhobo escaping from an evil Ogiso, of the Ukwani and the Ishan and the Anioma and all those people who have long realized that if there in fact was a Garden of Eden, Adam’s name was Ikpomwosa and Eve’s Izegbua There are people, now and again, who never made it to where they were going. It is debatable that they knew where this place was at all. And so they settled along the road to Benin. They sell plantains and bananas and bush meat. The bush meat, it is not monkey, researchers have determined. But whatever it is, one would be forgiven for thinking it to be monkey. They also sell worms—lush, juicy, roasted worms that taste like nothing one has ever tasted once one gets beyond eating an insect or whatever it is those sorts of worms are. Surely, the cultural cuisine of the natives is sophisticated and adventurous. Or is it merely the end-result of the lack of a tradition of calculus and geometry? The settlers, they converge upon the cars that slow down to purchase food. They race from their shacks and stalls and demonstrate the free market at its most basic. Consumers are to be sold on what they should desire. They must be made to feel the urgency, made to feel that they need what they want. The occupants of the cars point, pick and choose. They buy bananas and groundnuts. The tentacles of the global economy are slow in permeating this ancient land, so there is no Starbucks, no Burger King, nothing to suggest that this land is part of the human family—nothing but the free market at its most basic. The cars pull off and speed away from the dying sun. They must arrive in Eden before dark. Night is the time when evil people prey upon the foolish. The foolish are good people who move about at night. The natives fear the dark because since they discovered the white man’s power—his electricity—the tradition of placing torches every twenty steps from the home of the village head has given way to a tradition of European enlightenment. The natives are well aware of the benefits of civilization and European enlightenment—roads paved with good intentions. Many kilometers from the settlement one notices a small path on the side of the highway. The path, it is rumored, leads to a mud hut. In this hut lives a hunter. He is a brave man. He is a brave man, for only brave men live alone in the middle of the forest. Surely, he is not scared of death. What sort of man is this, the anthropologist wonders. Had the natives the guts, he would have stopped the car and proceeded to ask of this man some questions. But the natives, superstitious and ignorant, they say that they will not take part in anything of the sort. A man who lives alone in the forest, they reckon, needs to be left alone. The rationale is not impeccable, but the natives have lived on this land long enough not to be curious about certain things. Still, the anthropologist is fascinated. Why would anyone live in the forest alone in the middle of nowhere? Why would anyone face a day surrounded by massive trees that reach to the heavens with roots emanating from the ground and hugging all life forms like huge, brown snakes? And then the question, why not? Why must this hunter, if this is what he is, live with the settlers who sell bush mean and groundnuts and bananas? Are they a necessary facet of life? Is socialization necessary for the introspective hunter who stores, in his pouch, the secrets of herbal medicine that have ensured that his people always have some protection against the scourge of tropical ailments? Certainly his medicines are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But when the village head requires healing, when he is constipated, when he feels a fever, he sends his youngest and bravest son down the road to Benin in order to find the hunter. When the youngest son arrives at the path towards the hunter’s mud hut he, too, wonders hwy a man would live alone in the middle of the forest. This, it seems, is a mystery. “Baba!” the young man shouts into the forest. There is no response but for the almost sublime hooting of the forest birds who amuse themselves with stories about human adventures in the world of spirits. “Baba!” the young man shouts again. “Who is it?” a voice from the forest responds. “It is me, Ikpomwosa!” the young man shouts. “My father requests your services!” “Tell him that I will be there before nightfall.” “Yes, baba!” The young man, glad that he did not need to enter the forest to relay his message, turns around, back down the road to Benin, and heads for his settlement. He skips merrily along, pulling the rubber on his catapult in anticipation of stumbling upon the thing that is sold as bush meat. They are not monkeys, he now knows. But he is forgiven for thinking them to be those. There is a bundle of clothes by the road side. This is suspicious. Cars speed by, chased by the fear of the forest. The occupants look at the young man and wonder why anyone would be walking on the side of the highway alone, next to the forest. They look away and forget they saw him. He is what Africa likes to forget. He is the story of the Bantu. The young man waits till the traffic is less dangerous. Then he inches towards the bundle of clothes. “Iye! Iye!” an old woman appears from nowhere and attempts to beat him with a broom. He screams in terror and dashes across the highway. There is no traffic. He is lucky. Had there been traffic he would not have been lucky. He would have been dead. Puffing, panting, he turns around on the other side of the dangerous highway and looks at his history. She is standing there with a maddened gleam in her eyes, a sly awareness of the fact that she it was who would have been responsible for his death had destiny been kind to her. Denied her entertainment for the evening, the witch—for this is what she must be—picked her bundle of clothes and departs into the forest. It will not be long before the people of the settlement know that there is an old woman who lives in the forest on the way to the hospital. Ikpomwosa makes it home soon. The sun is dying and fewer cars are pulling over to buy bananas and ground nuts and bush meat. The women are packing up, and like the good son he is Ikpomwosa offers assistance to one of them. She thanks him and tells him that he is just like his father. He is kind and caring and thoughtful. He carries the woman’s basked for her as they all trudge back to their settlement in the forest. When he arrives at the woman’s house she offers him some food. He thanks her but refuses politely. He turns around walks to his compound. There he will await the hunter then run to tell his father that salvation has arrived. There is a full moon in the sky and the hunter has not arrived. Ikpomwosa looks at the moon and wonders if it is true that the white people sent a man there. To do what? Even witches are scared of the moon. This is where the gods live. This is where Oranmiyan was taken to when he left earth. The moon is where dead people go. Heaven is behind it, the land of the spirits. What were the white people looking for on the moon? But it isn’t surprising. They are the sort that would go into the forest to look for the hunter, even when they are not sick. A shadow distracts the young man’s gaze and he turns, startled. It is the hunter. “Ah, baba! You are welcome. Let me tell Papa you are here.” “Eh… no,” the hunter says curiously. He pulls out a bundle of leaves from his pouch and hands them to the boy. “Ask your mother to boil these and then add some Obriba syrup. Your father must eat this tonight and tomorrow he will awake as fresh as a new day.” “Thank you sir,” the boy says hesitantly. The hunter turns around and soon is lost in the darkness. The boy enters his compound and delivers both the message and the herbs to his mother. The hunter always seems to know what he is doing. Once his mother has begun preparing the medicine, Ikpomwosa looks at the moon again. What sort of people live in that place? Why is it so big? Why does it shine so bright? Is it true that it shines so bright because of Oranmiyan’s crown? They say that dead people shine. Maybe this is why the moon shines so. Ikpomwosa is lost in thought, staring at the moon. He awakens out of his daze to discover that the moon has moved. It was here and now it is there. This is strange. The hand of God has moved the moon. He picks up his catapult and measures the movement. The moon has moved from the top of the first stick to the ridge. The hadn of God has moved the moon. Years later, when he would observe the movement of the moon from his own hut in the middle of the forest, Ikpomwosa would look back in amusement at how he thought it was the hand of God that moved the moon. The things one thinks when one is an African child. The things one thinks. Ikpomwosa, as destiny would have it, would come to discover that African children did not grow up to be men. They grew up to be spirits. He would come to discover that Africa was the land of spirits and those who thought otherwise, who believe what the white ment toldthem, there would be no space for them on the moon. Africa, Ikpomwosa would tell the anthropologist who discovered him, was the land where gods came from. Africa, home of the Bantu. Bah-ntu, the god people. But destiny is patient. It has a date that it cannot miss. And so when Ikpomwosa is sent back to the hunter the next evening, to thank him for his father’s good health and pay him with two chickens, he walks on the other side of the road to Benin—the path less traveled. But it is embedded in his consciousness, the legend of the witch who lives in the forest on the way to the hospital. Whether or not the story is true is unimportant. What is important is that he knows that if danger does exist on that road to Benin, as civilization flees towards Eden in their cars, he will be ready to protect himself. “Baba!” Ikpomwosa shouts when he reaches the path that leads to the mud hut in the forest, having crossed the treacherous highway. His voice echoes and the birds amuse themselves. They know that another African child is growing into a spirit. Another mask is to be made. Another legend is to be born. “Baba!” Ikpomwosa shouts again. “Who is it?” “”It is me, Ikpomwosa! Papa asks me to bring you these chickens!” “Very good. Bring them to me!” It is a story that has been told time and then time again, of the African child who got lost in the forest. But it is Ikpomwosa’s story, and this glory will not be denied him. For, it is not that long a walk to the hunter’s hut. But the walk back is the fabric of African history, when Ikpomwosa reaches the crossroads in the forest and is unable to determine from which path he had come. He had not noticed the second path on his way in. But no one ever notices the second path—no one but the spirits who walk that road. It is the path less traveled on the road to Benin. Had Ikpomwosa taken the path to the right, then there would be nothing further to say. He would have arrived back on the highway, avoided danger, and made it back to his settlement to stare at the moon—the land of the dead. Ikpomwosa, however, is one of the chosen ones. The gods of the Bantu are chosen, and the question is why. Why is Ikpomwosa chosen to be a god? He would tell the anthropologists that it was his temperament. “I understand the language,” he would say. What language? The language that guides the Bantu towards the future. Ikpomwosa was born a leader. The path to the left seems welcoming, inviting even. But it is one of those, one of those that causes one to doubt after a few minutes. And when doubt arrives, the path disappears, and one realizes that it was never there. Or, if it was, it was moved by the hand of God. Ikpomwosa reaches for his catapult instinctively. It is embedded in his trousers. He turns around and is about to make a decision, probably to find the path, when he hears a voice. “Young man, please help me…” He turns around. It is an old woman with a maddened gleam in her eyes. She is attempting to drag a couple of logs. She must need them for firewood. Ikpomwosa is frozen in place. “Have you not heard this thing I have said?” the old woman persist. “I said help me!” Ikpomwosa is hypnotized by her determination. He reaches forward and grabs one of the logs. He drags it and follows the lady and soon a path appears. It leads to a clearing in the forest. There is a mud hut surrounded by huge, tall trees. These trees seem to have legs, massive protrusions that emanate from their bodies and bury themselves in the dark, ancient soil. For whatever reason, they seem to represent the malcontent of tropical vegetation. Had they the wherewithal, Ikpomwosa can tell, the would give him the beating of his life. Yet it all feels very secure. It feels as if this is the place he was meant to be at exactly that point in his life. Ikpomwosa was anointed on the eight day after his birth. His people believe in fate, and his fate was sealed from him until he turned old enough to be considered a man. But no one has to tell him, now, that this is it. This is his fate. And Ikpomwosa has been resigned to his fate since the day he was first told that he had one. “Everyone has a destiny,” his father had told him. “Those who fight against their destiny fight against the spirits. And only the spirits can win against the spirits.” And so it was, of the Bantu, that only the rebels were spirits. And of them, only those who won their match against the spirits that were their destiny made it into the river of legends that flowed from Benin to the Atlantic Ocean. It did not matter what the stories were. What mattered was how many stories there were, and the name of the rebels in question. Ikpomwosa watches the old woman very carefully. She is tired. She is beat. He feels sorry for her. Why is she living alone? Why does she not have people to care for her? This is the African wayl. “Mama…” “Quiet!” she whispers. “Do you not know that if you speak too loud they will hear you?” “Who…” “Quiet!” Ikpomwosa is quiet. The old woman walks into her hut then comes out with an axe. Ikpomwosa’s heart beats fast but he knows that she is not going to kill him. If she was the one to kill him she would have done so with her broom on the road to Benin. She begins to hack away at the logs. Soon she has an admirable pile. She sits down, breathing furiously. “My strength is leaving me. If only I could find someone to help me these days…” “Mama…” “You! You there!” she shouts at Ikpomwosa, “Who are you? What are you doing here?!” “Mama, I was the one who helped you bring your firewood.” “The old woman peers at Ikpomwosa. “Huh?” “I helped you carry your logs.” “Was that today?” she asks, genuinely surprised. “My how time flies. Are you hungry?” “No, mama, I must be returning home.” “Are you one of the Oro-Oba?” “Ma?” “Are you Oro-Oba? Oro-Oba? The word of the King! Are you Oro-Oba?” “I don’t understand ma.” “You speak our language with a very strange tongue. You must be Oro-Oba.” “No ma. I live a little while from here. We have a village called Alaran.” “Alaran? You are from Alaran?” “Yes mama,” Ikpomwosa says, surprised that she knows the name. It is a surprise because only the people of Alaran know Alaran. To the rest of the worlds it is a settlement. Just one more stop on the highway, a place get a Starbucks Frapppuchino or a Whopper. “Alaran…” the old woman smiles and her eyes light up. She is as beautiful an old woman as Ikpomwosa has ever seen. “Alaran, the fire in the belly of the Odu’s rage will be heeded.” She turns and faces Ikpomwosa. “Welcome my son. You must eat something. You must eat something. I have not had a visitor from Alaran in a long, long time. Everyday they come from everywhere else. In fact, these ones that you see leaving, they are from as far away as Bogodeke. But they are lazy. They do not offer me help when I am carrying firewood.” Ikpomwosa looks around and realizes that the woman is crazy. Psychotic, the anthropologist would say years later, when he realizes, too, that Ikpomwosa must himself be crazy—in that peculiar Bantu manner of madness that one sees rarely, but from time to time. Ikpomwosa wants to run away but his feet are firmly planted on the ground. This is the woman’s turf. He will have to conjure the courage to escape before the sun dies. Only mad people can live in the middle of the forest without fear. “Izegbua, heh! Izegbua!” the woman exclaims to herself, “what have the gods brought for you today? Izegbua! And they said that you would never live to pass the flame!” Izegbua. Her name is Izegbua, apparently. Maybe she is not so mad. Although, she is clearly quite mad. “If you would step this way sir…” I step this way. “Please sit down.” “Thank you,” I respond. “So you say you were taken by Angels to the Garden of Eden?” “It is a rainforest in my culture.” “Yes, yes, On the road to Benin. And there you met God?” “Yes sir.” “And you have met God, according to this report, three times?” “Yes sir” “And this last time you were taken… here in Reston?” “DC sir.” “Ah, yes, DC. The Holy City. And who took you?” “And Ethiopian cab driver sir.” “Aha, and how do you know he was Ethiopian?” “Because he was not Eritrean.” “Hmm. And he knew where God lived… or was vacationing, apparently?” “It was high season sir.” “High season?” “The festival for Global int.” “Global int?” “The unified global intelligence sir.” “Ah, yes. You once called it… what did you call it?” “The world government that does not exist.” “Yes! The world government that does not exist. And so it was high season and…?” “Everyone was hypnotized sir. The highest bird was automatically extracted to…” “Extracted?” “Yes, sir. The highest bird is extracted from the force sir. There was radiation that….” “Radiation?” “Yes, sir. When so many people are hypnotized in the same place, the Pope…” “The Pope?!” “That’s the code-name, sir, for the highest bird at any time.” “And you were the highest bird?” “I suppose so, sir. I was extracted…” “Were you… smoking anything?” “I have done nothing wrong…” “I see. And this was not your first time meeting God?” “I have met them three times sir.” “Tell me, what does God look like?” “Strangely enough, sir, sometimes like a bolt of lightning…” “Aha… and when we found you, you had just finished speaking with God.” “I was returning from the Seventh Heaven sir…” “I see. Do you have a history of mental illness? Depression? Bi-polar disorder. Anything?” And on and on it went. Such a tale is best left untold, I imagine to myself. I’d have more credibility if I suggested I was abducted by UFOs. The man is done. He smiles to himself then looks at me. I feel his eyes. I look at him. He winks for the briefest second then arises and walks away with his cane. I smile quietly. He is an Angel. I should have known. I wonder what Heaven he is returning from. I look back out at the highway. I wonder who is in the cars. One of them may contain my last memory of earth, a message from a Bini Chief. A surprise, most certainly, for I had spent the years of ascension with the Words of the Oba—Oro-Oba, in all its incarnations. I turn to see where the Angel is. A nurse obscures my view but I see through her. He is walking slowly from the hospital. I surmise that he made it to the fourth heaven. That would be impressive. I turn back to look at the highway. The chief would be on his way home now. To deliver a message to the king that he spoke with a representative of our civilization to the conference of civilizations. And what would the king say? Would the king ask if I pledged allegiance to Benin? Would he ask if the influence of my Yoruba guardians was overbearing? Or would he simply understand, that though history brought us together, I am simply a citizen of the earth. “Well, the doctor says you’re leaving tomorrow,” the nurse says. She seems disappointed. People like me, she believes, are her reason for existence. I tickle myself within but remain solemn outside. I have fought against the gods and won. As my reward they would not make me crazy. After all, there are no medicines for madness. Maybe they shall even give me a name! I am flush with excitement. I close my eyes and reach out to the stillness. I feel the spirits against my hairs—they rise quietly and tickle my stomach. My astral body shivers and tries to escape. I protest. There will be time enough for that after the consequences of my recent journey are apparent on the earth. I want to laugh but the nurse is still around. Brilliant flashes of light engulf my darkness and I understand. I have flown again and I have survived. I have slain a mighty god with his own wit and he laughed himself to death, reborn, certainly, as an exploding galaxy. True, I will be depressed for a while, as the curriculum of the material world demands my attention. But I will fly again, and then fly again in time, and the witness of my rendezvous with the gods will the miracle of the words they speak through me. “Thank you ma’am” I say to the nurse. She sighs. “I wish he wouldn’t let you off so soon.” I control myself and cease my laughter before it begins. She just would not understand. She would not understand.
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 00:46:20 +0000
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