Grandfather’s Funeral
By Marycynthia Chinwe Okafor
The excitement in the air breathes, like a closed fire wanting to be let out. It is the funeral of Ojiugo, my grandfather. It isn’t the first funeral Ụmụchu has witnessed in recent times, but it is the first one where Ajọ Ọhịa, the great masquerade, is expected to attend to narrate the life of the deceased—of facts known and secrets unknown in song form—all through the night.
Eight years ago, Ụmụchu would have witnessed the first attendance of Ajọ Ọhịa in over two decades, when Akwanwa Ezeude was buried. The man had aged, accumulating more wives, children, friends and wealth than any other man in Ụmụchu, but there had been debates over whether his time had come. Akwanwa Ezeude had lived a long life, but he hadn’t lived long enough to see his ninetieth year. Finally, it was concluded that it wasn’t his ancestors who had called him home so early, therefore the great masquerade hadn’t attended his funeral to pay him the respect due an aged person.
But there is no debating whether Ajọ Ọhịa should attend Nnam Ochie’s funeral. My grandfather had only been two years and a few months shy of the century mark when Ọnwụ came in the night and smothered him in his bed. The next morning, Nnam Ochie’s compound had been occupied by his corpse, his caregiver, his ọzọ titled brothers and the members of our ụmụnna as they contacted Nnam Ochie’s children.
Today, the compound of my father’s paternal home is filled to the brim. We can hardly hear each other over the many voices and loud music. A flex banner bearing Nnam Ochie’s obituary hangs beside the compound’s open gates pointing people to the funeral’s venue. A lot of condolers have arrived, and they sit in plastic chairs placed under labeled canopies. A large tent—for VIPs—sits exclusively at the extreme edge of Nnam Ochie’s compound. The caterers in their white top and black trouser uniforms bustle around, bumping into people as they set up buffets at intervals in Nnam Ochie’s expansive compound.
In the parking lot, which has been cleared of Nnam Ochie’s assorted collection of vehicles, an ọha mmiri sits cross-legged burning dry leaves and ensuring that the sky remains clear of rain clouds. Behind him, twenty cows—from ten in-laws and well-wishers—graze on green grass cut by Father in the early morning. It is eight cows more than the number of cows Uncle had watched the butchers slaughter yesterday evening.
Attired in our family uniform of green abada with miniature heads of my grandfather drawn all over, the members of my family are easily identified. We gather around Nnam Ochie’s mound at one edge of his compound beside my grandmother’s tiled grave. I watch the dibịa approach my grandfather’s grave. Nnam Ochie had been buried on the same day he died, three months ago. He had told all eight of his children that he didn’t want any morgue attendant to lay hands on his corpse. So today, instead of watching his coffin being lowered into the stomach of Ana while we wait to throw handfuls of earth into his grave, we wait for the dibịa to begin with the necessary ritual.
The dibịa begins with incantations, Igbo words we understand perfectly weaved into sentences which make no sense to us. He staggers round the grave three times and then comes back to stand at its head, where an orange plant has been allowed to grow. He takes kola nut from a goatskin bag he wears strung over his head. He brings the kola nut to his lips, mutters over it and breaks it. “Eke. Oye. Afọr. Nkwo.” He counts four lobes. “The four market days of the weeks. A good omen, the road is clear.” He throws three lobes on Nnam Ochie’s grave and the last into his mouth, chewing loudly.
Taking a goatskin wine bag from over his head, he takes a deep drink and then spits it on the grave. He repeats the action a second and a third time.
He clears his throat and speaks in a monotone, inviting Nnam Ochie to come and witness his funeral, a ritual worthy of a man of his status. “Your children have come to give you your due. And they have done well. Exceeded expectations. Come and be a part of the ceremony.”
He then turns abruptly, praise for Nnam Ochie on his lips, and staggers away, out of the gates, to continue with the rest of the ritual with Nnam Ochie’s ọzọ family in private. We disperse.
When we gather again, it is to trail behind my aunty, Nnam Ochie’s only daughter, while she dances around the compound with her father’s gold-framed photograph held to her breasts. Her husband and his people lay money on the ground for her to walk over. Her brothers and her two sons dance backwards in front of her and spray money at Nnam Ochie’s photograph.
When the music changes, we scatter again. We, the children, go to dance with our individual mothers when our other families are announced by the MC. They enter bearing food items and cartons of drinks, and shower our mothers with wads of wrappers and cash. Our mothers lead them to their canopies where their food and drinks will be served. The items they bring are taken into a store where they are labeled with marker and masking tape.
The MC concludes the dance ritual when he calls Nnam Ochie’s grandchildren and great grandchildren forth for the ụmụ ụmụ dance, to be led by my third oldest cousin. My first and second oldest cousins do not join us in the dance; the family has assigned them and their friends to watch the store, where the chests of drinks and coolers of food are kept, to make sure nobody makes away with anything.
The ceremony stretches late into the night before the voice of the talking drum of Ụmụchu sounds for the first time. It communicates that Ajọ Ọhịa has emerged from the masquerade’s mouth and is on its way to Nnam Ochie’s compound. Cheers rent the air, but are soon subdued as some of the remaining condolers start to file into Nnam Ochie’s house.
The words of the drum are a warning rather than an announcement. They caution us to go inside and turn off all lights. Only men who have been inducted into the secrets behind the mask and women past one hundred years of age are allowed to watch Ajọ Ọhịa. Others can only listen to the masquerade’s tales from the safety of a dark place.
While the adults guide the young ones inside, we slip out of the gate to the opposite compound, Father’s compound, where he received my maternal family and well-wishers who came from Asaba for us. There are five of us, three cousin brothers, one cousin sister and I. We climb the biggest guava tree in Father’s compound and get comfortable on large branches.
Our cousin brothers warn us that it isn’t too late to go inside with the others because we are girls. We tell them it isn’t too late for them either because they haven’t been introduced to the masquerade cult.
I listen to the voice of the talking drum, which tracks and announces the progress of the masquerade.
The moon is full and sweeps the ground below in silvery lights such that I can see everything clearly, even the Ọgụgụ shrine at the mouth of Ụmụchu and the serene Mmiri Ejem at its tail. But I do not see Ajọ Ọhịa. The talking drum communicates again, saying that Ajọ Ọhịa is within sight of the compound. Then the drum goes silent. But I still can’t see the masquerade. The music of the gong of Ajọ Ọhịa pierces the silence and drifts to us.
As the music draws closer, the open fire my uncle has set to burn atop Nnam Ochie’s grave extinguishes like a bucket of water has been upturned over it. It is general knowledge that Ajọ Ọhịa allows no lights except natural ones in its presence. Perhaps my uncle had forgotten to put the fire out himself.
My eyes shift from the grave to the open gates. I see the masquerade when it enters. And I am surprised. It, or rather he, is a man. He is wearing a loincloth instead of the masquerade’s attire. The only mask on his face is three layers of nzu covering his left eye. And he carries a fan instead of a thick cane or a machete. He looks like a man welcoming a new dawn and greeting his chi and ancestors. Yet none of its followers—men who hold the same ọzọ title as Nnam Ochie—precede it. Gossip is that Ajọ Ọhịa possesses anụnụ ebe, a potent medicine on his person which kills any living human or animal he sets his direct gaze on.
I don’t know whether it’s true, but I notice the masquerade avoids looking sideways at the men and the very old women scattered on both sides of the compound.
He begins his journey into Nnam Ochie’s biography with praise for the man. “Good man. Dike Ụmụchu gị eje mba. The Honest one. The hand that feeds the hungry. The mouth that speaks for those without mouths. Ojiugo, the moon that shines for all. Go well, Odogwu,” he sings as he progresses.
A few steps into Nnam Ochie’s compound, five arms’ length away from the graves, Ajọ Ọhịa stops abruptly. His song trails off. “Ụmụchu, I greet you,” he says.
There is no chorus of “Yaa,” the usual general reply to the greeting.
“The house of Ojiugo, I greet you.” Without the inflection of melody in his words, his voice rings out, normal. “The house of Ojiugo, I greet you.”
The voice isn’t threatening, and it makes me wonder why Ajo Ọhịa is both dreaded and revered. Nnam Ochie, despite his arthritic joints, had appeared more intimidating than Ajọ Ọhịa does now. I start to think up names of masquerades with more fearsome visages than Ajọ Ọhịa, yet less dreaded. I come up with ten before Ajọ Ọhịa speaks again.
“There are five people atop the guava tree in the compound behind me, watching,” He fans himself and keeps his head straight, looking neither sideways nor back.
My heart starts skipping so fast I can hear it, but I hold on tight to my branch.
“They are children. Let them fall like lizards and not hurt themselves,” he finishes and moves on.
We lose our balance and fall from the tree, landing on our stomachs. Unhurt, we get right up and run for the closest shelter, as though Ajọ Ọhịa himself is after us.
Marycynthia Chinwe Okafor is Igbo. She writes from Enugu, Nigeria. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Isele, African Writers Magazine, Omenana, SprinNG and elsewhere.