Chigbu and his son, Egemole, had made a long journey look simple that day. The God of their ancestors had made their journey of inquisition look quite simple, albeit the scotching sun that trailed their movement back home. Messages from Anyafurummuo were clear and simple to understand, above some worries those messages put in their heads.
Chigbu was a good man who wouldn't hurt a fly that perches on his sour wound. He had been thinking since he left the house of divination about what could make him stay out that late to pose a danger to his life. He was the oldest man, not just in their immediate Igodo kindred, but in the entire Ntu village. So, most of the visitations that happened around him were the ones people paid to him, especially people coming to bring oluanu- the necks of slaughtered animals, as the eldest of his village.
Yes, he was an old man, but the strength still hidden in his bones could still take a physically challenged person from Amaide to far away Igalanu country. He was a widower, but his wife didn't die young, even though she was over twenty years younger. However, no matter how aged a woman was in Igbo land, there seemed to be a hidden wish by her husband that he would join his ancestors much earlier before she did. It seemed so because when an Igbo man lost his beloved wife, it appeared that a good portion of his peace had been altered. They hardly, recover fully, emotionally.
Notwithstanding his noticeable shrinking body occasioned by age, he was still attending Ntu village meetings until he was begged to make it a choice instead of seeing it as a mandatory call. After all, he had a son who was old enough to represent a man who was on his way to represent him in the world of his ancestors.
He had an in-law in Ikwe, a former kindred in old Nkwerre that had been cut off by an over-surged water body from the Ogbudu River some years ago. His step-sister, Ihuoma, who was married to an Ikwe man, died prematurely, leaving behind three children; a boy and two girls. Just three years after the death of her stepsister, her husband Olona died while trying to navigate the Ogbudu River back to Ikweme. This caused Amadi and his two sisters, Omuma and Ulomma, to grow up in Igodo under Chigbu and his late wife before they chose to go back home to their village.
The bond Chigbu had built with this nephew and nieces of his over the years never allowed onwa abuo- two months to pass without Chigbu making an effort to see them. Although they had grown up. Amadi was now married. Ulomma, the last daughter, had been married off in Ikwe and Omuma had been proposed to, by an Awom man, but they remained the same little babies he went to Ikwe to pick up almost twenty years ago, in his eyes. They became unto him like water to fishes.
They always find time to visit but Chigbu couldn't get enough of their faces. He had wished all married from within his easy-reach places, especially either Ntu or Ndi Ikpa, but none worked out, and with all of his beautiful wishes he wanted Omuma's intended marriage to an Awom man to work out. He had even become a friend to Azunna, who proposed to Omuma, making sure it worked out well.
He had been thinking about where his misfortune would come from since this journey home from afa- place divination. Since his wife died, it had been Ikwe or his maternal place, Isumeh, that took him further beyond Ntu. Finally, they made it home safely.
There was no doubt, despite the now showering rain, they had returned from Afa. Although it was not yet so dark, the news of their journey would come when all eyes were open. And that was going to be in the morning. For now, it would be hushes under their house only. Tomorrow was still not away.
A god had taken the form of a child, and that was Chigbu's granddaughter, the sparkling beauty whose grandmother, Daa Achikwu, had already adorned her with a sweet name, Olamma, intentionally pairing her with the name of her grandmother she had suspected had come back to be with her, through her own child, Adaure. Seems the surprise hung tight for the next morning. The curiosity had to wait.
The news of the soul that had reincarnated the grandchild the Chigbus' granddaughter, who was already named Olamma by her grandmother, Daa Achikwu, was made open the next morning during the breaking of kolanut by Chigbu in the morning.
The news wowed them, because it was one of the rarest things, yet a great experience to witness in the villages of Amaide country, where mental pictures of their loved ones who had passed always possessed their curious minds whenever a birth was announced. Now comes a twist: a deity, a river goddess, Iyi Agada Omirima, had taken that rarest root.
One of the things that noticeably kept Chigbu glued to his chair as starred at Anyafurummuo, the diviner, was his ability to call the name of the water goddess at the full length of it. That was Iyi Agada Omirima. Not everybody knew the name of this water deity as deep as Anyafurummuo had called in far-away Uga, as they fondly called it Iyi Agada, for short. And over time, as the elderly ones kept joining their ancestors, the younger ones became only accustomed to calling the stream Iyi Agada, and sparingly added Omirima.
It was a joyous morning at Chigbu's house as the echoes of their jubilation had courted the attention of the neighbors, who came along to celebrate one of the rarest among their cultural beliefs: the physical appearance of the person of their water deity.
As a man of relative means, who had earlier put his relatives in the know about his journey to Uga, their converging to his house that morning was to thank the Gods of their ancestors, their forebears, and to culturally welcome the spirit that had reincarnated. It was one of those mornings when kolanut paid dearly for munching of their teeth, chickens paid in blood, and palm wine made journeys in the gutlets of the living, and also got splashed on the ground in respect of their guiding spirits and their forebears.
As a rarity it was, the celebration took another shape as Adaure, the mother of the newborn, and her babysitting mother added more to the occasion as they provided foods that changed the tempo of the moment. After all, it was not an ordinary birth; the reincarnated was as deep as the favor it represented.
While the ritual and the celebration that accompanied it were ongoing, the history of time and the moment of the man, Ekwulu, their progenitor, kept taking Chigbu's mind off to Uga, and to all the villages that had proceeded out of the loins of this great man who he had visited his revered Obu, yesterday in Uga before he proceeded to the shrine of Anyafurummuo, the priest.
Meanwhile, the name, Olamma, had stuck as nothing else came close to overwhelming the meaning, as her beauty spoke for itself. There was no doubt the emotional part of admiration given to the baby by her grandmother, Daa Achikwu, would continue to tell a story of beauty, and no longer necessarily a legend of her grandmother resurfacing as her grandchild in Igodo as she initially thought. But there was a special joy in her heart that she was no doubt a matriarch of this heritage, as her blood was still flowing in the veins of this rare child.
Now, a deluge of nostalgia had swept Chigbu's feet, making his heart skip in beats as he reminisced on the struggles that Ekwulu, as it was told, waded through in the course of his life, leaving a lasting legacy that transcended time and ages. The impartation in the minds of his descendants, scattered across more than three countries, strengthened his sense of pride as he honored a deity's presence in his house, where he was deemed worthy to bathe her radiance as his granddaughter.
Immediately his guests left his house, his mood was enraptured into a walk into quietude as his granddaughter continued being carried around. Of course, that was her special day. It was that moment that the life of the man, Ekwulu, his progenitor, who was born with albinism hundreds of years ago, got a spark of life in him before he dozed off.