In Amaide country which some of the descendants of Ekwulu found themselves in, there was Iri ji, which was a new yam festival. It was called Iri Ji Nlaba. It means yam eaten as dinner. It comes last after Iri ji Umu Ekwulu- the new yam festival of the children of Ekwulu, which always comes first. During Iri Ji Umu Ekwulu, the entire descendants of the man Ekwulu, near and far, scattered in different countries of their chosen, would return and converge at the Ama- an assembly ground, which was situated close to Obu Ekwulu- Ekwulu's reception hut, which the Ugas were its custodians. Ama was also where Eke Uga was situated. In the middle of it was a beautiful, mysterious, and self-adorning, evergreen Abosi tree with its stretched-out branches that provided a shade that gave the people a sense of home coming.
Obu or Obi Ekwulu was where the progenitor himself, Ekwulu, was led to join his ancestors. It became so powerful, filled with many apparitions and messages from the gods of the land, that it was finally set apart as a sacred place. For this reason, the fourth generation Aka-jiofor- village head, among the Ugas, Ichie- Chief Okanume, erected his personal Obi a few metres away from Obi Ekwulu to keep it as sacred as possible for the entire umu Ekwulu- children of Ekwulu.
Any Ekwulu son and daughter who was not ofeke- an ignorant person, who had one challenge or the other, or was preparing for a war would first pay a visit to Obu Ekwulu. To pray, and to seek direction, strength, protection, and favor from the Gods of Ekwulu and their ancestors, except the Dunuoras which the Okwaraohas represented in Amaide country presently. It is a long story to state here how the descendants of Dunuoras became alienated from the entire ancient Ekwulu family and did not participate in cultural things that bound them together from generation to generation, except now that one family deemed it wise to reconnect back to their roots.
Ekwulu and his family were all agrarians, and highly skilled in blacksmithing. Some of them took to palm-wine tapping in the family as hubby, and for personal consumption only. Some who were into farming were subsistence farmers. It was said that Awom was so loved by Ekwulu, as his child who came to him during old age. It was his conviction that his Chi - personal god used his birth to break the cycle of one-woman-one- male child in his home.
Ojiru, one of his wives, was an old woman before she gave birth to Awom. She died when Awom was only 6 years old. From that time, Ureaku, his stepmother, stepped into his life to raise him as her last child. When Ojiru was battling with sickness that later took her life, she would always plead with her cousin Ureaku, who was also her co-wife, to never abandon her child, Awom. ''Raise her as your own'' she would always plead. ''Ojiru, anugo m, mana o nweghi ebe ina eje. Iga agbake- I have heard you, but you are going nowhere. You will recover'' Ureaku would always assure her cousin. Their grandfathers were siblings.
Having lost his mother at that tender age, Awom became an apple of Ekwulu's eye. He made several attempts to go to Nkwerre to live with his aged grandmother Adawai, but Ekwulu wouldn't allow it. To Ekwulu, losing Ojiru was painful enough to risk allowing Awom to grow up in a faraway Nkwerre village, to be raised by an aged woman whose husband died three years after Ekwulu graduated from an apprenticeship, under him. ''Wish my father-in-law, Oka, was still alive I would have let you go'' he would always tell Awom while encouraging him to stay with Ureaku. Ureaku never betrayed her cousin. She made sure that Awom never had too much devoted time to mourning his late mother. It took a few months to see Awom living happily again.
Ekwulu bought a hen for Awom from the market two days after the cultural removal of sackcloth for Ojiru, his late mother. It's cultural among the Igbos to have one year of uninterrupted mourning of their loved ones, during which time the mourners will leave their hair uncut. It is called Iyipu akwa uju in some dialects among the people.
Awom would go to the family coop each night to make sure his chicken returned. This he kept doing until the chicken grew enough to start laying eggs. In the first instance, his chicken laid eight eggs and did not waste time before it started incubating them. He would always visit his new broody to give it food. For once, he never saw his chicken eat those foods, but he would always come back to meet none still on the floor. He started suspecting lizards and wall geckos he always saw hanging on the walls at the back of the bird.
The suspicion grew so much that he started pursuing everyone and anything he saw close to brooding hen. Yet, his food kept missing so that he had to draw his father, Ekwulu's attention to it. ''Papa, I have not seen my chicken eat the food I gave to it, but I could not see any leftovers each time I checked back, odika aru adighi okuko m- it seems my chicken is not feeling well. Keduzi ndi na eri nni okuko m- who are eating my chicken's meal?' he once asked his father Ekwulu. ''Ngwa, emesia ngwa Ureaku, ka onye ya ogwu. Mana e nyezina ya nni,obu ndi mmuo na e nye okuku kpu na akwa nni. Inugo- Okay, after, I will tell Ureaku to give it a drug. But stop giving it food, it is the spirits that give brooding hen food. Did you hear?'' Ekwulu asked as he started walking away while hiding his smile.
A few days later, Awom's hen introduced her new family to the world and little Awom was full of joy. With too much joy and love, he almost emptied Ureaku's pot of cassava flour, to feed the mother hen and its five beautiful chicks. For one week, Awom watched over these chicks and their mother around Ekwulu's compound, making sure that they never left the compound to avoid being hunted as prey by their wandering and hovering enemies.
When he eventually allowed them to explore their village unhindered, they always returned home with stronger feathers. For one month, the kites, the snakes, and other creatures equipped by nature to hurt them seemed to be on good terms with them all. Each night before Awom went to bed, he would make sure he kept food for his chicks and their nursing mother to eat, first thing in the morning before they left the compound. He used to keep the food by their entry point which, regretfully to him, most times ended up being food for the first comers, especially Ureaku's chickens.
One day, Awom discovered that one of the chicks had not returned home with the rest. He suspected a python he saw in Ureaku's kitchen close to their room four days earlier. Pythons were not harmful to people in their village. It rather represented peace to their humanity and so many good things were said it represented. It was their totem.
If a python was seen in the dream and walked past a pregnant mother, it was as good as the gods telling her to expect a son. It was never to be killed. And if anyone made the mistake of killing it, he would appease the land, bury and mourn it like they would for humans. Awom, at his tender age, has been tutored in this culture and tradition of their people.
It was a reign of his bottled rage with the thought that he had lost the chick to the jaw of the python who was seen as a god. He was as helpless as the tradition of his people had made him to be. He took it in good fate and quietly mourned his one-month-old chick in peace by refusing to eat the whole of the next day. It was so painful for him. As he mourned, all the members of the family were mourning without his invitation. One would be in trouble if Awom was to find out that somebody had the appetite to smile while his chick was missing. So, to avoid his trouble, everybody chose, or at least, pretended to be in a sober reflection of the great loss that had befallen Awom.
Although it was a mourning period for the loss of a one-month-old chick, it was the same day that Ureaku's chicken returned without its four-month-old chick that had almost been through surviving all the threats of life surrounding them. Maybe it was not as beautiful as Awom's. ''Okuko m omakwaranu mma- is my chick as beautiful?'' Ureaku would cunningly tease around. And everybody would be seen pocketing their laughter to avoid trouble that Awom had kept in store for anybody that would risk his or her laughter loud enough.
In his helplessness, nobody was safe in that house except the python that he could not harass. Rather, he owed the Python tears if his rage eventually led him to commit murder on any available python. Such tears he had not and money to spend on the python's funeral was not there for him.
After four days of mourning, Awom went to Obi Ekwulu to have a snap. He was wakened up by the crows of chickens when they spotted Eke- a python heading inside Obi where he was lying. The Python crawled majestically and chose to hide underneath the wooden bench he was lying on. ''Umm, hmmm, I must use a basket to cover my chickens today'' he murmured and walked away inside the house and found an empty basket he could use to protect his chicks and their nursing mother, and kept it inside their cage room, waiting for their return.
Awom went straight to Ekwulu's kolanut bag and took some pieces of garcinia kola, cut them into tiny pieces and sun-dried them. He later in the day pounded them in mortar, and turned them into a herbal powder, and started spreading the powder everywhere around the compound to scare the pythons and every snake away. He was about going to Obi to spread around it when Ntu, his elder brother, ran to him. ''nwanne m- my brother, I saw a python enter inside Obi. Spread powder at the three corners of Obi only, to allow the python to have an exit point to go back into the bush'' he advised Awom, who started crying.
Ntu went ahead to caress his head in sympathy and took the mortar from him. He did the spreading himself. Before he could finish spreading, the python was seen leaving the obi. This forced some dry smiles down the cheeks of Awom as the chickens that were scared of its presence were heard crowing again in what looked like jubilation.