Without wasting much of your time, let’s start on an amazing mysterious note that will get you thinking for more days to come. Let us begin.
In 1989 I had reason to travel with my dad to a very remote village around SẸ̀PẸ̀TẸ̀RÍ in ÒKÈ ÒGÙN area of Oyo State, I cannot remember the name of the village precisely for now but I know the village was about fifteen kilometers far from SẸ̀PẸ̀TẸ̀RÍ town.
I did not know what my dad really wanted and I never cared to ask him. We had to walk on our legs for miles for more than an hour and I had got tired by the time we got there.
My dad needed to park his car in SẸ̀PẸ̀TẸ̀RÍ because no motorable road led to the village at that time.
We left Ibadan early in the morning and we got there around 4:30pm. I was very weak, thirsty and hungry at the same.
The hunger really did not allow me to see the astounding beauty of the village setting which I later beheld and marveled at after I had taken some roasted corns and plenty cold water from the giant earthenware pot dug inside the ground by the entrance of the house of the man we traveled to visit. Pa Ojelade, as he was called, obviously was the head of the village and that could be seen as everyone in the enclave of the village answered and obeyed his orders with due respect.
There was no electricity, no motorable road, no pipe borne water, no dispensary, no school apart from the two government schools in SẸ̀PẸ̀TẸ̀RÍ, one elementary and the other secondary, which were about fifteen kilometers away from that village.
The village had about twenty roofs with about fifteen men, mostly adult and about eighteen women, old and young, and twenty or more children.
But what actually drew my attention was the peaceful setting of the village.
The entire village was in the midst of a thick forest and all things they needed were in this forest that surrounded them. All the men and most of the women were farmers and everything they ate was always fetched fresh from their farmlands. Yams, corns, palm oil, muchrooms, vegetables of all kinds, bush meats and abundance of palmwine to gladden the hearts of men and women who cared to have a taste anytime.
I was asked to sit outside, under a bamboo tent which provided a cold airy shade over my head, the tent was covered with heavy palm fronds on its top. I waited outside under the bamboo tent while my father went inside into the house with Pa Ojelade to discuss.
While I sat outside I was carried away when the children gathered to play together not far from where I sat. The children were so harmless and innocent, perhaps they didn’t even know if there was any other life elsewhere apart from their own, almost all of them wore only tattered pants and looked carried away as they played with sand innocently under a huge tree in the square.
Dusk came and the three wives of Pa Ojelade were nearly finished with their cooking. It was obvious they wanted to prepare a special delicacy for the visitors of their husband from the town and they were seen going up and down to make everything snappy so we could eat in time. I was really hungry, and seeing the women going up and down brought hope and relief to me.
I wasn’t surprised when I started to hear the sound of pounding from the detached kitchen at the back of the house and the overwhelming aroma of stew that took over in the air sent me a premonition of great savoury experience to come that night.
Pa Ojelade could not use any other food but Pounded Yam to welcome his Ijesha friend and his beloved son from the far city of Ibadan.
Around 6:30, the food was ready and some men began to arrive at Pa Ojelade’s House one by one. In minutes about seven men had gathered under the tent where I sat and my dad and his host came out from the house and joined the seven men who were already seated under the bamboo tent.
Pa Ojelade introduced my dad to the men of the village as an old friend from the city and pleasantries were exchanged. He pointed to me, “that’s his son, Idowu Ògbo” He said and I bowed to greet them.
Later foods were served, it was Pounded Yam and Okra Soup laced with plenty IRÚ WOORO and the pepper stew was fortified heavily with bush meat from a giant grasscutter known as ODÙ Ọ̀YÀ.
My father was asked to lead us in prayers before we began to eat, and I was very happy his prayers was very brief that evening because I knew my father had a way of saying long prayers to impress, but that night his prayers was very brief, perhaps he was hungry too.
As we were about to start to eat, a very old man in his 70s appeared as he was passing through the village, though I thought he was one of the village men that were called upon to grace and have the dinner with us but the way he was being addressed and by the way he too pleaded for water truly showed he was a stranger, a traveler who needed water to quench his burning thirst. The man was tall, huge and he carried a light load of cloth under his armpit.
“Ẹ dá kun ẹ bù mi l’omi mu, ọ̀fun ngbẹ mi, ẹ dá kun” He pleaded for water.
Pa Ojelade looked at the old man mysteriously or perhaps scornfully, but he did not chase him away, rather he ordered to give him some water.
About four liter-calabash of water was given to him, and the old man gulped the water like he never tasted water in weeks, obviously the old traveler was weak and thirsty and needed help.
As the old man was about to go after he had said a lot thanks and prayers, Pa Ojelade stopped him and asked if he wouldn’t mind to eat with us.
“Bàbá àbí kí wọn fún yín n’íyán kẹ́ ẹ jẹ, nítorí pé mo rí pé ebi n pá yin? ” The traveler could not resist that kind of kind gesture.
He nodded and he was ordered to sit down not far from where I sat.
The aura of the entire place changed as the man sat to eat with us. I just felt something was wrong but I didn’t know it.
A big bowl of pounded yam and okra soup was served to him too with two chunk of meat of grasscutter.
The way the traveler consumed his meal in few minutes showed clearly he was damn hungry, he was the first person to finish his meal, and a big calabash of palm wine was also offered to him, he drank it and begged to leave because he said he was still traveling far from there, he said he was going to a town known as Bakase near Kwara state. Obviously he was happy and truly became enlivened after he ate and drank.
He left us but not without a trailer-load of thanks and prayers. Finally he bade us goodbye and went his journey.
The peaceful aura returned in the atmosphere as he left and it seemed only me noticed that.
After we finished eating, the elders shared palm wine among themselves but my father did not partake, Pa Ojelade offered me but I dare not take it when my father did not. Though right inside me, down there, I wanted it but “wọn ò bí mi dá”.
After they got through with the palm wine, all the men stood up and went into their own houses but gathered again in few minutes to go on all-night animal hunting. They had all changed into their hunter-suits. Nearly all of them carried two riffles each, machetes of different sizes and about three of them carried headlamps. The men gathered again at Pa Ojelade’s House and he prayed for the men for fortunes. The men did not go until they danced and sang, and three gunshots were fired into the sky. And they left.
I was paired to sleep in Ladeni’s room while my dad would sleep in his friend’s room. It seemed they had a lot to discuss that night and they did not want a third party between them.
When I knew my father was busy talking with his friend, I whispered to Ladeni, (Ladeni was the eldest son from the third wife of Pa Ojelade, and was around my age), I told him to help me get some palm wine.
Ladeni did not resist my plea, he went and came back with some liters of palm wine in a big calabash and I drank everything, I drank it all, not for anything but for its sweetness. Soon everywhere was turning upside down and my feet became feeble while my eyes were pale, I was drunk. I fell on the bed and slept off.
Suddenly in the dead of the night, voices and sound of legs of some men woke me up.
I raised up my Seiko digital wristwatch and pressed the back-light button, and 4:33 AM stared me in the face.
I was scared.., “Who are these men?” I asked myself.
I tapped Ladeni who was lying beside me and I whispered to him that some strange men were outside the house, I told him perhaps they were thieves.
Ladeni simply dispelled that thought.., they were men that went to all-night animal hunting, they just returned. I remembered.., really true…, and I went back to sleep.
Early in the morning I came out of our room and went to greet my dad and Pa Ojelade.
Ladeni went out to cut chewing stick for me in the bush to wash my mouth, and I was doing that when Ladeni came back to call me to come with him to see something.
“Have you ever seen Inàkí (Gorilla)…, come.., come with me…? ” He did not even allow me to respond but held my hand and pulled me along.
At the back of their house, there laid on the floor a giant gorilla with several bullet holes all over his body and other animals like antelope, grasscutter, snake and porcupine and others.
These were the animals that the men that went to the all-night hunting came back with, the male gorilla was about huge human size, he was five feet tall and weighed about one hundred and twenty kilograms.
Among all the animals, only the gorilla caught my interest. I had seen it in zoological garden at University of Ibadan once a couple of years ago. But lying there right before me, I could touch his body without much fear.
Around 9:30 am, the men came back again to process the animals for meat: to butcher and share the animals. They gathered firewood, made fire to burn off the hairs on the animals. The first one they did was the gorilla.
And after they were done with burning off his hairs, they cut open his bowel and moved out his complete intestine into a big bowl and sent it to the women to turn it out, clean it before cooking it.
As the women were busy turning out the intestine to extract and wash off the last undigested meal in the gorilla’s alimentary system.., the women startled simultaneously.
What they saw was a mystery and they were stupefied. They called on the men to come and see what they saw.
All jaws dropped and the old men could not talk while the women were shaking on their feet.
From the gorilla’s bowel there were big lumps of undigested Pounded Yam and Okra Soup and shreds of meat of grasscutter could be seen, in fact the odor of palm wine could be felt in the mixture.
Pa Ojelade ordered the men to bury the gorilla with his intestine and sacrifice were made to appease the land immediately.
I couldn’t make any sense out of all these things until Ladeni reminded me of the old man, the traveler that ate with us yesterday evening. Could the old man be the gorilla? I was stunned.
While we were returning to Ibadan in the day that followed my dad told me many of such mysterious stories of animals that turned to humans on special spiritual missions.
Many of these stories were hard to believe but that very one, I saw it with my own eyes.
“That can never be a coincidence.., ” My father asserted and I agreed with him.
(See you next week. Thank you for reading, liking, commenting and sharing)
