Alusi Ikenga

When the cock crowed in the dark, Anyi was already awake. Next to him, his little brother still slept with his mouth agape. Ozi was sprawled in another corner, her left hand clutching a wooden doll. It had been two moons since her father gifted it to her, two moons since the masquerade festival, and she still did not sleep without it. Her mother said it was a sign that she would grow up to become a good mother, the other wives thought it meant nothing.
Anyi rose quietly, grabbing his chewstick, black soap, sheep towel, and achicha to scrub with. Just as quietly, he moved over his siblings before heading out. Chickens ran about freely in the compound, their chicks swarming behind them in different directions. A pack clucked away close to the bath house, and Anyi had to shoo them with a kick. Once in, he drew water from the large clay drum where, in the morning light, he could see alum rocks gathered at the bottom to keep the water fresh. He liked the smell of the bathhouse in the morning, so he took a big whiff of the clean air and its hint of lemon. Then he began to scrub, humming his favourite songs and sometimes muttering the words. When he was done, he cooled off with a rush of water, wrapped himself in the sheep towel, and strolled back to the room.
The morning was still mostly quiet, save for the splash of oil sizzling in the kitchen hut. It had to be akara and pap for breakfast. The fried bean cakes were so famous as childrens’ breakfast that the first level of Ogbi education was called nta akara, akara eater. It was Anyi's last day at this level. He had just counted his fourteenth rain and was now ripe for initiation into the Ekpe level of Ogbi education. Still, he was not sure if or how he would deal with the famously tough initiation process, though he had started to give it more thought.
He paused briefly in front of his father's shrine. He dared not go in, not even for a peek. It was as holy a ground and as sacred a place as could be – a sanctuary in many ways. The smell of the same incense hung in the air each morning, and usually, his father sat in the cloth-covered cubicle, sometimes humming chants, other times playing his opi flute. Today, it was silent. He felt a palm on his shoulder and turned around casually, unflinching. He was in his father's obi, after all, and he believed that nothing could harm him here.
'Anyi, you are always up so early. You take after me in that. It means you will be a great man.'
Anyi's face tightened for a second as he tried to imagine what greatness might mean for him, what greatness even meant.
'Come, let me show you something.'
His father moved with precise steps, his broad naked back spotted with patterns of scattered tattoos. It was hard to tell which were hammered in with needle art and which were carved with the acidic cashew nut spill; circles within circles, triangles within triangles, and stick writing letters too – all meshed in a dot-patterned background. Anyi stopped when he reached the cover cloth that shielded the shrine. For too many years, he had grown used to the unseen barrier placed over it. Walking in without hesitation felt almost unnatural to him.
'I have invited you, you may come in.'
Anyi moved the dark cover and walked in. The shrine couldn't have been bigger than the bath house. A grown man sitting inside could spread both hands and reach wall to wall. On the wall were many carvings, some on flatwood, others fully rounded sculptures – all small enough to be held in one hand. There were a lot of masks, clearly a favourite carving if numbers were anything to go by. Then, there was the altar. On a tall stool, the carving of a man with ram horns stood on bull hooves for feet. In one hand, he clutched a sword, and in the other, an elephant tusk. Anyi moved closer to inspect it, but he could not get his hand to touch it. Right next to it, three sticks were laid side by side.
'You may touch the Ikenga, but not the chi sticks.'
He turned to look at his father, as if to be sure that the man had meant what he said.
'Go on, it won't strike you. It's only my artwork.'
Anyi turned back to face the figure, and with care, he ran his finger over the fine wood. The horn was smooth, all of it was smooth. On the back, there was a symbol, but he could not understand it. It was probably a sacred symbol he was not yet educated in. He did not ask what it meant.
'You know that it is not to this carving that I meditate.' His father brought out a beaded necklace and began to count each bead with a saying.
'The man that wakes before the cock crows will not sleep with hunger.'
'Choose truth and choose power, but if you must choose one, truth is the ultimate power.'
'The brown-stained hand from toil brings the red-stained lips from oil.'
He carried on to ten, and then he stopped.
'The way of Ikenga is the way of discipline and focus, it is a path to success. The alusi you see here is just a spell representation – a binding body. The ram horns signify drive, the hooves endurance, the sword hard work, and the tusk, as you already know.'
'An ofor for truth,' Anyi completed.
'Yes, ofor for truth.'
Anyi felt his father's hand on his head.
'This is your last day as a boy, so I wanted you to see this place. Once you finish nta akara, it will truly be forbidden to you. You will have to earn your own.'
'So, I could have been entering here since?' Anyi voice climbed a note.
'Not that you should have been entering. But if you did, as a child, you could be pardoned. And if I so chose, I could invite you like I just did.'
'Hmmm,' Anyi looked around. 'So, you make carvings and play the flute for Ikenga?'
'Do you not understand? Ikenga is just a way, not a being. I play the opi, make these carvings and say the chants to meditate on the path, the way. Whatever we think with our chi, our spirit makes manifest and our body obeys. There are many paths, each must find what is fitting for them.'
'So, I can have my Esimiri shrine?'
'Well, if you were seeking to cultivate knowledge and spirit for taking in and raising children.'
They laughed.
'Okay now, you have seen enough. And hopefully, you have learned something too. The grey eye is spreading faster than ever, anwu-anwu's light is fading in our people.'
'But what causes the grey eyes?'
'Blindness, spiritual blindness. It is what happens when spelling goes completely wrong. And it is spreading like a harmattan bushfire these days. It is what happens when we think the carving the way. When we make gods of idle things, idols.'
For the rest of the morning, Anyi thought of the grey eyes, and it made him blink as if to cleanse his own pair of browns. He had never seen a child with the grey; no child was born like that, it was believed. But adults, he knew many, even some d’bias. Now that he knew where grey eyes came from, it made no sense to him how anyone would trust a grey-eyed priest, but many did. In fact, it was not unusual to find lines of grey-eyed men and women waiting at such shrines with all manner of sacrifices: goats, chickens, and even cows.
By the time he was ready to leave, Ozi had woken up and joined the women in the cooking hut. Akpi still slept and no one dared to wake him. After all, he was the odu-nwa and everyone knew not to disturb the tail child. It was his birthright to be pampered, at least until another came to take his place. Anyi slid into a raffia-woven overall. Soon, he would graduate to a cloth-wearing man of Ekpe – that part, at least, he looked forward to. He slipped into a pair of leather slippers and headed out. The morning had since broken, and the light now swallowed the shadows.
‘E’bolachi,’ his mother greeted him as soon as he poked his head into the cooking hut.
‘A’bolamchi.’ he replied.
She placed four balls of bean cake in a wooden calabash and poured a scoop of white pap on top. He received it with two hands and thanked her.
‘Anyi, greet Tobe and…’ Ozi began, but Anyi was quick to cut her off.
‘Ozi, you don’t have respect oh! You think they are your mates? You are sending me to greet them like you are in the same age group.’
The other women laughed and made jokes about Ozi already picking husbands. Anyi shook his head and headed out.
On his way to his last nta akara gathering, the ekwe hand-gong of the town crier sounded in the distance. It had come to be a part of his morning routine, like the crowing of chickens in the obi. He listened as always for the news or any new decree. Today held nothing too interesting – only talk of the army recruiting, a missing goat, and sightings of a dead python. Who would kill a python? Anyi’s mind flashed back to the pig-men, his focus mainly on the pink face the man had worn when the snake crunched. Surely, they had not hunted the snake down and killed it later. That would be a foul thing to do, a sick thing. Ala would not forgive it.
He walked for most of the morning, wolfing down the bean cakes and licking the pap off his fingers. Tobe and Uzo joined him about halfway, also carrying their bowls of akara and pap. Onyi did not join them until they were only a few minutes away; the place of learning could be seen from the palace where she lived.
‘Anyi Anyi, last day for us. Why are you frowning? You want to be eating akara all your life?’ Onyi teased him.
’No, he is afraid of the Ekpe call,’ Tobe chimed in.
‘Are you not afraid of it?’ Anyi shot back.
Tobe had not seen the blow coming and was not prepared. The fear he buried by teasing Anyi turned to a stone in his mouth, and when he tried to reply, he stuttered. Onyi laughed.
‘Boys, it is okay to be afraid.’
Uzo, who hardly spoke, simply nodded.
The learning ground was soon in view—a large field where at least fifty children sat on chopped tree stems. Anyi did not know how many such grounds the kingdom boasted, but he knew every child had access unless their parents refused. He made his way to the spot he and his friends had claimed from the start. They didn’t have to gather here often, but whenever important information needed to be passed, a ceremonial call was made.
The ogbenye nkuzi, the instructor, was a short woman with a hunched back that made her look even shorter. It was impossible to tell her age, but without a doubt she had seen too many rains, enough to wrinkle her eyes and bend her bones. Her voice was still firm but her teeth were scattered. Dressed in her brown wrapper and beads on her hands, she rang a tiny bronze gong to demand quiet, and then she spoke.
‘Today is your last day as nta’akara. We will be learning about spells and how they work.’
At the mention of the topic, even the murmurers fell into deep silence.