A Scapegoat

Anyi and his father were treated with generosity befitting royal guests. They were led to a large guest hut with fresh raffia bed covers and more food than ten men could stomach—eba, egusi soup, peppered snails, and more. They were offered strong drinks of all kinds as well, but they rejected the kai-kai and chose the softer option of palm wine to keep a clear head. When night finally fell, yellow lights buzzed outside, spilling into the guest hut and casting large shadows over everything they touched.
‘Strange, isn’t it?’ Nnanyi asked. ‘Fires that do not flicker.’
‘I noticed it in the throne room. Very fascinating. Perhaps there are things we can learn from the pig-men.’
Nnanyi sighed.
‘Perhaps… if only they were as interested in sharing as they are in taking.’
The two sat in contemplative silence for a few breaths.
‘What the Obi said about resistance being futile,’ Anyi began, ‘…do you believe him?’
Nnanyi paused, his fingers finding the tiger tooth he wore on his neck, as if seeking comfort from the ancestors who passed it down.
‘Our army is strong and undefeated, but these pig-men savages are like nothing we have faced before. If the stories hold any truth, we would be wise to approach with caution and a plan.’
Anyi nodded along, though unsure why. He heart pounded, and his joints ached with fear. He had imagined war too many times, but always as an observer, never as a participant. In these daydreams, he would watch from a distance, crouched behind leaves, or even lie playing dead on the ground. A cowardly thing to do, yet he did it anyway. Perhaps, when the line was drawn, he would find the courage. But what if war was not won by courage? What if bravery was simply not enough? Did the Obi of Onicha know something he did not—something even Nnanyi did not?
‘So we are still going to fight them? We will not surrender?’ Anyi asked.
‘It is not in my place to say.’
‘But if it were?’ Anyi pressed.
‘Then we fight until every last man has spilled his last drop of blood.’
‘Even if it means losing… dying?’ Anyi’s voice cracked under the weight of his words, but he spoke them anyway. Nnanyi placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, squeezing tight for comfort.
‘We do not fight evil because we hope to win. We fight evil because it is evil. Can you understand that?’
Anyi did not get a chance to reply. A gentle knock sounded on the wooden door, and father and son broke away from the moment.
‘Come in!’ Nnanyi called.
The door swung open to reveal a maiden no older than Anyi by the looks of her. She wore a woven skirt that rode above her knees, a wrapped cloth across her breasts, and more beads than Anyi could count around her neck, wrists, and ankles. On her face, a single black line was traced from forehead to chin, with a few dots ornamenting her eyes. The sound of music followed behind her, swelling louder as the door opened.
‘Are you not coming out to watch the dance? There is palm wine, and the pig-men are coming too. Though they say we should not call them that anymore. They want to be called the lion-men.’
‘Lion-men?’ Nnanyi echoed. ‘They think themselves Odumeje, the great Lion King who led the first men out of the forest to settle on the plains? Fools! They will only lead us to death and destruction.’
The maiden’s face folded in confusion, but she was quick to shake it off.
‘I was asked to invite you, but you don’t have to come. I am sure you have seen many dances, and I hear the Eke women’s waists twist like the python your kingdom is named after.’
‘You have heard true,’ Nnanyi said, moving the bowls of unfinished food to the side. ‘We have seen many dances, but we do not come out at night to see the moon. As the wisest of the Great Ape Men once said, every man can see the moon from the comfort of his obi. We come out to see one another, to do the things that bind us as a family—rites, customs, traditions, and brotherhood. We will be with you shortly. Thank you.’
Anyi and his father joined the festivities outside, where men wrestled and women danced. It was Anyi’s first taste of gin-infused palm wine, and his father made sure he did not drink more than a single horn.
‘If you take too much, you will wake up tired and we will not set out for the stone library as early as we need to. I fear that we might return to Onicha one day and find nothing but shallow graves in its place.’
Anyi’s eyes had barely left the maiden from earlier. He followed the sway of her waist as it moved from side to side. He could not explain all that was happening in words, but his body felt it—a pulsing he had known before, though never quite like ton his night.
‘If you keep staring with your mouth open, she might eventually notice.’ Nnanyi smiled.
‘No, I wasn’t… I was just…’
‘It’s very normal to feel the way you feel. You are a man now. Control will come with time. Perhaps you can speak to her later. I won’t tell Onyi about it.’
If Anyi had not been embarrassed before, he surely was now. His cheeks flushed, and he stumbled over his words.
‘Ermm, but, ahh… no, it’s not like… it’s not...’
‘At this rate, you will invent your own language before we leave this place.’ Before Anyi could protest further, the drumming stopped and heads began turning towards a single direction. Anyi followed the crowd, searching for what—or who—was stealing all the attention. The Obi had already arrived and poured libation with a long speech. Kola nut had been broken too, with longer speeches and incantations from the eldest man in the compound. Short of announcing the winner of a gidigbo bout, the sudden silence could only point to one thing: the presence of an esteemed guest.
No more than twenty paces away, four men carried a contraption on their shoulders—a wooden board fitted with a chair, on which a pig-man sat. The mere sight of it irritated Nnanyi so much that the words shot from his lips.
‘I suppose walking is too much for them.’ Nnanyi spat his disgust onto the ground.
‘They will stop at nothing to rule us, and it seems this fate has been largely accepted—at least here it has.’
Applause followed the pig-man’s arrival, and the Obi himself rose from his seat to welcome the man personally.
‘I do not get it. There is just one of him and so many of us! Yet even the royals treat him as if he were a direct descendant of Amadioha… as if he were a Great Ape Man from Uga Chi. You know, I used to imagine that the death of our people would come in a battle of guts and glory. Never had I thought it would end like this—a slow slumber into the belly of servitude. Cursed are my eyes for the atrocities they have seen. Soon, we will break kola nut and chant Ahmen in the ways of their Xrist, in place of Ise like our ancestors.’
‘Shhh!’ A voice from behind reached Anyi’s and Nnanyi’s ears. ‘Be careful with your tongue and what it says. Things are not exactly as they seem.’
Nnanyi moved to turn around.
‘No, no, no! Don’t look at me.’
The voice was decidedly a woman’s from its tone, though fear and suspicion rang clearer than anything else.
‘Who are you?’ Nnanyi asked.
‘A widow. A recent widow, once married to a titled man. A righteous man.’
‘They killed your husband?’
There was a pause, and in that time the drums resumed their banging, masking the vibrations of their voices.
‘Well, he chose to die a man rather than be exiled like a scapegoat or live like a coward under the thumb of men who bow to dead things. What sort of people even think it acceptable to pronounce death as judgement?’
The custom of scapegoating was only found in small pockets, but Anyi and his father knew of it. It was called olu anu—flesh work that poorly substituted for true spirit work. It involved a person, or a people, who had committed grave sins atoning with animal sacrifices. The animal, usually a goat, was flogged and stoned as a way of transferring the suffering from the people. Then, when it was weak, it would be released to wander the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people away from the land. Nnanyi believed that, like all traditions, this was merely symbolic and held no real power. Yet, he acknowledged its cathartic power. After all, he himself had offered a scapegoat as part of his ritual after returning from war. It had not silenced the dreams of blood and violence immediately, but it nudged him a step closer to where he wished to be.
‘Why did they need to make a scapegoat of your husband?’ Nnanyi probed.
‘Because it is what they do—to instil fear and purge the spirit of resistance and rebellion. They frame it as though the exiled men carry the sins of our people, but I know better. Many titled men of the Nze and Ozo orders have met this fate. It is their way of dismantling our order, and I would not wish it even on my dog. When you refuse exile, they slap an offence against your name and judge you to be executed. They tie you to a stick and shoot you. I cannot unsee it.’
Another round of silence passed. Anyi watched the colonial officer pick fruit from a calabash. His belly bulged against his leather-strapped belt as he gnawed at a mango in large, gluttonous bites. Anyi was not sure if he saw a pig in the man’s face because it truly looked like one, or simply because that was what he thought of him.
‘Do you know anything about this Xrist, their crowned king on the cross?’ Nnanyi asked.
‘Yes. Many of us have been forced to accept him as our lord and saviour.’
‘Lord and saviour?’ Nnanyi frowned. ‘Why do you need to be lorded over, and what do we need saving from?’
‘The same questions I have been asking, though I never speak them out loud, for we do not know who is who. They say their Xrist was tortured and nailed to the cross for our sins. That we only need to believe, and his kind grace will be manifested in our lives, washing us clean of all our sins.’
‘So he is a human scapegoat? A scapeman?’ Anyi asked.
This was the first real laugh Nnanyi had managed since they set off on their journey to Onicha. It warmed Anyi’s heart to have roused it from him, but the woman did not join in.
‘Our Obi has his hands tied, and he believes he is acting in our best interests. I fear that not many share my husband’s honour—to choose death over bowing to the pig-men’s ways. So perhaps he is right.’
‘And why are you telling us all this?’ Nnanyi asked.
‘Because I know that you are travellers, and there is no place left here for me. My sons have chosen the path of their father and joined him in the grave. My daughters have since been married off and now belong in their own homes. Please, take me with you. I cannot stand another day in this place.’
Anyi’s eyes moved through the crowd, counting faces as they passed. There was much laughter and smiling, and he wondered which were masks and which were true. How many were here like the woman behind them, masquerading anger and sadness, cloaked in fear for their lives and their families’? His eyes rested on the Obi, and he immediately saw through him. It lasted only a breath or two, but that was all he needed. He thought of Onyi’s father and how he might have handle this. In that moment, more than ever, he longed to be home again—or at least anywhere far from this place.
‘We will leave tomorrow when the sun is low. I want my son to behold the stone library, even if only for a moment. I fear that one day it will no longer be there, and men will say that it never was. The truth will become legend, and legend myth.’
‘You are a great man. What is your name?’ the woman asked.
‘I am Nnanyi, Ogbu’agu na Eke.’
‘I am Ifeoma.’
The rest of the evening was uneventful, save for the orchestrated performances of the night, which included a play illustrating the tales of the Great Ape Men. It showed how they discovered language, built rafts, and sailed into the unknown world, sharing their knowledge and wisdom. It told of how they discovered the stars, invented the calendar, and moved from forest dwelling to the open plains. Anyi recognised some of the popular figures, flashes of Nneoma’s cave drawings flickering in his mind. Nneuwa was there, the first of the agwu d’bias. Odumeje the Lion King was there too, as was Ada’m. Njorku Ji was there as well—the first master of farming, honoured during the New Yam festival, when barns overflowed with fresh tubers and goats had to be tied to stop them overeating. The play ended with the crowning of the first Obi of Onicha, as might have been expected. After all, these stories were not just stories. They were the blood of the people’s souls, the ancestors living through time. Their breaking would mean more than just the erasure of history. Their breaking would mean death for a people still breathing.
The night wrapped up with cheers from all but the colonial officer. Again, Anyi wondered what sort of plays they performed at the pig-men’s festivities. Perhaps ones that showed their Xrist tortured, crowned with thorns, and nailed to a cross.