The Tale of the Cow Tail & Other Stories from the African Diaspora
Copyright©2012 by Lanre Ogundimu
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Dedication
To my wife –
For accepting me for who I am—
a quiet, ascetic book lover.
Preface
Every human life is a work of art and, within us, stirs a story waiting to be told. But you never know how interesting your experiences are until you begin to share them.
Many people are like me. They have a problem finding the time to reflect on the present, ponder the future and turn to the past to elicit that treasure trove of memories. They also have a difficult time making a commitment to do the very thing they have been dreaming about: writing. For many years, I nurtured a myriad of stories in my mind. One day, I finally conquered the demon by putting those tales onto paper. In the process, I removed a heavy burden.
This book is the result. Some are stories of my life, some are stories I heard from friends and families, and some are stories from my escape into my own world as I daydreamed during quiet moments.
They are stories of love and hate, good and evil, sobriety and drunkenness, vices and virtues, and sadness and joy. They are also tales about fundamental human rights, corruption, greed, rebellion, mystery, passion, friendship, rage, laughter, youth, old age, human frailty, death and immortality. And the stories contain elements of surprise as well as special morals and odd twists.
Part One is a collection of true stories based on my recollections of some events in my life and the lives of people very close to me.
Part Two is a mixture of some true stories and my thoughts on some topical issues and societal values. It’s a compilation of witty sayings and native anecdotes that have had a strong impact on my life. In some cases, I changed the names and personalities of certain individuals to protect their privacy. Also, I rearranged the sequence of events and timing of some stories, and recreated dialogues to advance the tales.
While working on this project, a voice continued to ring in my ears. And the message was this: Our lives are creative tales begging to be told. They are outrageous episodes and quiet adventures.
Simply put, our lives are books waiting to be written.
Part One
Saraa
The devil always provides food for a stray dog. – Yoruba proverb
That adage pithily captures my experience and that of my young friends as we grew up in Ebute Meta, Lagos, in the late 1960s and early 70s. Ebute Meta was a great place for children because we never lacked good friends (or bad ones for that matter). The area was a well-planned maze of tidy streets and roads that resembled rows intersecting and connecting. House number 18 Ondo Street, West, where I lived, was a compound of detached two-story buildings. These were not blocks of flats, but a stretch of rooms (some of them apartments) all sharing common utilities—kitchens, bathrooms and toilets. About twelve families, comprising around 40 children, lived in the compound. Many of the other compounds in the neighborhood were also home to a number of large families. It was a close community and every child in it knew one another by first name.
We always looked forward to the occasional tales by moonlight by any elderly mother in the compound. Usually, a mother who was free that evening (most often my mother) would gather us together and sit us on raffia mats or on the bare concrete floor while regaling us with stories about how the greedy tortoise got its hunch back and ragged shell. Or she’d tell us how the dog escaped with its family to the moon, and how its shadow could be seen if one looks closely under the moonlight. We loved it when she made funny gestures or changed the inflections in her voice to imitate characters in the stories, making us laugh or feel scared. Often, what we loved most were the songs that she rendered. Every story was accompanied by a melodious or soulful chorus, and we always sang along gleefully.
But one experience was even more exciting: making boats out of paper and racing them along the drainage. We cherished those paper boat sailing contests. The gutters, which were around two-feet wide and connected from street to street endlessly, were cleaned by the Lagos City Council workers frequently. Because of their dedication, there wasn’t an acrid stench, except the smell of burnt tar or bitumen that came from the well-coated road.
We first made the boat by folding a sheet of paper intricately into a square or rectangle. We re-opened only one fold, which we then folded in half from top to bottom but with a crease down the center. From there, we continued to create intricate folding patterns, tucking, creasing until the paper looked like a triangular bowl with the tip at the bottom. The boat that eventually emerged was a fine piece of craftwork.
We then gathered together, sometimes with children from my compound or our friends from opposite or adjacent houses. As our boats sailed along the channel, we followed and watched them from house to house and street to street. The boat that remained afloat longest was the winner. Sometimes, we would race for about 500 meters before realizing that we had gone far.
Occasionally, we went to the Odaliki compound, three houses away, to watch the Igunnuko masqueraders as they visited Mama Tawa’s family. Mama Tawa was Nupe, an ethnic group from Niger State, the middlebelt of Nigeria. My parents never knew we went to the gathering of masqueraders. Yet, we managed to go, and we enjoyed them immensely, especially when we got a chance to see Kurekure–the little masquerader—as he flipped or somersaulted to the heavy rhythm of the bembe drum.
Our greatest thrill was the intermittent “saraa” (sacrifice) given by some families. Once, a particular family in my compound gave the most enjoyable saraa. Why the saraa? For whom? Who advised the family to do so? What curse was it meant to cure or wave away? We never asked and never probed. Later, when we had grown up and many of us had become spiritually enlightened, we started to ponder on those saraa because it meant something more than a mere feast.
Saraa originally means alms and is a concept of Islamic origin. Among the Yoruba, sacrifice is known as ebo. Hence, to offer sacrifice is “ru ebo.” Sacrifices can take several forms and are offered for various reasons. It could be for religious charity; as an offering to deities and a request for material blessings; as a tributary like those by the Sango worshippers; and to placate a god (etutu). Its purpose is to commune with the gods. Hence, people bring offerings of goats, k
olanuts, bitter kola, chickens, clothes, palm oil, cowries, money and bean cakes—anything that is believed to be liked by the gods. The belief is that a man who offers sacrifices regularly and adequately will receive favor from the gods.
Here is the crux of the matter. Over the years, I’ve concluded that the saraa given intermittently by a particular family on Ondo Street was sinister. As a Christian, I support alms giving and charity to the poor. But I detest the type that is offered to deities and meant to steal children’s destinies and other people’s good fortune. For example, those with evil intentions could consult an oracle to find out whether a child would be prosperous in life. If the child has a bright future, the man could offer saraa to him or her. By inviting the one with the bright future to eat from the saraa, the corrupt individual is attempting to steal the future or destiny of such child. This form of saraa is diabolical because it turns a child’s rising star into a premature sunset.
Meanwhile, we reveled in the saraa and anxiously anticipated them. Rumors about upcoming saraa traveled fast in the area. Children told friends when and where the next one would take place. However, many of us limited our feasting to our compound and to houses that were adjacent or close by.
“E yin omo kekeke e wa je saraa” (Little children come and eat the feast), a child bellowed to playmates in the neighborhood. We scuttled to the venue, jostling and shoving ourselves into just the right space. The purpose was to get a vintage position on the mats. The raffia mats were placed on the ground and arranged by the family of the celebrant, according to the age group of the children.
We never bothered about hygiene. We never cared about cleaning our hands after playing or trailing the paper boats. We didn’t even care if Bayo, the boy from the opposite house, had mucus continuously dripping from his nose. All we wanted was to consume those saraas.
We formed a circle on the mats, sat cross-legged, and waited for the feast to arrive. Meanwhile, we salivated as the aroma of the rice and stew floated into our tiny noses. Most of us fantasized about having the entire tray solely. We became lively upon seeing the rice in a flat rectangular tray, with neither meat nor chicken. In those years, rice was an uncommon daily meal; it was a Sunday delicacy or for special occasions–birthdays, weddings or burials.
We descended on the bowl of rice like locusts attacking a cornfield. Everybody had his/her style of eating as much as possible. Saraa was not a feast for a sluggish child because the smartest kids enjoyed the most.
At the end of the feast, we sang for the celebrant.
Oni saraa yi ko ni ku
O ni saraa yi ko ni run
To ba dele a ra moto
Ibon lo ma yin dele.
The celebrant will not die
The celebrant will not decay
He will buy a car when he gets home
And announce his arrival with a hail of bullets.
The song was meaningless, but we chanted it joyfully and with zeal.
There was another type of saraa, which no one ever ate, except Jombo. Jombo was a chubby, dark-complexioned boy who lived on Odaliki Street. He was our contemporary, but we thought he was too heavyset to be our age mate. Most of us thought he was weird or even crazy. We thanked God he was not in our circle.
Often, as some of my classmates and I went to our primary school, United African Methodist Church, Eleja, on Jebba street, during the weekdays, we found sacrifices at the Odaliki and Ondo streets’ junction. We fleetingly gazed at the eggs, solid pap, kolanuts and coins, drenched in palm oil, in broken brown or black pots or calabashes. We asked ourselves: Who placed the sacrifices there? When were they brought? Why?
We chanted the antidote, “Ebo elebo pada lehin mi” (Sacrifice, get behind me), to wave away the evil spirit of the sacrifice. We swirled our right hand over our heads, as we snapped the thumb and the middle finger at the same time. And we moved on.
We heard many tales about what Jombo did with the sacrifices. On many occasions, Jombo urinated on them, then picked up the coins. We never found out what he spent the money on or where. Maybe on dankuwa (crushed and roasted groundnut snacks) or tanfiri (ground, peppered and roasted corn snacks).
Kala Oju, also known as Franco Nero, was more daring than Jombo. He was a lunatic and although he was probably only in his forties, he had the most penetrating gaze and frown we had ever seen. Hence, the nickname, Franco Nero. As he wandered naked in his charred skin along the street, Kala Oju would stop suddenly to speak with an unseen ancestor.
Whenever Kala Oju came across a fresh sacrifice at the junction, he would devour everything and leave the coins. We always wondered why he never “peed” on the sacrifices before eating the feasts like Jombo always did before picking the coins. We surmised that only a madman would dare the curse of the gods.
Oseni Se Dodo was the most daring. He was the first madman I ever saw who considered himself elegant in a lemon-colored, black-striped tweed coat. Oseni Se Dodo’s shack was at the back of the M.D. Bank office building. After discovering a sacrifice, Oseni Se Dodo would carry the pot or calabash into his shed. We never knew what happened to it thereafter.
If the vultures fail to surface after a sacrifice is made, then there must be a problem in the land of the spirits. – Yoruba proverb
Days turned into weeks, and months rolled into years. One of the daughters of the family that frequently gave saraa in my compound went insane. At times, she would become so violent that her father was forced to shackle her legs with chains.
My family left the compound and resettled in another part of Lagos.
Since then, my life has changed for the better, and Lagos has changed too–for better or for worse. But the placement of sacrifices at the roundabouts or junctions did not stop in some parts of the metropolis–even in the year 2009.
On many occasions, I have seen sacrifices along a major bridge on the Lagos Island. As I exit the Third Mainland Bridge, shift into the circular turn, and ascend the bridge that connects Simpson street to the Ikoyi Federal Secretariat Road, I often notice them: the broken pot, palm fronds, white or ankara cloths soaked in palm oil and placed jauntily on the walkway or on top of the median beam.
Although I try to avert my gaze, that’s not always easy. It all depends on where the sacrifice is placed. At times, I have looked away and then found myself staring over my left shoulder to avoid running into the vehicle coming from the left on Simpson street. Still, one thing is certain: Whenever I happen to see signs of a saraa, I no longer revert to the customs practiced during my childhood—swirling the right hand, snapping the thumb and the middle finger over the head. However, I have occasionally recalled another Yoruba proverb:
And we must continue to offer sacrifices
so that the blame will be on the gods
Baba Ramo
They encircle the mahogany bean tree, but it is too much to handle; they encircle the baobab tree, but it is too much to handle; they encircle the water well, but it is not something to jump into in anger.
– A witty Yoruba expression
I have never smoked cigarettes or taken alcoholic drinks in my life, but I’ve helped an elderly man sell marijuana for a day. It was in 1977, at Imota, Lagos State, when I was in class one. I was 13 years old and living in the school principal’s house. My principal, Mr. “Double” Kuti lived in Sagamu, Ogun State, but occasionally stayed at a four-bedroom upper flat owned by Alhaji Adegun, a prominent community leader. The building, which had a couple of shops on the ground floor, was near a major motor park.
When Mr. Kuti was transferred from our school, our problems started. We returned from a long holiday just in time to receive notice from Alhaji Adegun that we should vacate his property. He explained that the “big man” who rented the flat from him had defaulted on his rent payment.
So, we all moved out. Six of us contributed money to rent a room at the next compound. As it turned out, the compound was also the home of Baba Saku Ala’ye. A sedate-looking character, Baba Saku Ala’ye was probably in his
early forties. Occasionally, he was warm; other times he was quite cold or passionate or dull. He had thin brows, a sparkling light in his eyes and a bass voice. He dressed well, in native attire with cap to match. He was gifted with sarcastic humor, enjoyed fibs and spoke in street slang. I thought his language was weird, maybe because of the class of people to whom he sold his wares. Someone who sold marijuana to bus drivers and touts must be witty and sharp like an ala’ye (a rascal). I didn’t know if he also smoked the hemp because he never appeared stoned. But what did I even know then?
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