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Deities in the mask (Poems from homecoming)
Deities in the mask (Poems from homecoming)
With Ero, famed fiesta of songs and dances and games
Which comes once in five years,
Egwu, conclave for the masquerade,
Holds sway as the most significant of festivals within all Ete.
That blessed land of peace
Where the sun sets twice and the wealth of the land
Is the wealth of the people.
With a dipodic function
Of marking the lapse
Of a dying year,
And celebrating its complement
The reception of the newly born.
With it, the review of precepts, and the stemming of customs.
Egwu, ageless spiritual carnival
Coming at the end of every year’s life.
Was in its depths,
All the same with Ero
Like waters flowing in one stream,
Until Egwu breaks off
At the point of communion.
In Ero,
It is the communion of souls
Of the people and the people
Of kin, kith, half kin and half kith.
The communion in Egwu
Combines all that is found in Ero
And adds to it again,
For the very deities come down to commune with all Ete.
In Egwu,
The gods leave their precincts
To thread in the midst
Of their devotees.
I sing of one year, such as comes once in every five,
Of the day when Egwu began in that year.
On the proceedings of its beginning
And the mounting of the mask, domicile of the deities.
When Egwu began that year
As it was in other years,
A solitary flutist went round Ete,
A rousing tune in his mouth.
It was very early
As the first cocks crew
That the work of the flutist began.
Once heard in Ete,
The song of the flutist
Is greeted
With awe and silence.
For it sings of oneness
Of love and peace and rebirth
It sings of the dying year, and touches its days and moons
It calms the coming year,
Scattering seeds of favor into its days and seasons
And through all ages
On that same day in every year
That tune is blown
By a chosen flutist.
An enemy of light,
The tune would never be caught
By the light of the sun
For the flutist takes its song home
Before the arrival of the full sun.
A song of the half-light
Of the early of dawn.
As he marched home that day,
The people knew
That the first great step of Egwu,
The mounting of its mask
Was to take place by midday.
The observance of the mounting
Of this great mask
Was exclusive to Ete.
Sons and daughtes of Ete,
And children of Ete daughters
They alone, no stranger, no matter how close
Was allowed to watch the mounting
Of the great Egwu mask.
The ceremony of mask mounting
Was both a prelude
And a most significant part
Of the Egwu carnival.
Beginning the cleansing of Ete,
Giving the land its people,
Their desired spiritual impetus,
Cleansing them,
Of the evil of the dying year
And bringing them forth,
Spotless into a new year.
This was Egwu
The rest was more or less
A celebration of this impetus.
A clamor for its sustenance
A promise and a pact.
The mounting,
Always to be on the orie market day
Leaves men and women revived in spirit.
Then sacrifices and reverence continue undisturbed
On the days that follow
To herald the carnival of the year.
Egwu mask
Is a giant wooden artifact
Made with perfect skill.
It was the shape
Of many flat plates placed together
Forming the largest plate.
It is profound,
Not only from its size
But also,
From the perfect arrangement
Of totems and symbols of their deities.
The diadem of their highest deity
Was the simplest.
On the center of the mask
Were three thick horizontal lines
With one vertical line underneath,
They were deeply cut into the mask.
These lines were for Chukwu okike, Obasi di elu
The great god
And creator of all things.
On one side of that totem
Was a carving
Of a man’s face, carrying a stern air,
It was for Etedi,
The great god of Ete.
On the other side
Was a great form of a maiden
It stood for their guardian river Nnekuluku.
The position of those lines
Divided the ask into two
Etedi’s symbol stood on one side
Nnekuluku’s on the other.
And all around Nnekuluku
Were images of the seventeen spirits
Of the river:
They were on one side.
On the other side,
Together with the totem of Etedi
Were representatives
Of their other deities.
Agbara ubi, a special god of fertility
Ala, mother earth
Kamanu, god of thunder and rain
Ogwugwu, the oracle of justice
Ahanjoku, their yam deity
Ofo la ogu, the moral corpus,
Working with kamanu to oversee good and evil, oaths and affirmations
Ifanum, god of clay pot and water
Eke, god of procreation
Abadi, the keeper of their market
Udo, a god of reconciliation and peace
Ekwu, the hearth spirit
Dikeukwu, their god of strength
Anu otikpiri, the deity of the pit latrine
Oha nmuo, representing a congregation
Of good spirits and lesser gods,
Known and unknown.
These stood out in clear view
And whenever the mask came out,
All the spirits and deities come in
To inhabit their spaces and totems.
It becomes at that time,
More than mere mask, no longer wood from a tree,
But living, holy and potent……..
With answers to questions,
Strength to the weak,
Blessings to the land
Full of spirits and deities,
Revered conglomerate of an indomitable pantheon.
At the time of the mounting,
The gathering was solemn.
Every one was at the square.
Men, women, children,
Every one who could move.
The very old,
The invalid and the maimed
Were absent in body
But all was there in essence
All families in the land,
First by their homesteads
Then their compounds,
Their kindreds and their clans.
At the stand of each clan,
The men formed a hedge
And their women and children
Were enclosed by the hedge.
And they stood in great silence,
Waiting for the time to come.
They stood silent,
Straining ears and necks,
For the approach of Ogbudu,
Their priest and spirit,
Himself, ten men in one.
At first,
Two of Ogbudu’s assistants
Came to prepare
The great Uke tree,
Marked out years ago,
On which the mask was laid.
There were steps cut on the great tree
And by means of those steps,
They climbed to the spot
Where the mask was to be laid
And smeared it with a light oil.
There,
On a platform
Built across two of the strongest branches,
The mask was always placed.
The priest of Etedi
Usually climbs to that platform,
Balances on a strong side raft,
And by means of a rope
Tied to the end of the mask,
Pulls the mask from the foot of the tree
To its position.
The other priests
Push on the mask from the ground
Letting the chief priest to exert
Little or no strength
As he pulls.
The mask is finally mounted
When it leans safely
On the platform.
When the assistants
Finished their task that day
It was clear
That Ogbudu and the other priests
Were ready for theirs.
As they left the tree,
And went back into Etedi’s shrine
The other priests of Ete
Marched out of the shrine.
Every agbara
Had its priest,
A leading devotee,
And they took their places
Around the tree.
For two days
Following the mounting,
They would receive
For their gods and goddesses
Sacrifices and gifts
From the people of Ete.
When they took their places
The sound of a horn came,
loud from the shrine.
The people bowed their heads
As seven young men
Carried the massive mask
Followed by Ogbudu
Out of the shrine.
They moved to the tree,
Stopped,
And stepped aside for Ogbudu,
Who,
With a long horn filled with wine in one hand
And a white cock in the other
Moved further
To the foot of the tree.
He stood silent
Surveying the tree for a while.
And then suddenly,
He splashed a large part of the wine
On the tree, and raised his voice,
In a clear ringing chant:
‘Uke,
We have come again
Great tree that keeps Ete,
Pulling us together
At a decreed time,
Yearly, never missing one
Is our appearance before you
Uke
Great tree of Ete,
We have come again.
Planted,
Not by man,
Highest among the high
You tower.
Tree that kills trees
Living before the first man
Holder of our mask
Empowered of old by Etedi
We gather in unity
At your great presence.
Uke,
Pulling us together at its time
Yearly appearance
We come again.
As they take places before you
And all around you great tree,
May our deities lie safe
In your shade.
As the hallowed mask mounts
May your branches hold fast.
See,
Ete is gathered.
See,
Your people are gathered.
Gathered in peace before you.
Respond to all we say
As my task begins…’
He splashed part of the wine
On the ground before the tree
And moved round it seven times,
Hitting its trunk
With the white cock he carried
And sanctified the tree:
‘Let any evil on you flee
Peace only, we seek from you
May our Egwu this year
Like others before it
Come and go in peace.
Against enemies and evildoers
We stand together
And say, Uke should stand with us.
It is Uke whose roots are firm
We stand and stagger,
It is Uke who stands, and spreads into Ete,
Draining good from our depths
For us in these parts.
Uke,
Your life is for all times
Never shall life leave you
Above all trees standing
You do not die like the years
You neither whither nor wear out
Every year,
You open new
See to it again this year
As we in our numbers
Come before you,
A witness to our re birth..’
And he strangled the cock
Splashing its blood
On the blackened trunk of the tree.
The priests and the people
Now watched him climb
To his usual position,
Holding fast to the rope
Tied to the mask.
When Ogbudu
Climbed to a convenient point,
A lone wooden gong
Touched off a stirring tune
Preparing them
For the coming cleansing.
Once the gong stopped,
Ogbudu took off the bag on his shoulder
And hung it on his neck.
He passed a period of silent stillness
Muttered some prayers
And pulled the rope in his hand.
As the mask,
Sat firmly in its place
And the priest raised his hands to the sky
The cleansing of Ete began by his invocation
Of another Ete of the other world
Long gone,
Replaced by their own Ete
Of the present world.
