Birth Mark: Visitors from Rome

By Nnamdi Anthony Okonta

The book is about the IYI-UKU community where a birthmark is seen to be evil. In this community, children are dedicated to the gods three days after delivery by throwing the child into the river as a form of initiation. When the child comes out dead, it is attributed to the child being evil. Usually, it's a known fact that children born with a birthmark don't survive this ceremony. Nugwa happens to be one of them. During his dedication, he miraculously survived and grew up to become the community king who changed the evil tradition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483663111

Nnamdi Anthony Okonta

Mr Nnamdi Anthony Okonta hails from Ebu, in Delta State, Nigeria. He was born in a Catholic family amongst seven siblings. He had his primary education at Oja Model Primary School, Ebu and his secondary education at Boys Model Secondary School Onicha-Olona in Delta state of Nigeria. Upon completion of secondary education, he was admitted to continue his career at Lagos State University, Ojo, Nigeria, where he obtained a degree in Biology Education and Master in Science Education. Shortly after his one-year obligatory National Youth Service, he picked up a teaching job with Mill Bank Hall Secondary School, Agbroko in Lagos State, while acting as a reporter to Caritas forum magazine published monthly at St Augustine’s Catholic Church, Iba, Ojo, Nigeria. Due to his high interest in education, he relocated to the United Kingdom, where he obtained a BA (Hons) degree in Accountancy from the University of Wales. Currently, he is undergoing Accountancy Professional Training (ACCA) at BPP University College, London.

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Copyright © 2013 by Nnamdi Anthony Okonta.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4836-6310-4

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4836-6311-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 07/04/2013

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Contents

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

NOTE

GLOSSARY

FOREWORD

The novel Birthmark is a breathtaking journey in time. It is a carefully tailored story of the meeting of cultures and traditions in IYI-UKU community. The unassuming author has a style that wets the reading appetite of his reader.

I warmly recommend this piece for a relaxing moment.

Dr Solomon Obasi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank God Almighty for his kindness and mercy throughout the writing of this novel. My sincere appreciation goes to Rev. Fr. Obasi Solomon, Mary-Anne Akioyame, and Alves Frances, who devoted their time to go through this piece of work. My thanks also go to my family members for their wonderful support, both morally and spiritually. I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to my dad, who intensified effort to see that the pictures used in this book got to me on time.

CHAPTER 1

Idol worship is one of the hard-core traditions in the IYI-UKU community. It is passed on from one generation to another, and the preservation of this tradition, the people believe, is an onus of every given generation in IYI-UKU. The community is made up of diverse traditions, which the people strongly believe were handed over to them by their ancestors and must be preserved. In this community, when a prominent person dies, human heads, including that of the servant boy, must accompany the man to the grave and the heads must be assembled within seven market days as tradition demands. The heads of visitors and that of albino are not used for the ritual because it is forbidden.

The community is surrounded by the river IYI-UKU and was named after it because of the mysterious nature and forces that operate in the river. This made the community unique amongst other villages, coupled with the fact that a wicked traditional medicine man called Eboh also lived in this community.

The medicine man, as described by the people, is more deadly than a viper. Anyone who enters a dispute with him will die suddenly. It is believed that he’s capable of invoking his enemy to his shrine, which appears in a mirror, whereupon uses his evil knife to kill them. Physically, the person will be going about his normal activities, but as soon as his image is struck in Eboh’s mirror, that is the end of the person’s mortal life here on Earth. Moreover, Eboh is able to tie people spiritually with a rope and put them in a bottle, in order to render them useless for life.

Due to his diabolical powers, people from distant lands came to consult him, especially when they want to snuff life out of someone spiritually or make someone ineffective. His father, Ikenga, was known to be just as evil and had died ten years before when bees attacked him on his way to execute an evil plot. He died with a swollen face and a bloated stomach. After the death, Eboh took over the office as the traditional community priest whose duty it is to consult the gods and dedicate children born in the community to the river goddess as a form of initiation which is very significant in this society. Without this initiation rite, a child will not be accepted into the community, and the parents will be ostracised.

The community allowed Eboh to take over his father’s position because the office had been with his lineage since time immemorial and could only be transferred to another family when the family lineage ceased to exist. Only then would the community transfer the office to another family, after having consulted the oracle as demanded by tradition. Failure to do this could result in serious consequences for the community at large.

Tradition has it that the position is never occupied by a woman owing to the fact that it is an abomination for a woman to take the position of a man in the community. This is because the duties of the women are restricted to the kitchen and childbirth. They are not allowed to speak in a gathering of men or contribute to the material development of the community. Basically, the man does the most strenuous work to ensure that the family is comfortable all the time and has enough to eat.

Most of the time, women would be seen coming from the river carrying pots on their heads, with their children and babies on their backs, to ensure that water was made available for the family. In most situations, the baby would be seen holding on to the mother’s mammary gland, flattened like slippers, from her back and suckling it as they made their way back from the river or market.

IYI-UKU is a community that is enriched with culture and traditions which obviously affect the female more negatively. They have no choice because they are considered to be weak and cannot speak out in public places. When a woman dies with a baby in her womb due to poor medical care, it is considered to be an abomination. As a result, certain rituals need to be performed before the burial in order to separate the ‘evil’ baby from the mother. It is believed that the child killed the mother and neither can be buried at home. This ritual can only be performed by Eboh as the authority to do so was handed over to his lineage.

On the day this ritual is to be performed, people would be requested to remain indoors until the ‘evil’ is completely removed from the community. Usually, the child in the womb would be taken out by Eboh after having dissected the woman with his traditional knife while holding a leaf in his mouth. After this, the mother would be handed over to the parents for burial, while the child would be placed in a calabash and taken to the evil forest by Eboh himself. Here, marks are made on the child’s body before throwing the calabash into the forest. The mark on the body enables the community to identify the child after reincarnation, and it is often seen as a birthmark. This is because of the circumstances surrounding these children’s death. They will always want to come back, and when they eventually do, it will be a disaster for the community at large.

Moreover, female children are subjected to genital mutilation usually known as circumcision, which is barbaric. It is commonly believed in the community that uncircumcised females are unclean and will always find it difficult to give birth. Male circumcision is made compulsory within eight days of delivery, but the time for female circumcision is flexible in the sense that it can wait until they reach adulthood before it is carried out. It is usually painful, and local anaesthetic is not given before the procedure. In most situations, the terrible sound of adult females undergoing circumcision in Eboh’s house will be heard outside by people, as they scream in pain. Most of the unlucky females come out bleeding to death after the circumcision. If they die, it is attributed to the girl being evil. No one queries this because whatever Eboh says, whether it is good or bad, will be accepted by the people, for fear he will attack them spiritually with his diabolical powers.

Tradition makes it possible for a lady to be forced by her parents to marry a man without her consent. Once the intention is made known, and the parents have accepted the money, arrangements will be made for young boys to carry the lady to the man’s house. The girl will be sent out by the parents to the market to purchase some cooking items, and while she is gone, arrangements will be finalised between the two families. As soon as the girl leaves her parents’ compound, young boys will pounce on her like lions and carry her to the man’s house while chanting traditional marriage songs. The woman, in most cases, will shed tears but will eventually settle down with the man as she has no choice, particularly if the parents have spent the money paid to them in secret.

This practice makes it more difficult for ladies to remarry because it is evil to pay the bride price twice, and any man who does this will be going against the tradition. One day, a lady was carried like a baby by young boys from the market to a man’s bedroom. This was embarrassing to her – unbeknown to her, her parents had accepted money in secret from an old man she never loved. In the beginning, it was like a child’s game, but it soon became clear to her when events began unfolding. Before she realised what was happening, people were coming in to congratulate her; for what, she did not know. This was a public disgrace to her because she never expected this behaviour from her father, and she had wanted to marry someone whom she actually loved, in the right way by bringing the person to her father. Being a smart lady, she pretended all was well but never allowed the man to come close to her that night. The following day, she pretended to clean the house so she could find the exact location where the man kept all his money. When she spotted the place, she packed all the money in her underwear and made her way to the stream.

People waited for her to come back for three days, thinking that she would come, but she did not. It was at this juncture that what the girl had done became obvious to the man because he discovered that the money earned from the sale of his farm produce had disappeared. After the old man had conducted a thorough search and could not find the money, he went back to the girl’s parents and requested that the father pay back the stolen money. He bluntly refused, arguing that the wife was given to him on trust and marriage is for better or worse. Chidera, the girl’s father, said to the man that any event that unfolded after the marriage was none of their concern. To worsen the situation, Chidera even told the man to make sure that nothing happened to their daughter because they would not take it calmly.

This resulted in a long-term dispute between the two families because the man was accused of using the girl for a money ritual, which was a common practice in the community during this period. The young lady only came back to the community after twenty years in the city with the stolen money, which she paid back to the old man, telling him that she wanted to teach him and her father a lesson. After this, she left the community without seeing her father because she could not trust him. However, Chidera and Ofu, the old man, became great enemies due to the argument which had transpired between them in the first place.

While some female children are called Osu right from birth, others are referred to as Ogbanje, whose mission is to liquidate their parents before they die. Those referred to as Ogbanje and Osu are dedicated to the goddess, making it impossible for them to marry as they live in isolation from the community. They have to live with this stigma throughout their lifetime because the community members see them as abnormal and wicked people. People who lived very close to them were considered to retrogress in life and have major setbacks. Before marriage, a consultation needs to be made to know if the lady is Osu or Ogbanje, because any man who marries an Ogbanje will be ostracised and doomed to failure.

During the ethnic war which took place years ago, the goddess from the river IYI-UKU played a mysterious part by protecting the community. People described the goddess as a huge woman with a big breast capable of covering the whole community. The warriors took shelter on her breast and were able to fight and defeat the