The King and the Maiden

By SB Morgan

The King and the Maiden is an intriguing story of the Ibibio culture and traditions. Ekaette, the central character in the book, grew up in the village but later spent a greater part of her years outside her place of birth. Despite leaving the village for so many years to study abroad, she was disturbed by her childhood desire. On her return, she becomes a heroine to the people and a nightmare to some group of men as she inspired the young and elderly people in the village.

For her fame, she was hunted by a council of elders who saw her closeness to the people as a threat to their influence on the people and the king. At one point, she became helpless when intimidation started coming from the dreaded masquerade with the backing of the council of chiefs as the highest governing council in the village. They are feared by everybody in the village. As nobody could intervene on her behalf, she went into hiding when she discovered her life was in danger. But when a group of people took to the street, this set the stage for the resilient women union and the dreaded council of elders.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482804188

SB Morgan

Sunny Bassey Morgan, native of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, and a resident of Rome, Italy, is a skilful storywriter, capable of depicting the ordinary into his fiction form to produce a high quality novel. He is actively involved in sports and cultural promotion, both in Italy and his home country.

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Copyright © 2014 by Sunny Bassey Morgan.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-0419-5

                eBook           978-1-4828-0418-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Author’s Note

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

T he existence of this book is not without the support, encounter, and encouragement of my family and friends, Eniefiok Udoh, Anietie Tommy Jonah, Uwem Akpan, Idara Uffot, Anthony Obotu Onyebe, Donald Jackson and Mokodu Fall. Special thanks to Jakky K. Bankong, who carried on the overall editing and to Alessandro Chiarolla, who realized the book cover. To all those I didn’t mention, who have contributed to the success of this book, I just want them to know that they are not the least important, thank you and God bless you.

DEDICATION

T his book is dedicated to my beloved kids, Matilde Akufre and Lorenzo Ifiok, to my parents, Elder Udoh Morgan and Deaconess Mary Sunday Udom and to my late grandmother, Maggi Udo Ituen, a very remarkable woman.

CHAPTER ONE

O n the eve of the New Year, the villagers of Oku-Ibibio waited anxiously for the prayers that would herald the dawn of the New Year. A few minutes past midnight while the echoes of the old year silently faded away, a shout was raised by the village elders and was quickly taken over by the rest of the village. Shrieks of jubilation could be heard all over the place as the inhabitants of Oku-Ibibio welcomed the New Year with the customary shouts of Isua! Ka o! Isua! Ka..o! ufaisua, di..o, mfon di o! This literally means "old year go away, New Year come with good health and success.

Some minutes later after the shouting and jubilation had quieted down. As part of the rites, each member of every household gathered in front of their house to wash their faces and hands, a ceremony that was usually led by the oldest man in the house. Then the remaining water from the wash basin was thrown out as purification from all kinds of diseases and bad omen from the old year. Some people went and swept their compound, ostensibly to take away the sickness and bad luck that had befallen them the previous year, and to make room for the New Year to bring good health and progress in all their endeavours.

Even the elderly and sick people stayed awake throughout the night, despite their ill health, to wave goodbye to the old year. As far as they were concerned, witnessing the beginning of a New Year was a sign of hope for their recovery and that the New Year would keep death at bay. To them even getting to the New Year was a sign of recovery from whatever illness that might have befallen them in the previous year. During the purification rites, farmers would pray for their crops to yield bountiful harvest in the New Year while the traders would offer up prayers for more patronage of their wares in the market. On their part, the children didn’t care much for the New Year. As far as they were concerned, Christmas day was the peak of the holidays as it meant showing off the new clothes and eating as much food as one could stomach. For most of them, Christmas was the only time in the year they got new clothes and so the holiday was anticipated with a lot of excitement and bated breathes which was made much sweeter if you got two dresses for Christmas and Boxing Day. Sumptuous bowls of catfish and stock-fish were consumed with vegetable soup and pounded cassava and in the evenings, the children will visit uncles and aunties who usually gave them some nice gifts for Christmas.

Days after the Christmas celebration, most of the children will wash and neatly fold their new dresses into their wooden boxes where they will most likely stay till the next Christmas. One was never sure if they could get new clothes for the next Christmas holiday so the dresses where handled with great care and rarely worn except for another important occasion in the family or in the village.

For most of the kids, the New Year day was like any other non-school day as they had to go to the farm to help their parents do some farm work or go to the stream to fetch water for the house. If for whatever reason the parents decided not to go to the farm and they was nothing to do at home, the children will then go and play games with their friends in the village square.

A week after the New Year celebration when preparations were in full gear to mark the beginning of the activities for the year, a new girl came to the village where she quickly caught the attention of the children. In Oku-Ibibio, a stranger is always a novelty especially for the children who were always eager for news of the outside world as most of them have never been outside the village.

A stranger in the village? Whose wife could she be? they said.

This was said because women didn’t normally come into the village unless one of the men went and married one from the neighbouring villages and brought them into the community.

The previous day, the children had noticed her from the headmaster’s house and had lined up the compound’s fence to get a good look at her. Pretty soon, the young girl had become the centre of attraction for them. This morning on their way to the stream, the children all took the route close to the headmaster’s house, hoping to get another glimpse at the stranger all the while jostling with each other to get closer to the fence.

Because it was the weekend, most of the girls had only a piece of wrapper under their armpits while the little ones wore just pants. Having being the topic of discussion the previous night at the playground, some of the boys had also come to see her. With anxiety, the children lined the front gate waiting to see her as they had heard she usually came out around this time to walk around the garden.

It was getting rather late, and most of the children thought she might not come out to have a walk in the compound. As some of the children contemplated returning home, one of the little girls spotted her coming out from the compound with a plastic bucket in her hand; she was going to the stream to fetch water. As she came out close to where they stood, the children quickly waved and smiled at her and she reciprocated by waving back at them. Nsewan, one of the little girls who had waved at her, was her neighbour’s daughter, and was the one who had first seen her the previous day on her way back from school and was the one who had told her friends about the beautiful stranger in the village.

Immediately she was out of sight, Nsewan excited jumped up and down, clapping her hands and squealing, Did you see? She waved at me!

Her friend Amada the king’s daughter gasped and said, No I was the one she waved at, I saw it, she looked me straight in the eye and waved back at me; she might have heard I’m the king’s daughter and that’s is why she waved at me.

To which Nsewan shouted "no, it was me she waved at, she obviously recognised me from yesterday. Pretty soon, the girls became embroiled in an argument as to who the stranger had waved out. The rest of the children only shook their heads and left them alone to finish their argument, after all this was Nsewan and Amada, who although were best of friends, argued frequently and to their credit, made up just as quickly as the argument was over. And getting involved in their skirmishes was only asking for trouble as they usually ganged up against anyone who was naive enough to try resolving their quarrels.

Meanwhile at the stream, because it was a Saturday, there were more people than usual at the stream as most of the villagers usual came to their laundry on Saturdays and a few adults also came from the farms to wash off the dirt from the farm.

On reaching the stream, Ekaette halted at the river bank as she was struck by a strong sense of nostalgia. Memories of her grandmother and her childhood filled her mind. She recalled as a little girl in the village, when she would go to the stream with her grandmother to fetch water very earlier in the morning. Grandmother said it was best to go earlier for drinking water before the other villages will come and wake the stream up. According to her, the fishes and all the other aquatic life were all alive and went about their business same as everyone else and it was best to get water before they woke up and dirtied the water with all their activities.

Lost in her reveries, she stood at the bank of the stream for some minutes watching the water go by. Was it her mind or did the stream look smaller than she remembered? As the smell of the water took her back to her childhood days in the village, she had the sudden urge to pull off her clothes and jump into the water to feel that exciting shock that the first dip in the water always brought. She was however distracted from her reverie by some of the young boys and girls swimming and making a rhythm – beat with the water current while some of the bigger more courageous boys swam to the front and deeper side of the stream.

Ekaette greeted everyone and proceeded to find a cleaner area to get water from. Watching the bigger boys swim through the deeper places, she recalled how her grandmother will never allow her go there, warning her strictly to remain in the shallow sandy area where the water level did not go beyond her kneecap. When they came to the stream, Grandmother was the one who would go upstream to fetch water from the undisturbed areas while Ekaette will be the one to carry the earthen pot of water back home. To balance the earthen pot, grandmother will cut some grass from the nearby bush to make a balancing pad for her so the water pot will remain steady and the water will not spill out.

On their way back home, her grandmother would tell her stories of the river goddess and her resting day, a day that nobody in the village or even outsiders who were aware of this taboo would go to the stream to fetch water. It was said that the goddess would cut off the stream and it will run dry if anyone contravened the taboo. By the time she got home from the stream she would have almost forgotten the weight of the water-pot on her head.

She remembered one of the stories her grandmother had told her about the river goddess. She said it was during one of the communal war, with the neighbouring village; the enemy had planned to invade the village of Oku-Ibibio in the night when the people would be sleeping but as they got to the bridge linking the two villages, they realised that the water had overflowed the bridge cutting off entrance into Oku-Ibibio.

And because there was no other way for the invaders to get into the village without raising the suspicion of the villagers, they decided to go back. According to grandmother, the river goddess had protected Oku-Ibibio from her enemies and no one wanted to incur her wrath by breaking the taboo. Grandmother said the incident happened back in the early histories of the Oku-Ibibio, even before some of their ancestors were born. The story was told from one generation to another as part of the history of the village to keep the people aware of their culture. The children in the village loved the stories of the river goddess and her exploit and these stories were passed on from one generation to the other as the children who grew up also told the same stories to their children.

Because there were so many people in the stream, Ekaette couldn’t find a place clean enough to get water around the shallow areas so she called one of the young boys swimming in the deeper end to help her fetch from that part of the stream. He quickly got the water for her. She thanked him and started making her way back to the village.

As she approached the junction to the house on her way home, Ekaette noticed that the number of children she had passed on her way to the stream had multiplied. It almost looked like someone had sent off a news report of her sighting and more children had come to see this stranger in the village.

Because Nsewan didn’t go to the farm to help her mother to weed the cassava field; every now and then, she would run outside the compound and peep through the bamboo fence to see if the stranger was back from the stream and because she took so long at the stream, Nsewan became anxious and complained to her mother whom she wanted to show the stranger she saw in the headmaster’s compound.

She has taken too long at the stream Mma, what could be keeping her so long? she said. And as soon as she finished complaining to her mother, she went outside again to check and at this moment she saw her coming back from the stream. She quickly ran back again and called, "Mma! Mma! She is back, come quickly and see her before she gets inside.

The mother left what she was doing in the room and went outside with Nsewan to see the stranger her daughter told her about. She had already gotten an earful from Nsewan on the stranger and she was also very curious to see who it was. She did not recognise her as the headmaster’s daughter who had left the village some years ago to go overseas for her studies. She was small when she left and news had come that she was going abroad to study, people had feared that she wouldn’t cope well at all abroad. Not wanting to be caught blatantly staring at the stranger as she came down the path; Nsewan’s mother hurriedly got into the house calling Nsewan in with her.

Nsewan come, don’t let her see you looking too much before she says your mother did not teach you good manners, you know its rude to stare at people. She said.

"Mma, I know but she is so beautiful and tall, did you see her nice dress? She must be from the big cities they talk about in our school books. How come she is staying in the headmaster’s house? Maybe she is our new teacher; oh I wish she would be my class teacher so I can ask her all about the city.

Nsewan! Her mother called sharply, stop that ranting and go and get me the broom from the kitchen

Sorry Mma, Yes Mma she replied as she left to fetch the broom.

Meanwhile as Ekaette approached the junction diverting to her father’s compound where the children were gathered, she couldn’t help but smile at the vivid curiosity on their faces and knew they were dying to know who she was.

Hello she said to them, carefully balancing the water bucket on her head as she bent slightly, addressing one of the