The Masque Of Africa Part 4

Adesina's business language was half modern. His speciality was "numbers and calculations," logistics and stratagems. He had pride in what he did, and I was half expecting him to say at some stage that the success that had come to him was a tribute to the country and its movement forward. But he said nothing like that. He was, in fact, gloomy in every way about Nigeria; and he didn't talk of himself as part of the elite. He talked more of the poor, drinking "erosion water" in some districts and sleeping nine to a room. Perhaps he had waited too long, and the wait had been too punis.h.i.+ng, more full of indignity than he knew at the time. Perhaps it was only the encouragement of the Ife, the pull towards the past, that had kept him going in the dark days.

He felt that Nigeria was now paying the price for its colonial history, which had begun not long before his father was born. "The French wanted to break this region into smaller divisions for their own reasons. The British dealt with us in a regional way. There was no Nigerian in the centre. So when we came into the centre we had no idea how to run it. Missionaries were never allowed to go to the north. So the north is very Muslim and we were all ruled by tribalism. Every political party that came up was really a regional party. Then a parliamentary British form of democracy added to the confusion at independence. So we had the Biafran war and then the coups. All our presidents and prime ministers came up by accident. No one was actually trained or prepared."

He didn't believe in the Nigerian boom.

"There is no boom. It is only a small stock-market boom where the elite thrived, and for a short time too. I know because I made money in it too. Booms are judged by the GNP and by the income of the lowest grade worker-what will his income buy in the open market? Most Nigerians like to be self-employed, but on the farms it is subsistence-level agriculture. Eighty per cent of our land is not cultivated. The farming people will have a few goats and a few plots of yams. It is not mechanised farming, and they have no meat except the rabbits they trap. I was recently in a state where they are good farmers. But the oranges they grow rot, and the tomatoes. You need infrastructure to create a processing industry, but that kind of support is not there. What are Nigerians abroad coming back to invest in?"

As for politicians, there was no point in looking to them to do anything. They were in politics for the money. Even the old religion got dragged in and chewed up by their politics. Shango was the G.o.d of thunder; to swear by Shango was the most terrible kind of vow; because if you broke your vow Shango was certain to take his revenge. And that was why at election time the politicians didn't simply want you to promise to vote for them. They wanted you to swear by one or other of the old G.o.ds, who were all as implacable as Shango.

5.

FROM THE way Adesina talked, I imagined his favourite soothsayer or way Adesina talked, I imagined his favourite soothsayer or babalawo babalawo had been the man who worked at the international firm of Lever's and after his retirement ran a traditional African church (with services) in his house. It was said that this man could even foretell the coming of visitors. Adesina, I suppose, had regularly consulted this wise man and since the man's death would have been a little bit at sea. But he was on the look-out for wise men. There was one he wanted me to meet; this could be combined with a deeper look at Nigeria. had been the man who worked at the international firm of Lever's and after his retirement ran a traditional African church (with services) in his house. It was said that this man could even foretell the coming of visitors. Adesina, I suppose, had regularly consulted this wise man and since the man's death would have been a little bit at sea. But he was on the look-out for wise men. There was one he wanted me to meet; this could be combined with a deeper look at Nigeria.

I had already had something of a deeper look; it had happened by accident. On a day of rain, a couple of days after I had arrived, when I had the sketchiest idea of the layout of the city, I had had a sight of the slums of Lagos. I wasn't looking for the slums; I was paying a business call. The driver was late; the shortcut he was taking led us to streets so flooded that cars had had to stop.

The road where we were was hardly a road. The drains were overfull; the flood had scoured the gutters into an unspeakable dark mess, added plastic bottles and other vegetable rubbish, and this all bounced and raged down in one direction on this side and in another direction on the other side. In this water rage every obstruction showed: miniature rapids, water always finding a way. Stall-holders, mainly food-sellers, were pulling back from the edge, and pulling back again. In front of a closed stall a jaunty little black-and-white sign in small italics, professionally done, said Pepper soup is now ready; Pepper soup is now ready; though the idea of food didn't go too well with the garbage rocking past. though the idea of food didn't go too well with the garbage rocking past.

Apartment buildings, at a lower level than the flood, looked drenched and rotting; it was easy to imagine them collapsing; and at the same time they looked smoky, as though from fires within. So they looked at once cold and warm. It would have been dreadful to live there, to wake up there, to go to sleep there. Around these blocks were lower, flatter living areas, seemingly covered from end to end with b.u.mpy old corrugated iron, with no apparent room below for lanes and alleys.

In the distance, hugging the sh.o.r.e of the creek, was the great fishermen's settlement, a degraded Venice, shacks on stilts, just above the dark water which fed the shacks and which they in turn soiled.

I talked later about what I had seen to some local councillors I met. I said I thought the area couldn't be improved; it had grown too big; it could only be rebuilt. The councillors were politicians, hardened people, used to going among the poor of Lagos, but they felt that nothing could be done in that area around the creek. The people in the fishermen's settlement and in the neighbouring slums were migrants, constantly on the move, and as constantly replaced by new arrivals. These people didn't like sending their children to school; they preferred sending them out to the roads to hawk and trade, to add to the family income. They were not settled people, a fixed community. You couldn't build them new houses with proper sanitation. You couldn't talk to them about poverty alleviation. You couldn't do anything for them; and they bred and bred.

One councillor said, "Islam permits four wives and Catholics don't practise birth-control and you know Nigerians are very religious people."

Another councillor said, "With the population explosion comes social apathy. They fill the open drains with rubbish. During the rains this rubbish floats everywhere. They encroach on the drains and put up their shacks over the drains. We were equipped for two thousand people and we cater for twenty thousand. So something gives."

This was what I had in my head. I thought that Adesina had more to show me. But in spite of the pa.s.sion with which he had spoken at our earlier meeting, he didn't seem particularly interested now in that side of things, and my feeling was that his thoughts that morning were more of the babalawo babalawo we were going to see. we were going to see.

Adesina's new babalawo babalawo (if indeed he was that) lived on the mainland. A ten-kilometre bridge and highway connected Victoria Island to the mainland, and it seemed on this wet Sat.u.r.day morning that a fair sample of the life of the island and the mainland was laid out as if for inspection on this highway. (if indeed he was that) lived on the mainland. A ten-kilometre bridge and highway connected Victoria Island to the mainland, and it seemed on this wet Sat.u.r.day morning that a fair sample of the life of the island and the mainland was laid out as if for inspection on this highway.

There were the usual crowds at bus stops or taxi stops, people becalmed and resigned in the rain. Almost no traffic on one side of the road, and a lot of traffic on our side. Boys or young men, hawkers, swarmed down the middle of the road, and sprang into action when the traffic came to a halt. They sold quite a range of goods. They sold colour pictures. They dangled various foods in clear plastic bags (boiled guinea-fowl eggs, potatoes of a curious squashed shape); they dangled miniature open accordions of telephone cards; fake designer dark gla.s.ses, fake designer watches, wallets, even clothing. It was an industry; behind these boys there would have been active suppliers, getting the goods out every evening and every morning.

The houses near the road were solid, of concrete and with gla.s.s windows; the slums were behind them. Between the houses were places of education, especially for computer training. The Ilupeju industrial area-food processing, textile manufacturing-was gated. Just beyond this area was a big bus and wagon station, with much rubbish on the wet ground.

This was like the jumbled semi-cityscapes of Lagos that I had already got to know. They were like places that seemed waiting to be knocked down or completed, but they always spoke of energy. They did not especially depress me. I saw the jumble as superficial, and felt that with the resources of Nigeria, and when the people were ready, the jumble could one day be undone.

Was it only this that Adesina wished to show me? He was some years younger than I was, and it was possible that I had travelled more than he had, and seen more hopeless places-in Jamaica, Bombay, Calcutta, and many rural localities in India.

We pa.s.s a church, "Mountain of Fire." Always churches with grand names on the Nigerian highways. These names trying not to repeat one another. (Other names on this run: The Redeemed Church of G.o.d, Christ Apostle Church.) Then the bleached concrete quarters of the Nigerian Air Force, tarnished as if by smoke. A while later we have the modern splendours of the domestic airport, which go some way to balancing the air picture. A big complex for the Concord Press ("Truth is constant") is deserted; the business is in liquidation. Settlement after settlement of unpaved roads, wet and red and gritty, full of children standing about: children of the Nigerian boom preserved by a new kind of health care, to add very soon to the slums of the towns. In one settlement a number of the newish houses are roughly daubed with signs saying that they have been repossessed: boom turning to bust at this level, with the roughly daubed signs about repossession like an additional insult.

The town we get to is big and rich, in spite of the garbage. You can tell from the number of banks: Zenith Bank, Skye Bank, Ocean Bank. We are now near the babalawo babalawo's territory. We need a guide, and we twist and turn back onto a parallel road to pick up Adesina's brother. He is friendly, in a flowered s.h.i.+rt, and seems much simpler than Adesina. He would have been waiting for some time, but he doesn't seem to mind. He sits next to the driver and guides us to a small and b.u.mpy side road with open gutters. Many herbalists here in small wooden shops, offering to cure syphilis, gonorrhoea and breast cancer. Clearly this shop has been set up here to benefit from the nearness of the true medicine man, our babalawo babalawo, and to give him a little compet.i.tion. So we are on the right track. Our quarry can't be far away. But we can't find him. We go up and down some muddy lanes, asking. Still nothing.

At this stage Adesina's brother wanted us to stop and take on another guide. It turned out now that Adesina's brother didn't really know, hadn't known, and he had commissioned a proper guide. This new guide was waiting for us in another place. He too would have been waiting for some time; and he too didn't mind. But it turned out again-after he had taken us up and down a few small streets, indistinguishable one from the other, asking people all the time-that the new guide was himself at sea, and wasn't too sure where the babalawo babalawo lived. It was the new man's idea then that, just to make sure, we should ask one of the commercial motorcyclists, the lived. It was the new man's idea then that, just to make sure, we should ask one of the commercial motorcyclists, the okadas okadas, who for a fee gave pillion-rides to a particular destination, to go ahead of us and guide us. And the okada okada man knew. His fee was modest, one hundred naira, about eighty cents. man knew. His fee was modest, one hundred naira, about eighty cents.

I suppose we had been using the wrong word. In Lagos I had been told that if for some reason I needed a witchdoctor in a village I was never to ask for the witchdoctor or the juju man. It was better to ask for the medicine man. Juju was too demeaning a word; people resisted it.

And the okada okada man led us immediately to the side street where the unprepossessing house of the man led us immediately to the side street where the unprepossessing house of the babalawo babalawo, the soothsayer or magician, was. It was a low house of unpainted concrete, flat to the ground, below a corrugated-iron roof, and with an entrance in the middle.

From the car this middle entrance gaped black, and when we picked our way to it over the wet road and yard we saw that the corridor in front of us was dark, even at this bright time of day. On the threshold there were slippers, doubtless of people inside. Adesina and his brother and the new guide were ready for this; they were wearing slippers. But I hesitated. In 1962 I had got ringworm in Delhi after padding about barefoot, a little too freely, in temples and gurdwaras. Adesina noticed my hesitation and said I wasn't to bother. This was African or Nigerian courtesy: of course it mattered, tramping about a house with muddy shoes.

The floor of the central corridor was of concrete, and plastered grey and smooth. It was broken in patches. The woman of the house, appearing in the corridor, greeted us civilly; and from that small corridor s.p.a.ce we were led to a smaller, darker s.p.a.ce, and then another dark little corridor, really a s.p.a.ce-divider, with a view on one side of a bedroom with an unmade grey bed. On the other side was the sanctum of the soothsayer, the herbalist, the magician, the babalawo babalawo.

The sanctum was really very small. Our little party-five of us-covered the floor. There was a bench and a stool, but our two guides had to remain standing. I sat on one end of the bench.

The babalawo babalawo sat on a low stool. He was very thin, in a white gown that now came out grey from the wash in local water; and he wore a white cotton cap embroidered with a simple wavy pattern in blue and yellow. sat on a low stool. He was very thin, in a white gown that now came out grey from the wash in local water; and he wore a white cotton cap embroidered with a simple wavy pattern in blue and yellow.

The little sanctum was full of una.s.sorted things. A rusted electric fan on the floor, near the babalawo babalawo's feet, looked abandoned. Near the ceiling was another fan in better condition. It was fixed into the wall and set horizontally. It wasn't working now, but soon it was going to be put on for us. An unlikely-looking plug was going to be fitted into an unlikely-looking socket, and the fan was going to play over us, a nice breath of air in the muggy room. They had modern conveniences here! A mysterious object took up much room: it was part of an electric work table, a slice of a table, in new satinwood, and with an electric motor in a grey casing. This was clearly a found object of some importance, and the babalawo babalawo didn't intend to let it go; he sat next to it. didn't intend to let it go; he sat next to it.

Directly, with no beating about the bush, he asked our business.

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't say I had come only to have a look.

Adesina, though, knew how to deal with diviners. He said he first wanted to know whether our visit was going to do him, the babalawo babalawo, any good.

It was the kind of question the babalawo babalawo liked. He replied right away that we were going to be of immense value to him. I felt there was an element of ritual in the question and the answer, and both parties were satisfied. liked. He replied right away that we were going to be of immense value to him. I felt there was an element of ritual in the question and the answer, and both parties were satisfied.

On the little table in front of the babalawo babalawo were some of his magical things. A school exercise book resting on its front cover was sensationally dirty. It was furred with dirt, as though handled and handled by unwashed thumbs and fingers, and the mathematical tables on the back cover of the exercise book had suffered: the dirt and the fur had lifted some of the printed numerals off the paper. Not far away was a matchbox, in the same condition as the exercise book; a give-away bottle-opener, recognisable only because I had seen the little tool many times before; and a little green bottle loosely stopped with things I didn't wish to look at too closely. were some of his magical things. A school exercise book resting on its front cover was sensationally dirty. It was furred with dirt, as though handled and handled by unwashed thumbs and fingers, and the mathematical tables on the back cover of the exercise book had suffered: the dirt and the fur had lifted some of the printed numerals off the paper. Not far away was a matchbox, in the same condition as the exercise book; a give-away bottle-opener, recognisable only because I had seen the little tool many times before; and a little green bottle loosely stopped with things I didn't wish to look at too closely.

Adesina and the babalawo babalawo were now settling the fee for the consultation. The were now settling the fee for the consultation. The babalawo babalawo wanted a lot: five hundred pounds, a thousand dollars. Adesina, used to this kind of outrage, remained calm, and began to beat him down. He settled in the end for something much smaller. wanted a lot: five hundred pounds, a thousand dollars. Adesina, used to this kind of outrage, remained calm, and began to beat him down. He settled in the end for something much smaller.

I now had to ask my question.

I had it ready. I asked, "Will my daughter get married?"

The babalawo babalawo was thrown by the question. He said, "I thought only black people had such problems." was thrown by the question. He said, "I thought only black people had such problems."

But he was willing to give an opinion. He lifted the dirty exercise book and showed what it covered. Sixteen cowry sh.e.l.ls (I a.s.sumed that was the number: Adesina had spoken of sixteen kernels as one way of divination); two tiny gourds tied together with a piece of string, the gourds not much bigger than marbles; and a small metal figure, like the top of an apostle spoon. The cowry sh.e.l.ls had been much handled. I had known cowry sh.e.l.ls to be grey, brown in the interstices in the middle, and dirty-looking; but these sh.e.l.ls, from the handling they had received, were very smooth and wonderfully white.

He pa.s.sed the sh.e.l.ls to me, saying, "Blow on them, give your name, and throw them on the table."

I did as he asked. He took up the tiny gourds and muttered some incantation. After a while the gourds began to swing from side to side. That meant no. If the gourds had swung out and then back, it would have meant yes.

The babalawo babalawo said, "The girl is not going to get married. You have many enemies. To break their spells we will have to do many rituals. They will cost money, but the girl will get married." said, "The girl is not going to get married. You have many enemies. To break their spells we will have to do many rituals. They will cost money, but the girl will get married."

Everyone in the room was quite excited. Adesina, his brother, the guide: the babalawo babalawo had them all in the palm of his hand. had them all in the palm of his hand.

I said, "But what he's told me is good. I don't want the girl to get married."

The babalawo babalawo looked appalled. He must have felt I was trifling with him. I believe that only the reverence of Adesina and the others saved the day. looked appalled. He must have felt I was trifling with him. I believe that only the reverence of Adesina and the others saved the day.

I pointed to the apostle-spoon figure and said, "What's this?"

He held the little figure and said, "He travels at night. He goes to the shrines where I send him and he brings back news."

And Adesina's brother and the guide, correct in their Nigerian floral clothes, added a little to my credit by looking horribly awed.

Adesina said, "He wants to know about creation and the G.o.ds."

Once again Adesina's obvious fervour helped to calm the babalawo babalawo. One of the seer's friends, like a man who knew his way about the place, came and plugged in the fan on the wall. To my surprise it began to work, whirring horizontally above us.

The babalawo babalawo began to talk about the G.o.ds. He took his time. He acted out the dramas he was describing, and he spent so long over the first bit of creation that I feared we would be in that airless little cell all afternoon. Already something in the air was p.r.i.c.king my nostrils, a sign of trouble to come. Casually the began to talk about the G.o.ds. He took his time. He acted out the dramas he was describing, and he spent so long over the first bit of creation that I feared we would be in that airless little cell all afternoon. Already something in the air was p.r.i.c.king my nostrils, a sign of trouble to come. Casually the babalawo babalawo poured some stuff from a bottle against the wall next to him, adding to the general mess of the place; but in fact, as he soon said, he was "feeding" one of the oracles which were against the wall. He said one of those oracles was asleep and had been fed. To take the name of another G.o.d at this stage he would first have to make a libation to the unfed oracle. He would need spirit for this libation, and he meant spirit in the normal way: hard liquor. poured some stuff from a bottle against the wall next to him, adding to the general mess of the place; but in fact, as he soon said, he was "feeding" one of the oracles which were against the wall. He said one of those oracles was asleep and had been fed. To take the name of another G.o.d at this stage he would first have to make a libation to the unfed oracle. He would need spirit for this libation, and he meant spirit in the normal way: hard liquor.

Adesina sent the guide out, to get the spirit. And the babalawo babalawo went on with his stories about G.o.ds, stopping every few words to allow Adesina to translate and amplify. went on with his stories about G.o.ds, stopping every few words to allow Adesina to translate and amplify.

My heart sank more and more. The babalawo babalawo's cell became like the s.h.i.+p's cabin in Room Service Room Service with the Marx Brothers, endlessly receiving new people. At one point a young man in a polo s.h.i.+rt came into the cell. He wanted to see the with the Marx Brothers, endlessly receiving new people. At one point a young man in a polo s.h.i.+rt came into the cell. He wanted to see the babalawo babalawo privately. The privately. The babalawo babalawo, like a man with no time for village idlers, shooed him away roughly. The young man in the polo s.h.i.+rt withdrew with bad grace, and the babalawo babalawo, using his bony fingers a lot, went on with his weighty stories about the G.o.ds, more important to him at that stage than any petty business the young man in the polo s.h.i.+rt might have brought.

The babalawo babalawo broke off and said, "I believe I told you I cannot mention this G.o.d unless we have poured a libation to him." He pointed once more to the dingy splash on the wall. broke off and said, "I believe I told you I cannot mention this G.o.d unless we have poured a libation to him." He pointed once more to the dingy splash on the wall.

At this opportune moment the guide returned with a square bottle of Nigerian gin. The babalawo babalawo had already had a tot from his own bottle, and now they all drank to the G.o.d. had already had a tot from his own bottle, and now they all drank to the G.o.d.

The babalawo babalawo's mobile rang. The babalawo babalawo put it on speaker mode. The young man who had just been with us was heard remonstrating with the put it on speaker mode. The young man who had just been with us was heard remonstrating with the babalawo babalawo. "The people you have with you are going to make a lot of money from what you tell them. Don't tell them everything."

The babalawo babalawo was perfectly calm. The gin had had a soothing effect on everybody. The was perfectly calm. The gin had had a soothing effect on everybody. The babalawo babalawo offered to show us the oracles in his yard. The very small s.p.a.ce in his cell gave way to something even smaller as we followed him outside. We followed him to a pa.s.sage barely wide enough for two people. We were now near the boundary wall: the small house was on a very small plot. And in a corner, looking like something lavatorial and disagreeable, were the three shrines with the oracles the offered to show us the oracles in his yard. The very small s.p.a.ce in his cell gave way to something even smaller as we followed him outside. We followed him to a pa.s.sage barely wide enough for two people. We were now near the boundary wall: the small house was on a very small plot. And in a corner, looking like something lavatorial and disagreeable, were the three shrines with the oracles the babalawo babalawo had made with his own hands. For the believer it would have been a high moment, being permitted to see these sacred things; but for me the moment came with a noticeable tickle in my nostrils: a touch of asthma on the way. had made with his own hands. For the believer it would have been a high moment, being permitted to see these sacred things; but for me the moment came with a noticeable tickle in my nostrils: a touch of asthma on the way.

I thought we should be looking for a way out. That soon came, because Adesina, though he might have wanted a serious personal reading from the babalawo babalawo, now understood that because of my frivolity there was going to be no further seriousness; the moment had pa.s.sed.

There was no rebuke from him; and soon back to the gritty red lane we went, and into the car. A thin dog with swollen dugs came out of the babalawo babalawo's yard; some children had been tormenting it. Adesina shouted at them. He had the right words and the right tone. The children held off at once. The dog came up to the street and trotted about its business undaunted, its tail up, its dignity intact.

And then once again we went past the little shops and dwellings of the settlement, the advertis.e.m.e.nts for extraordinary medical cures, the other advertis.e.m.e.nts for musical shows, and always the children; and then the houses with the big, humiliating, daubed sign on the walls: This house has been repossessed This house has been repossessed.

In Lagos the next day I told a man at the hotel where I had been and what I had done. He was genuinely frightened for me. He said, "They are bad people. Even if you want nothing from them they will damage you. You go with one problem and you come back with ten."

And, indeed, the tickle in my nose had by this time developed into something that called for antibiotics, threatening me with the loss of precious days.

6.

THE O ONI of Ife: it was a memorable t.i.tle. Once you heard it, it could play in your head as sound alone (especially if you didn't know what it meant), and with its easily interchangeable vowels could take fantastic shapes. Even d.i.c.kens, master of made-up names, had sought to parody it somewhere in his writings (perhaps in his journalism, but I was no longer sure). I discovered now that the Oni was the religious head of the Yorubas of Nigeria, and Ife an actual place somewhere in the interior and within reach: half a day's journey from Lagos. of Ife: it was a memorable t.i.tle. Once you heard it, it could play in your head as sound alone (especially if you didn't know what it meant), and with its easily interchangeable vowels could take fantastic shapes. Even d.i.c.kens, master of made-up names, had sought to parody it somewhere in his writings (perhaps in his journalism, but I was no longer sure). I discovered now that the Oni was the religious head of the Yorubas of Nigeria, and Ife an actual place somewhere in the interior and within reach: half a day's journey from Lagos.

The necessary arrangements were made, and I went. The Oni wasn't going to be in residence that day, but there would be people to receive me. The Oni was in England. Like many Nigerians of means, the Oni usually went to England for his summer holidays; he was said to have a house in London. This was unexpected. It modified my idea of the Oni.

We left Lagos by an easy, uncluttered road. On the other side of the same road thousands and thousands of cars were taking their time to get to the capital: the Nigerian weekday paralysis. In the late afternoon and evening matters were reversed: it was easy to get to the capital, not so easy to get out of it. So we, morning travellers, heading out, were fortunate. Outside the city were business sites, luxuriating in s.p.a.ce, and long walls that spoke of big churches to come. At last, then, we were in open country. The land was green: not the dark green of primeval forest, but the fresh green of land that had grown things many times over and was still fertile, requiring only rain and sun to burst into new vegetation. Adesina had said that eighty per cent of Nigeria was uncultivated, but I wasn't seeing that. I was under the spell of the empty green landscape, which I hadn't seen before, not in Trinidad, not in India: wide and green and empty.

The road to Ife was part of a projected trans-African highway. Near Lagos it had two wide lanes; and just as, in India, it lightened a journey to study the wrecks of overloaded small trucks on either side of the road, some on their backs, some on their sides, some wheel-less, front axle broken, rear axle broken; so here, in Nigeria, it dramatised the long highway and the unchanging green through which the highway ran, to look for the big articulated lorries that had slipped or skidded or been driven off the asphalt and had been abandoned, left to rust and rot, since that was the cheaper and easier thing to do.

Ibadan was a great city on the way. It had a university, founded in colonial times, and branches of many British educational publishers. Yet it was a surprise when it came, because nothing in the land before the city had suggested there was a big city to come. It was simply there, at the end of the green, just as in Argentina Buenos Aires was at the end of the Pampa. Ibadan, a city of low houses on rolling hills, spread far in the distance, up to the horizon. It showed no city amenities, no public gardens or squares.

There was some such mystery about Ife, too. It too simply appeared, and was raucous. We followed road signs and went to the Oni's royal compound. We were some minutes before the appointed time, and there was at first no one to greet us or guide us. It was a big compound and seemed to have grown organically. It was a series of small buildings, government-style, undistinguished, some one story, some two. There was a crowd outside one building in a corner, with people crowding the steps, and they appeared to be following a debate that was going on inside. I was told it was a divorce case. I thought that if all the buildings in the compound were in the traditional African style, with the fine gra.s.s roofs of Kampala, say, the compound might have been as impressive as Grant's drawing of Kampala's royal hill in 1861-62.

My visit had been arranged by an educational publis.h.i.+ng firm-it was always necessary here to be sponsored-and some people from the firm, together with a tall man in Nigerian costume, came to greet us. The tall man was from the tourist board, very important here; he gave our group some kind of official standing. The tall man and the publis.h.i.+ng-house group led us-with our driver: Nigerian courtesy-to a big air-conditioned audience hall, like a theatre hall, and we sat down on plush seats.

The tall man from the tourist board told us that the Oni was away, but the Oni's deputy and some other chiefs were going to welcome us. He said that we were not to misunderstand the background and nature of the chiefs who were coming. They were highly educated people. And a little while later-though no one had challenged him-he said it again. It was as though, as a man from the tourist board (and perhaps after some misunderstanding with a recent tourist), it was his duty to put the record straight: local chiefs were not mere villagers.

Soon the chiefs began to come in. They arranged themselves in some order of precedence beside the Oni's throne. They were in wonderful embroidered silk gowns, and so much grander in appearance than we were, that I feared that at any moment they might decide to call our bluff and dismiss us.

There were speeches. The tall man told the chiefs that I was from Trinidad. This had an amazing effect on the chief who was the Oni's deputy. He said, in the tall man's translation, "You who have left your ancestral land have now returned to your father's land. Wali, wali, wali Wali, wali, wali. Enter, enter, enter."

It was moving. My anxiety about my own style seemed base. I returned the deputy's kind and poetical words as best as I could. Patrick Edwards, the Trinidad amba.s.sador in Uganda, who had served some years before in Nigeria, had told me about his ceremony of welcome in Ife. He had cried, and now I understood why.

Our party (now rather large) was taken on a tour of part of the palace. The tall man from the tourist board told me that this ground of Ife, where we were, was the source of civilisation. It was sacred for all Yorubas and the black race generally. He said this more than once, and I felt that this was how in many cultures national traditions would have been inculcated.

At the back of the audience hall there was a gate decorated with cowry sh.e.l.ls. This gate opened on to a small garden. The garden was formal and neat, with grey concrete borders and flat hard beds of reddish earth, and quite bare apart from an old and suffering tree.

A sign said, "The Source of Life." This referred to a concrete well in the centre. The well held a sacred and undying memory of the wife of the very first Oni of Ife. She was very beautiful and her marriage to the Oni was a success. It would have been a perfect marriage if she could have had a child. It was important for the Oni to have a child. But there was no child. So the good woman sacrificed herself. She had the Oni married to another woman, and she became a water sprite, an eternal protectress of the Oni and his family. This was the origin of the well. It was said to be bottomless. It had a brackish smell, and when I looked down I saw something like a very pale nettle growing in the mouth of the well.

The tradition was that at the time of his enthronement the Oni's feet had first to be washed with water from this well. And because the well looked after him and his children, the Oni had to tell the well when he was leaving Ife.

In a quadrangle at the back people were being fed; this feeding was connected with our visit. Women helpers had done the cooking in big stainless steel pots and were still there, handling long spoons. Some of the people in our party, overcome by the idea of food, settled down to eat. On the wall, at the back of the tables, were many colour photographs of important people who had come here on other occasions; one photograph was of a previous Archbishop of Canterbury.

We went back with our guides to the air-conditioned audience hall, with all the fine chairs, and went out the way we had come. Outside the main door we saw the bust of a woman, rather squat on her stand, her features not absolutely clear. I had seen her as I was going in, but I had not been told much about her.

I was told now. She was the great Yoruba heroine. The story about her was something like this. At some time in the remote past the Yoruba were fighting a traditional enemy and were on the verge of defeat. This woman went to the oracle and said, "Please give me the secret of our enemy's power." The oracle said, "No trouble about that. I will give you the secret of your enemy's power. But first you must give me what is most precious to you." What was most precious to the woman was her only son. She had him sacrificed. The secret of the enemy was then revealed to her, and the enemy was defeated. Up to this day the woman and her son are venerated by the Yoruba. In fact, the son has taken on the lineaments of Christ, because of this story of sacrifice, and in this form has been received into the Yoruba pantheon.

It was a perfect story for a place that was the cradle of civilisation and the black race. If I had been introduced to the story cold, so to speak, just as I had arrived, it wouldn't have meant much. But now, after a meeting with the grave chiefs, and after a sight of the garden that was the source of life, I understood a little more. For myths to take on life, they have to be supported by other myths; and there was enough support of this kind in Ife.

There was more to see. There was another garden some distance away, but still in the town, where the central object was the staff of an ancient Yoruba warrior, who was a giant. The wood of the staff, which was, of course, very big, had turned to stone. The staff stood upright in a garden as formal and clean as the Source of Life garden. The white-robed priest who looked after the staff said he had been trying for some time to get the government to put a canopy over the staff, to protect it from the weather and to prevent it from being worn away.

The story of the staff was like this. At the very beginning of things the giant ruled the Yoruba. He protected them and made them prosperous. In due course the giant was called to the world of spirits. He left behind his staff and a trumpet, and his instructions were that whenever the Yoruba needed him the trumpet was to be sounded. One day an idle young fellow, having no regard for the story, blew on the trumpet. A giant figure began then to stride over the earth, laying people low left and right with his sword. A woman ran out to the giant and said, "Madman, can't you see what you are doing? These people are your own." The giant picked up a severed head by the hair and saw that the head did indeed belong to a Yoruba. He was mortified. He laid down his weapons and vowed never to come back to earth. But he wished before he left them for good to give his Yoruba people a final boon. The boon was this: the Yoruba people would always be successful in war. Then he went away.

His weapons stayed where he had thrown them down. Over the years, perhaps millennia, the staff became petrified, and it is now one of the holy relics of Ile-Ife. There was a proper shrine connected with the staff. It was in the tangled green at the back of the garden. But time was pressing; we had made arrangements to see other things in other places, and we told the priest in white that we had to leave his shrine for later.

7.

OSUN S STATE has the reputation of being very religious, full of shrines and sacred places. The old world was like this in many countries. (Even England, though not thought of now as a religious country, is full of sacred sites at many levels of its history.) has the reputation of being very religious, full of shrines and sacred places. The old world was like this in many countries. (Even England, though not thought of now as a religious country, is full of sacred sites at many levels of its history.) We were going to a sacred grove of great beauty, but we had first to get the permission of the Oba of Osun. The wide highway from Ife to Osun, built for festival crowds-like those from the black diaspora and elsewhere who came for the climax of the River Festival, when the virgin walked to the river with a big calabash on her head and poured the sacrificial contents of the calabash into the river-was empty now. We made good time. We were not going to be as late as I feared.

The Oba's palace was in the centre of the town. A number of carefully dressed officials were there to greet us.

(When I considered their clothes, and their happiness in the occasion, I thought how awful it would have been if, as I had half wanted, we had telephoned and cancelled this part of the trip. I had thought of doing so because it was exceedingly hot, the heat of early afternoon, and also because I thought that we were going to do a long drive only to be shown another version of what we had already seen that morning, another piece of Yoruba myth.) A fine woman in pink came out of the Oba's palace. She was from the Osun tourism department. She said that the Oba had gone to change his clothes, after the earlier receptions, and she led us to a durbar hall, where we were to wait. We waited there for some time.

Two servants came and sat on the low steps in front of the Oba's throne and they held us in their gaze. They were stylishly dressed, in different costumes, and I thought, because of their direct gaze, they were chiefs of some sort, with special duties. I didn't know they were servants.