Fear No Evil by James Patterson. Mercy by David Baldacci. From This Moment by Melody Grace. The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly. The Awakening by Nora Roberts. But he is beginning to find his authority increasingly under threat - from his rivals in the tribe, from those in the white government and even from his own family.
Yet he still feels he must be untouchable - surely he is an arrow in the bow of his God? Armed with this belief, he is prepared to lead his people, even if it means destruction and annihilation. Yet the people will not be so easily dominated. Spare and powerful, Arrow of God is an unforgettable portrayal of the loss of faith, and the struggle between tradition and change. Continuing the epic saga of the community in Things Fall Apart, it is the second volume of Achebe's African trilogy, and is followed by No Longer at Ease.
There will be no cocoyam to put into it until harvest time. I know such a thing does not trouble the present age. But as long as we are there we shall continue to point out the right way … Edogo, instead of working for me tomorrow take your brothers and the women to build the barn. If Obika has no shame, the rest of us have.
I should say harder. When a handshake goes beyond the elbow we know it has turned to another thing. It was I who sent you to join those people because of my friendship to the white man, Wintabota. He asked me to send one of my children to learn the ways of his people and I agreed and sent you.
I did not send you so that you might leave your duty in my household. Do you hear me? Go and tell the people who chose you to go to Okperi that I said no. I think it is her turn to cook tomorrow.
At no other time but now could Umuaro have taken war to Okperi in the circumstances in which it did. Who would have imagined that Umuaro would go to war so sorely divided? Who would have thought that they would disregard the warning of the priest of Ulu who originally brought the six villages together and made them what they were?
But Umuaro had grown wise and strong in its own conceit and had become like the little bird, nza, who ate and drank and challenged his personal god to a single combat. Umuaro challenged the deity which laid the foundation of their villages.
And—what did they expect? In the very distant past, when lizards were still few and far between, the six villages—Umuachala, Umunneora, Umuagu, Umuezeani, Umuogwugwu and Umuisiuzo—lived as different people, and each worshipped its own deity. Then the hired soldiers of Abam used to strike in the dead of night, set fire to houses and carry men, women and children into slavery.
Things were so bad for the six villages that their leaders came together to save themselves. They hired a strong team of medicine men to install a common deity for them. This deity which the fathers of the six villages made was called Ulu. Half of the medicine was buried at a place which became Nkwo market and the other half thrown into the stream which became Mili Ulu. The six villages then took the name of Umuaro, and the priest of Ulu became their Chief Priest.
From that day they were never again beaten by an enemy. How could such a people disregard the god who founded their town and protected it? Ezeulu saw it as the ruin of the world. On the day, five years ago, when the leaders of Umuaro decided to send an emissary to Okperi with white clay for peace or new palm frond for war, Ezeulu spoke in vain.
He told the men of Umuaro that Ulu would not fight an unjust war. It was Okperi who gave us a piece of their land to live in. They also gave us their deities—their Udo and their Ogwugwu.
But they said to our ancestors—mark my words—the people of Okperi said to our fathers: We give you our Udo and our Ogwugwu; but you must call the deity we give you not Udo but the son of Udo, and not Ogwugwu but the son of Ogwugwu.
This is the story as I heard it from my father. If you choose to fight a man for a piece of farmland that belongs to him I shall have no hand in it. He was one of the three people in all the six villages who had taken the highest title in the land, Eru, which was called after the lord of wealth himself.
Nwaka came from a long line of prosperous men and from a village which called itself first in Umuaro. They said that when the six villages first came together they offered the priesthood of Ulu to the weakest among them to ensure that none in the alliance became too powerful. Knowledge of the land is also like that.
Ezeulu has told us what his father told him about the olden days. We know that a father does not speak falsely to his son.
But we also know that the lore of the land is beyond the knowledge of many fathers. If Ezeulu had spoken about the great deity of Umuaro which he carries and which his fathers carried before him I would have paid attention to his voice.
But he speaks about events which are older than Umuaro itself. I shall not be afraid to say that neither Ezeulu nor any other in his village can tell us about these events. Nwaka walked forward and back as he spoke; the eagle feather in his red cap and bronze band on his ankle marked him out as one of the lords of the land—a man favoured by Eru, the god of riches.
He told me that Okperi people were wanderers. He told me three or four different places where they sojourned for a while and moved on again.
They were driven away by Umuofia, then by Abame and Aninta. Would they go today and claim all those sites? Would they have laid claim on our farmland in the days before the white man turned us upside down?
Elders and Ndichie of Umuaro, let everyone return to his house if we have no heart in the fight. We shall not be the first people who abandoned their farmland or even their homestead to avoid war. But let us not tell ourselves or our children that the land belonged to other people.
Let us rather tell them that their fathers did not choose to fight. Let us tell them also that we marry the daughters of Okperi and their men marry our daughters, and that where there is this mingling men often lose the heart to fight. Umuaro Kwenu! The assembly broke up into numerous little groups of people talking to those who sat nearest to them. One man said that Ezeulu had forgotten whether it was his father or his mother who told him about the farmland.
Speaker after speaker rose and spoke to the assembly until it was clear that all the six villages stood behind Nwaka. Ezeulu was not the only man of Umuaro whose mother had come from Okperi.
But none of the others dared go to his support. His voice was now shaky but his salute to the assembly was heard clearly in all corners of the Nkwo market place. The men of Umuaro responded to his great effort with the loudest Hem! He said quietly that he must rest to recover his breath, and those who heard laughed. It is now a long time since we fought a war and many of you may not remember the custom. I am not saying that Akukalia needs to be reminded. But I am an old man, and an old man is there to talk.
If the lizard of the homestead neglects to do the things for which its kind is known, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmland. It is right that he should feel like that. But we are not sending him to his motherland to fight. We are sending you, Akukalia, to place the choice of war or peace before them. Do I speak for Umuaro? If they choose peace we shall rejoice. But whatever they say you are not to dispute with them.
Your duty is to bring word back to us. We all know you are a fearless man but while you are there put your fearlessness in your bag. If the young men who will go with you talk with too loud a voice you must cover their fault. I have in my younger days gone on such errands and know the temptations too well. I salute you. But what have we seen here today? We have seen people speak because they are afraid to be called cowards. Others have spoken the way they spoke because they are hungry for war.
Let us leave all that aside. If in truth the farmland is ours, Ulu will fight on our side. But if it is not you will soon know.
I would not have spoken again today if I had not seen adults in the house neglecting their duty. Ogbuefi Egonwanne, as one of the three oldest men in Umuaro should have reminded us that our fathers did not fight a war of blame. But instead of that he wants to teach our emissary how to carry fire and water in the same mouth.
Have we not heard that a boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet? Why does Egonwanne trouble himself about small things when big ones are overlooked? We want war. He can spit into their face if he likes. When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?
I salute you all. In his goatskin bag he carried a lump of white chalk and a few yellow palm fronds cut from the summit of the tree before they had unfurled to the sun. Each man also carried a sheathed matchet. The day was Eke, and before long Akukalia and his companions began to pass women from all the neighbouring villages on their way to the famous Eke Okperi market. They were mostly women from Elumelu and Abame who made the best pots in all the surrounding country.
Everyone carried a towering load of five or six or even more big water pots held together with a net of ropes on a long basket.
As the men of Umuaro passed company after company of these market women they talked about the great Eke market in Okperi to which folk from every part of Igbo and Olu went. Other markets in the neighbourhood were drawing it dry. Then one day the men of Okperi made a powerful deity and placed their market in its care. From that day Eke grew and grew until it became the biggest market in these parts. This deity which is called Nwanyieke is an old woman.
Every Eke day before cock-crow she appears in the market place with a broom in her right hand and dances round the vast open space beckoning with her broom in all directions of the earth and drawing folk from every land.
That is why people will not come near the market before cockcrow; if they did they would see the ancient woman in her task. The old woman of their market has swept the world with her broom, even the land of the white men where they say the sun never shines. It was once said that he had no toes. It had not been cultivated for many years and was thick with browned spear grass. And so the younger and weaker of the two begins to swell himself up and to boast. They are very difficult people; my mother was no exception.
But I know what they know. If a man of Okperi says to you come, he means run away with all your strength. If you are not used to their ways you may sit with them from cock-crow until roosting-time and join in their talk and their food, but all the while you will be floating on the surface of the water. So leave them to me because when a man of cunning dies a man of cunning buries him. Nevertheless Uduezue asked them about their people at home. If my sister, your mother, were still alive, I would have thought that something had happened to her.
We have a saying that a toad does not run in the day unless something is after it. I do not want to delay your mission, but I must offer you a piece of kolanut. Perhaps we shall return after our mission. It is a big load on our head, and until we put it down we cannot understand anything we are told. Here is a piece of white clay then. Let me agree with you and leave the kolanut until you return. After that there was nothing else to say. They had rebuffed the token of goodwill between host and guest.
Uduezue went into his inner compound and soon returned with his goatskin bag and sheathed matchet. He led the way and the others followed silently. They passed an ever-thickening crowd of market people.
As the planting season was near many of the people carried long baskets of seed-yams. Some of the men carried goats also in long baskets. But now and again there was a man clutching a fowl; such a man never trod the earth firmly, especially when he was a man who had known better times. Many of the women talked boisterously as they went; the silent ones were those who had come from far away and had exhausted themselves. Akukalia thought he recognized some of the towering headloads of water pots they had left behind on their way.
When as a little boy he had first come here with his mother he had wondered why the earth and the sand looked white instead of red-brown as in Umuaro. His mother had told him the reason was that in Okperi people washed every day and were clean while in Umuaro they never touched water for the whole four days of the week.
His mother was very harsh to him and very quarrelsome, but now Akukalia felt tender even towards her. Uduezue took his three visitors to the house of Otikpo, the town-crier of Okperi. He was in his obi, preparing seed-yams for the market.
He rose to greet his visitors. He called Uduezue by his name and title and called Akukalia Son of our Daughter. He merely shook hands with the other two whom he did not know. Otikpo was very tall and of spare frame. He still looked like the great runner he had been in his youth. He went into an inner room and returned with a rolled mat which he spread on the mud-bed for his visitors.
A little girl came in from the inner compound calling her father. Go and tell him I shall whip him. They did not stay very long. When they came back Otikpo brought a kolanut in a wooden bowl.
Akukalia thanked him but said that he and his companions carried such heavy loads on their heads that they could neither eat nor drink, until the burden was set down.
Everybody in Igboland knows that Okperi people do not have other business on their Eke day. You should have come yesterday or the day before, or tomorrow or the day after. What shall we do now? I think you should sleep in Okperi today and see the elders tomorrow.
He was surprised to see so many people, and was temporarily at a loss. He wants to see the elders and I have told him it is not possible today. Have they no market where they come from? If that is all you are calling me for I must go back and prepare for market. Or have you brought us news that Chukwu, the high god, is about to remove the foot that holds the world his.
If not then you must know that Eke Okperi does not break up because three men have come to the town. If you listen carefully even now you can hear its voice; and it is not even half-full yet.
When it is full you can hear it from Umuda. Do you think a market like that will stop to hear your message? Do you wait till tomorrow? Do you not beat your ikolo? The three men from Umuaro exchanged glances. Uduezue sat as he had done since they first came in, his chin in his left hand. I have borne your insults patiently. Let me remind you that my name is Okeke Akukalia of Umuaro. The name of this town is Okperi. I have told you this place is Okperi.
But Ebo had just said the one thing that nobody should ever have told Akukalia who was impotent and whose two wives were secretly given to other men to bear his children. The ensuing fight was grim. Ebo was no match for Akukalia and soon had a broken head, streaming with blood. Maddened by pain and shame he made for his house to get a matchet. Women and children from all the near-by compounds were now out, some of them screaming with fright.
Passers-by also streamed in. What happened next was the work of Ekwensu, the bringer of evil. Akukalia rushed after Ebo, went into the obi, took the ikenga from his shrine, rushed outside again and, while everyone stood aghast, split it in two. Ebo was last to see the abomination. He had been struggling with Otikpo who wanted to take the marchet from him and so prevent bloodshed. But when the crowd saw what Akukalia had done they called on Otikpo to leave the man alone.
The two men came out of the hut together. Ebo rushed towards Akukalia and, seeing what he had done, stopped dead. He did not know, for one brief moment, whether he was awake or dreaming. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his left hand. Akukalia stood in front of him. The two pieces of his ikenga lay where their violator had kicked them in the dust.
Yes I did it. What can you do? Still Ebo turned round and went into his obi. At his shrine he knelt down to have a close look. Yes, the gap where his ikenga, the strength of his right arm had stood stared back at him—an empty patch, without dust, on the wooden board. Nna doh! Then he got up and went into his sleeping-room. He was there a little while before Otikpo, thinking he might be doing violence to himself, rushed into the room to see.
But it was too late. Ebo pushed him aside and came into the obi with his loaded gun. At the threshold he knelt down and aimed.
Akukalia, seeing the danger, dashed forward. Although the bullet had caught him in the chest he continued running with his matchet held high until he fell at the threshold, his face hitting the low thatch before he went down.
When the body was brought home to Umuaro everyone was stunned. It had never happened before that an emissary of Umuaro was killed abroad. But after the first shock people began to say that their clansman had done an unforgivable thing.
What propitiation or sacrifice would atone for such sacrilege? How would the victim set about putting himself right again with his fathers unless he could say to them: The man that did it has paid with his head? Nothing short of that would have been adequate. But one small thing worried them. It was small but at the same time it was very great. Why had Okperi not deigned to send a message to Umuaro to say this was what happened and that was what happened?
Everyone agreed that the man who killed Akukalia had been sorely provoked. Yet when a man was killed something had to be said, some explanation given. That Okperi had not cared to say anything was a mark of the contempt in which they now held Umuaro. And that could not be overlooked. The assembly in the morning was very solemn. Almost everyone who spoke said that although it was not right to blame a corpse it must be admitted that their kinsman did a great wrong.
Many of them, especially the older men, asked Umuaro to drop the matter. But there were others who, as the saying was, pulled out their hair and chewed it. They swore that they would not live and see Umuaro spat upon.
They were, as before, led by Nwaka. He spoke with his usual eloquence and stirred many hearts. Ezeulu did not speak until the last. He saluted Umuaro quietly and with great sadness. When I spoke two markets ago in this very place I used one proverb. I said that when an adult is in the house the she-goat is not left to bear its young from the tether. I was then talking to Ogbuefi Egonwanne who was the adult in the house.
We have all seen with what care he carried it. I was not then talking to Egonwanne alone but to all the elders here who left what they should have done and did another. They were in the house and yet the she-goat suffered in her parturition. He wrestled from village to village until he had thrown every man in the world. Then he decided that he must go and wrestle in the land of spirits, and become champion there as well. He went, and beat every spirit that came forward.
Some had seven heads, some ten; but he beat them all. His companion who sang his praise on the flute begged him to come away, but he would not. He pleaded with him but his ear was nailed up. Rather than go home he gave a challenge to the spirits to bring out their best and strongest wrestler.
So they sent him his personal god, a little, wiry spirit who seized him with one hand and smashed him on the stony earth. They told it because they wanted to teach us that no matter how strong or great a man was he should never challenge his chi.
This is what our kinsman did—he challenged his chi. We were his flute player, but we did not plead with him to come away from death. Where is he today? The fly that has no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave. But let us leave Akukalia aside; he has gone the way his chi ordained. Umuaro is today challenging its chi. Is there any man or woman in Umuaro who does not know Ulu, the deity that destroys a man when his life is sweetest to him?
Some people are still talking of carrying war to Okperi. Do they think that Ulu will fight in blame? Today the world is spoilt and there is no longer head or tail in anything that is done. But Ulu is not spoilt with it. Umuaro, I salute you. The main characters of this fiction, cultural story are Ezeulu, Obika. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.
We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Arrow of God may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
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