Everywhere was so silent. Someone had died, someone very important to the clan. The sun was high in the sky and it was a silent time for the clan, a very sunny silent afternoon. The quietness that enveloped the earth at that moment he breathed his last, made many fear and think that his death would mark an end to something bad or bring in a new birth to something good.
A message was sent to the elders who came and instructed that the town crier openly tell the clan. Okoye was not a person to die and the clan would not be informed. So, it was announced through the town crier that evening and the next morning that he had joined his ancestors. Nobody cried, but few who understood death were speechless at how they had lost such a wizened old man.
The sorrow and sadness that held many the moment he died was so visible that they showed it. He was buried the next day, amidst a silent crowd, and the ceremony had been fixed on Nkwo market day. There was no reason to continue keeping him. He died when yams had not been sown and had many well-meaning hands who could take up his funeral. No matter how people ate, it would be hard for them to eat everything Okoye kept for his funeral. Emenike and his uncle’s children were very busy making preparations for food, wine, dancers and masquerades. His groups were also informed on the days fixed for their coming to honour their departed member. Every Umudi man knew and trusted that in the house of a rich man, there was always food to eat. One man even said that no matter how sickly a cow was, it must fill a basket and would not get to the size of a goat.
It started on the first day. Nkponala and egbendu were shot into the air, in their numbers, to announce the formal opening of the funeral of Okoye. No one kept count, but it boomed repeatedly and shook everywhere. Young children closed their ears and ran to their mothers out of fear. Village heads, elders and citizens, depending on their relationship with the bereaved family, hurried up from their many engagements and went to Okoye’s house in great numbers to console the relatives of the departed old man. When the eye started crying, the nose also cried. A problem for one member of a family was also grief for all the other members of the family. Everyone was connected in one way or the other. The in-laws also prepared. They were very many – from the places he married to the children and the in-laws of his brothers and sisters. Everyone was interested to show how close and related he was to Okoye. Those things were done for one at death, keeping the living in watch of what would be of them if they too died.
Okoye was a man of the clan whom everyone knew too well. He was generous and would be first to lead a group in an event of public outing. He was the voice of the people in every gathering. So everyone was involved in active representation and preparation for his funeral. Women came with dried okpu and ohu fish, and other raw foods. The men came with wine, kola nuts, alligator pepper and many other gifts, and presented it to the family.
The daughters of the family and all umuada were there, some of them having come all the way from their homes in distant lands to mourn their kinsman. Umuada were female member of the clan who had been married outside. One would be eligible for membership immediately after she was married, or if she had passed the age of marriage. She could be in the house of his father and yet join other daughters on their outing. Though no family liked to have their daughter home while others were in the homes of their husbands, yet very few women could not marry because they were of bad behaviour or had poorly been spoken of by the people of the clan, or sometimes were left to keep male children when they were lacking in a household. Every grown girl was married out, so that the family could have in-laws like others. In-law relationship was one that everyone carried with pride. It was called brother in the fourth lineage. Though such respect and importance were attached to in-laws, no man of the clan slept in the home of his in-law. It was considered an act of the weakling. Nothing could make a man sleep in the house of his in-law.
In this funeral, it was a full gathering of them all. It was customary to have them around when any of their relatives died or when a great man died. They also came during festivities like opupuada, which was the exodus of a family daughter. More so, it was a time they settled problems they left behind when they last visited. New ones would be initiated into the umuada, while newly married women were presented for formal introduction. Umuada was as powerful as the elders, both in their families and in the clan. They made strong decisions and maintained peace in the land. They questioned some binding and oppressive rules against the less privileged and fought for peace.