What came into his mind was that he had been touched unknowingly by nwanju leaves. He stood at the distance, watching him. Nwanju was a powerful tree that its medicinal power was stronger than any other tree in the bush. Only a touch to the flesh of anyone, the person would lose his mind and senses temporarily. The power in it was strong that it could make one walk round the area in which it was located seven times. Then when no one had come to redeem who it was holding, it would start all over again. It was a short tree that no bird stood on. Its magnets could not make any animal harm the person in its possession and it saved the person from any harm unless the person had a bad face with the gods. Nwanju was a bad grass that no other grass sprouted or grew around it and it was not found in most bushes. It was a good ingredient for powerful native doctors who could use it to perform harmful medicines.
It was on this spot and condition that Udoma was around when Emenike met him. Emenike knew that he was the only one who could save him, or else he would not meet home that night. It was bad for one to hear the call of his kinsman and close his ears or run away. He dashed into the land and gently touched him at his back. It was the only cure. Udoma was free again. He shook his head in appreciation and thanked Emenike for saving him.
They started walking home slowly. But for a time, they were silent. He had just been saved from a problem. For an old man who knew the rule of man and the gods, who knew the bush and the language of trees and grasses, it was a deep thought to him how he touched the forbidden tree.
“Udoma, you may have touched the leaves or limb of the nwanju with your right hand. You know it is never done,” said Emenike.
“I wondered what might have led me to nwanju stand. If it were children, you know I would have flogged them for it. I don’t know, my brother. Yes, I was thinking deep into this when I suddenly got into the problem. I heard that the foreigners have entered Akabo clan and Okene, the clans of our brothers and they took them in. They came with goods and the new religion. My first wife came back from the market and narrated to me how it all happened,” Emenike said.
“I saw them myself at Nkwo Okene. Okene people accepted them and they are selling their children, especially the males to them,” he replied.
“But how foolish they are,” Emenike remarked. “They are white. They wore something to cover their foot and dress differently from us. Does a man cover his heart? But they do as if they have breasts. Does a man cover his eyes? But they cover theirs with something I have not seen since I became human. When they speak, you will not hear them. But they came with an interpreter who could give meaning to his word. What does the interpreter know? Is he from his clan, or is he his brother? He can say anything to the interpreter to tell us.”
“We will never allow that to happen. When a man sells his nakedness to outsiders, he will live to have miserable children. How could you trust a man who covered all his body and speak like ndi mmuo? My grandfather told me when I was young that they are ndi mmuo. A man was not supposed to be white like a skinned and roasted goat. There was something someone told me one day, that he was born with a very bad disease and his mother threw him into the bush where termites ate his outer body up and then he got up to see men and women like him and they married themselves. What would you expect them to have as children? Because they were cursed, that disease followed them to the blood, and they gave birth to people like them, they gave birth to usu ocha and that was all. I also heard that he was cursed. How could a full-fledged man speak like a suckling child, with his mouth in his tongue instead of his tongue in his mouth? Is that not madness? Looking at them is like watching the nakedness of a mad dancer with his dangling manhood. I am a man of justice and principle and can hardly be influenced with new intentions of these men. You know they must be selfish for leaving their land to come to us. A selfish man is a narrow-minded man.”
“They said they are coming to help us see beyond what our eyes can see,” his friend said.
“I told you,” He said, laughing. “A selfish man is a self-centred man.”
“He said we do not know the true Chukwu.”
“The supreme God is called Chukwu, Great Spirit; Chukwu created the world and everything in it and is associated with all things on earth. He is powerful. Let him answer this accusation. They are selfish.”
“I gave thought to that. Someone whom we did not invite is coming and pleading that we give him our heart. How safe are we? Are we his kinsmen? What was the nature of the land he came from? I heard they eat eke and give birth to twins and their women sleep on top of them,” Emenike said, laughing.
“There is nothing we cannot hear in this world now. Anything is possible with these men.”
“I am going from here, please, my brother. Let us not see bad days. Good night and say me well to your family.”
“Good bye,” he replied.
Udoma replied to him the same as they parted.
The following day, Emenike sat down in his obi and got himself into deep thinking. He had had no good impression about the white man and had carried crusades against them like Uzodianya, who killed the first two white men and threw their bodies inside a running stream that took the bodies to the water of the spirit. He was getting older and what troubled him most was that his first two sons were like two machetes in Eleke house. The sharp one had no place for the holder while the one that had a place to hold was not sharp. How could he, the lion, give birth to weakling goats and sit down to watch them grow? A man was always prepared for what would happen to him at death. They would represent him in the event of death and sit in his obi to instruct their own sons and their younger children on the rules of the land. A man born would always beget his own children, whom he would instruct.