THE WHITE LAMB IN THE CLOUDS
Folktales from Igbo land
Written by Mazi Mike Ngozi Osuji
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Email;Osujimichael60@gmail.Com
Once upon time, there was a couple who lived in a remote village behind the river nwangene. The man was called Udofia while the wife was known as Ahudie. They lived together in the neighborhood made up of a cluster of hamlets. The people who lived in those hamlets were family, cousins, nephews, extended family and nuclear family members.
The Udofia and Ahudie couple were farmers. They had a flock of goats and sheep. One day the couple made a plan to steal their own goat. After hatching the plan to steal their own goat, they carried out the plan and stole one of their many goats. But the goat they stole was pregnant, and unknown to them it had only a few weeks to deliver.
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Udofia and his wife also had a large yam-barn. They were reasonably wealthy but at the same time they envied a poor man within their neighborhood, known as Nwa-Ugorji whose only possession was a parcel of land. They had earlier requested Nwa-Ugorji to sell his parcel of land to them which he declined, giving rise to their envy and the plot to eliminate him.
COUPLE PLANS TO STEAL OWN GOAT
Stealing in Amadi village where the Udofia and Ahudie couple lived was forbidden. So stealing was regarded as a taboo, and a very abominable offence. Stealing was also punishable by death through stoning. After stealing their own goat, they hid it in a corner and raised alarm that their pregnant goat had been stolen. What was their intention of stealing their own goat?. They stole their own goat in other to punish Nwa-Ugorji for refusing to sell his only parcel of land to them which led to their secret hatred for Nwaugorji and the plot to kill him.
So they elders of the village gathered in respect of the goat theft. Questions were thrown to the Udofia and Ahudie couple if they suspected anybody. They said that they saw and know who the thief was and that it was Nwaugorji. The accused person was summoned and he denied committing the theft. Nwaugorji continued to maintain his innocence. But he had no witness. Udofia had a witness and that was his wife, Ahudie. Two of them had planned the theft together. Ahudie told a lie to the council of elders that she saw Nwaugorji enter the barn where the goats were kept.
After many days of deliberations over the case, the elders found Nwaugorji quilty based on the witness of Ahudie and sentenced him to death by stoning. He wept all day long and cried all night long. He refused to eat food or drink water. The thought of dying by stoning over an offence he didn't commit drove Nwa-ugorji almost crazy.
NWA-UGORJI CONSULTS THE ORACLE
Before the day set aside for his stoning could arrive, Nwa-Ugorji pleaded with the elders to give him the grace to consult with the Oracle. The Oracle is a spirit-being who sees in the physical, as well as in the spiritual. The Oracle does not lie and it was dependable in all the lands as far as the delivery of true judgment was concerned.
What Nwaugorji did by going to the oracle was the same thing as appealing the judgment of the village elders. Tradition allowed the appeal of judgements passed by the elders to the oracle. The oracle reigns supreme in Amadi village. It served as the supreme court in all the lands.
The Oracle, therefore, summoned the Udofia couple to her shrine but they refused to honour the summons of the Oracle. For three consecutive times they failed to honour the summons of the Oracle.
The Udofia couple knew very well that the Oracle will see their dirty behind, so they refused to go and honour the summons of the Oracle. The Oracle became angry and decided to send the white lamb of judgment to their door steps. First, the white lamb appeared in the cloud for only the Udofia couple to see. The day of the white lamb is the day of judgment.
However, the Udofia couple had hoped that Nwaugorji could not be able to consult the Oracle. "The requirements for consulting the Oracle were not easily obtainable, especially for a poor fellow like Nwa-Ugorji", so the Udofia couple thought. But Nwa-Ugorji was determined to prove his innocence, and save himself from a shameful death by stoning.
When it downed on the Udofia couple that Nwaugorji had succeeded in consulting the Oracle after selling a parcel of his land to meet up with the requirements of the Oracle, they became jittery and panicked.
One day, out of desperation and fear, the Udofia couple summoned the elders once again. He told the elders to hurry and carry out the public stoning of Nwa-Ugorji. But the elders refused, and insisted that as long as Nwa-ugorji had appealed to the oracle, and the matter now in the domain of the Oracle, that they must wait upon the Oracle to direct them on what to do.
THE WHITE LAMB APPEARES TO UDOFIA.
All of a sudden, the countenance of Udofia changed. His behaviors also plunged into some form of frenzy. He got up from his seat in the mist of all the elders and started pointing towards the cloud. The elders were taken aback, and perplexed. "Look at a white lamb in the cloud", shouted Udofia. "A white lamb?", queried, one of the elders. "Yes, a white lamb in the cloud", replied Udofia.
It was a tense atmosphere for Udofia. He was the only one who was seeing the white lamb. He developed sudden gooze pimples, and started sweating out of fear of the white strange lamb. This is so because, the white lamb is a spirit and its appearance in the clouds is an omen. An omen could be bad or good.
The elders couldn't see the white lamb because it did not come for them, but for Udofia. It was from the oracle. The oracle uses the white lamb as a weapon of aggression against offenders and evil people. Anybody who saw a spirit will definitely die. Nobody can see a spirit and still lived. The white lamb did not come in peace. It appeared to Udofia as a bad omen.
"See the white lamb descending from the clouds, look at the white lamb coming down to the earth", screamed Udofia. The white lamb, then came down to Udofia's level, without touching the ground with his four legs as it floated in the air. Yet only Udofia could see him as he kept pointing and screaming until he fainted and died, foaming in the mouth. "The gods have killed him!", one of the elders shouted, Perplexed.
Udofia's body was quickly kept away by the elders present as they pondered aloud what really went amiss with him. The news of Udofia's mysterious death spread like a wild fire across the villages, howling like a hurricane wind. Tongues started wagging, while mouths opened wide agap, across the villages and beyond.
THE WHITE LAMB APPEARES TO JUDGE AHUDIE.
As sympathizers, thronged into Udofia's compound due the bad news of his death, his wife, Ahudie began to behave strangely, and hysterical to the amazement of a large crowd of sympathizers. "The white lamb has come again; it has appeared again; it is swimming in the air; it has fire in her mouth; it is killing me", she screamed, and screamed, and then fainted and died.
But the crowd of sympathizers kept gazing into the sky to see the white lamb, yet nobody saw anything.That was how the oracle killed a couple who stole their own pregnant goat only to accuse their innocent nephew for stealing it.Their pregnant goat also gave birth on the day of their death as it cried from the corner where they had hidden her for people to see.
WHOEVER WAS KILLED BY THE ORACLE SHALL NOT BE BURIED
The bodies of Udofia and his wife could not be buried. They were thrown into the evil forest to rot away and eaten by vultures. This was because they were killed by the oracle for stealing their own goat and lying against some one else for stealing it. Stealing was an abomination in Amadi village, and in all the villages around the river Nwangene.
It was shameful and scandalous to die by the anger and judgement of the oracles. This is because, whoever the oracle kills would not be given a befitting burial but thrown into the evil forest to be eaten by vultures. His belongings such as yam-barns, flocks of sheep and goat, farm-lands an family would be confiscated and returned as property of the gods. This was the shameful ending of Udofia and his wife, Ahudie for stealing their own pregnant goat.
Note; The culture of a man is like his shadows, and no man can run away from his own shadows.
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