Abike & the Ologbojo

(contributed by Sola)

Abike’s Mother to Abike.

Her mother was a woman often frowned upon. She had four daughters, each from a different man.

Abike was the child of her first marriage, her ‘only true husband’, she would often say. The man had died of illness while their marriage had still been young. This was the tragic event that set underway a search for acceptance and a sense of belonging that would persist in a travel from village to village, from the arms of one kind of man to the next, and inadvertently shape young Abike’s view of a woman’s life.

Damilare, her second and last husband, had been a violent, abusive, man; more given to his love for palm-wine than work or family. The man was also cursed with far-reaching-feet. He could wander away from home without a word for several weeks at a time. It was on one of such unwitting travels, that Abike found her mother sitting outside, staring at the moon, a habit of soundless tears well underway.

She held her mother. For several hours of embrace nothing was said. That night, Abike learnt and inherited her mother’s strength against the odds of fate in a single sigh, muttered against the wind, gentle but set in flint “All that any woman has in this life is her children”.

Her mother left Damilare’s house that night. She took her four daughters with her, and they walked far away from anything and anyone they’d ever known. Throughout the journey, Abike saw that her mother never once looked back.

Her mother became a woman of many crafts and many occupations, she made hair, she picked fruit, she worked the fields with the men, ground cassava with women... a hard life had made her mother more than malleable; it had made her indestructible... By example, she taught her daughters about strength, dignity, and self-sustenance.

They lived in many places as the times and seasons required, but it was in Igbile-land that they finally found a home and a sense of belonging strong enough to bring her to mother settle down. Igbile, a happy land of an uneasy peace.

It was here that Abike blossomed into a fetching young maiden. Courting men and their fathers or mothers were soon regular at their door, but the attention of the young lady had already focused on the shy advances of the young loner from the celebrated house of the Mayiduro lineage. His name was Laja. He was the second of the two sons of Kujore the Steward.

Laja spoke long and intimately with Abike. He spoke with great awe and respect of the great exploits of his famous father... with much fear and trepidation of the enormous responsibilities on the males in their lineage... with a great relief of being second born, and so not next in line for stewardship... And he spoke with timid tenderness of his love for Abike.

They married. Soon afterwards they had their first child, a boy, Waju. Life was beautiful and full of promise.

Then, came the news...

In a drunken argument, his brother had been struck down. A blow to the head from which he did not recover. And with the death of the heir to stewardship, the responsibility was now his. Abike watched the evolution of her husband from a happy, loving and content man, to a quiet, gloomy, haunted, miserable shadow of a man.

For nine years, she saw the joy ebb in creeps from him each day, until the day he feared finally came about... in the unsaid events of the dark asylum where his father hid himself, the man finally succumbed to the family curse and went the mortal way of those before him.

The news travelled quicker to their enemies than to Laja himself. Their foes were already upon them as Laja was dragged from his wife’s side in the middle of the night. Fighting was at the very door as the last of the rituals were performed and... They say... Laja’s first acts as Steward ran redder and more terrible than all his predecessors in that one spark of dawn.

Abike was witness to these things.

Wave after wave of enemy attacks met a terrifying end in Laja’s Stewardship than all of history had ever recorded. It was said that the force within him wore him well... to his expense. With each transition, a terrible rage and fearful sorrow seized more and more of his subconscious.

Abike was witness to these things.

Insanity shared their home as Laja struggled between the realities. Only his fierce and determined love protected Abike from a violence easily stoked. Laja bore his curse bravely... determined that it shall not extend beyond him. He fought the holds of his master long enough to devise a plan of salvation with his beloved. In the tortured window, they tasted a happy moment of strained romance before action was to prompt flight. In this moment, another child was conceived.

In the dark night of heavy rain clouds, Abike held her mother for the last time. For several hours of embrace nothing was said. In a single sigh, muttered against the wind, gentle but set in flint, her journey away from Igbile into the unknown was charged in her mother’s words, “All that any woman has in this life is her children”.

Abike left Igbile land that night. She took two sons –one by the hand, the other in her womb, and they walked far away from anything and anyone they’d ever known. Throughout the journey, Waju saw that his mother never once looked back.

Ologbojo – and Stewardship.

“Ologbojo ni baba Egungun,” a saying that reached far about all of Yoruba land –Ologboju, the entity feared by the most fearsome of the masquerade cults. This was the boogie man story told to scare the little ones. “Don’t go out at night,” Mothers said, “Or Ologbojo will whisk you away!” “If you disobey your father, Ologbojo will come for you when you sleep at night”.

The name was received always either in fear or caution... for good reason.

A time had passed when Ologbojo was a man. The standard for valor and power, he was in those times. He was the champion of the Igbile people. He was one who shook armies in mere loincloth and naught but a rock in his hand. Under the banner of his name, Igbile-land, a land familiar to the pillage and constant attack of roving bandits and their much larger neighbours, finally knew peace and respect.

Many stories exist of how Ologbojo came to be so powerful. Some said that in the seasons that elements took human form, a cloud of lightning lay with it cloud of thunder... and gave birth to the great man, Ologbojo, born standing upright a fully developed adult, filled with the force and wrath of both, immune to all magic, and superseding all human authority.

What was recorded by the royal historians, though, spoke of a great warrior’s quest for immortality. He was born a son of common folk –ordinary people with ordinary achievements. He was determined to have a place in history. So, he set off on what had started as a quest for recognition, but was soon to become an obsession with status... first among the people –he trained far and wide to become a great warrior, a champion in Igbile-land... then among warriors –he amassed such power, to his physique and spiritual armoury, to become a legend among warriors... then among legends –he sought to go the way by which mortals become gods... first, to be a god among men, then a transcendental being... a lower form of a god...

This ‘arrogant’ quest did not go unnoticed by the community of gods, higher and lower.

It was so that great men were elected to a place with the gods when they had achieved such mighty feats on earth that they could be counted as ‘worthy’ of the ‘higher calling’. But this fellow was a man of great power, not a man of great feats. More a warrior unto himself than a champion unto his people.

Meanwhile, the warrior, as he continually sought knowledge of spiritual things and access to even greater power, the limitations of his mortal mind were irrevocably breached. Soon, he began to struggle between realities –evolving into something somewhere between spirit and flesh. Already notorious for his violent rage fits, the warrior was now to be feared for something even worse... Madness. A madness that recognized neither friend nor foe, man or woman, child or elderly... it was a time of many casualties –sudden, horrible fatality had become a neighbour.

He could recognise only one person, his steward – his anchor to the physical realm. So it was that as he isolated himself, far his people, only his steward could rouse in him to serve his people in the time of danger.

The warrior, now referred to by the bogeyman nickname “Ologbojo”, still sought transition to godhood, even as his physical form diminished more and more from this realm. A council of gods, higher and lower, gathered on this... and charged him to serve his people until the terms of godhood were satisfied.

And so it was then that when enemies loomed, the people of Igbile would summon the Steward, and the steward would rouse the ‘Ologbojo’. And he would destroy the opposition.

Eventually though, a day came.

And the warrior they called Ologbojo lost his hold on this world. He became a revenant... lost... trapped between worlds.

When the enemies of Igbile-land heard that their champion had gone, they rallied forces to attack.

After about a year of fighting, it was clear that Igbile were mere days from defeat. In desperation, they tried at every option... then one suggestion was proffered by the spiritual consult... a ridiculous one... at first. Then the more they spoke on it, the more they were convinced... it could work.

The steward would rouse the “Ologbojo”.

The enemy at the gate advanced into Igbile-land, victory was a fact... until a single man, ordinary in appearance, came at them in slow sturdy steps. From the gates of Igbile to the dividing border... the bodies of the enemy were strewn in strips and mangled heaps.

Ologbojo had returned... so to speak.

They had sought to summon the Ologbojo through his steward in an assumption that he had achieved godhood. Instead the roving spirit had seized control of the body of his steward... and in this vessel, he again had access to his immense power. The possession however was temporary... usually just long enough to see off the immediate danger.

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Ologbojo, realizing that he might never be welcome in the company of the gods began to desire life in the physical realm. So, with each possession, he left more and more of his essence behind... with the intent of taking over the body of the steward...

The steward found himself exhibiting more and more of his former master, especially the rage and, slowly also, the madness. Day by day, the steward was consumed by his master... until, his mortality gave in, and he died.

The Igbile people, fearful of strife without a guardian, sought new vessels to take up stewardship. As it turned out, only direct male descendants of the steward could, by genealogy, become stewards themselves.

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Ologbojo still seeks a transition to godhood, but in the time being, he still consumes his stewards as he seeks a more permanent walk in the physical world.