Shortly before the end of my primary school in 1966, the entire Medupin family was visited by series of tragedies. Three young members of the family died mysteriously in succession.
Signs of trouble started with the celebrations of the Agbo Masquerade Festival. The festival takes place annually between the 10th and 11th months of the year in order to mark the end of one and the beginning of another year. During the celebration, a ritual procession would take place for a period of six days during which an oracle would be consulted to fix the exact date the festival would commence. Few weeks before the event, materials for the costumes would be gathered from various locations by the Ogba. The materials would be bundled together and carried to Igbo’ka for the final preparation for the D day. The Ogba, when moving the materials from one location to another were not to be seen by women. Their approach would be announced by some weird sounds.
On the first day of the festival, a horde of Agbo masquerades would dance down through the main routes and move on to the market square where the traditional ruler of Ogidi would then address the masquerades and enjoin them to be of good behaviour, not to beat visitors, school children and pregnant women with their whips. Afterwards, the masquerades would start to display their dancing skills. They would dance around the village in their different shapes and sizes in beautiful costumes made from different leaves such as banana leaves, brooms, etc at times with baskets.
According to eye witness accounts, a barber was barbing the hair of the young son of a cousin of my father who lived in our house. The man had just returned to the community with his young wife and son after a long sojourn in another part of the country. One of the masquerades had veered off the main road to the frontage of my father’s house and, without provocation, whipped the woman and his son. My father was a high chief in the community with two titles. That conferred certain privileges on him in the community. Beating those people right in front of his house without provocation as the masquerade did was tantamount to beating my father which was viewed as an act of extreme disrespect bordering on an abomination. Apparently having been informed of what happened at home, my father rushed back and in his fury seized a long stick being used as a walking aid by a youngster who was suffering from an affliction and pursued the errant masquerade to a location about 100 meters from our house an whipped him.
The whipping was more of a symbolic demonstration of his dissatisfaction with the disorderly conduct of the masquerade because his straw costume was thick enough to protect him. My father was still at the scene of the incident when word went round the village about what had just happened. Within a very short time, another man emerged on the scene and started to whip the Agbo. That was the moment they said the Agbo suddenly pulled off the material used for his disguise and simply laid them down on the ground in the presence of many onlookers. There was pandemonium. Men, woman, children young and old ran helter skelter looking for cover. It was an abomination for an Agbo to turn to a human being in broad day light. There was an ancient belief that the Agbo were spirits from heaven and that they possessed supernatural healing powers.
Within months of the incident, the man in whose hand the Masquerade became human, died a mysteriously painful death.
That was just the beginning. My father was accused by the Ifa oracle of being responsible for the incident. He was asked to appease the gods in ritual sacrifices. He denied any involvement and refused to be involved in appeasing the gods as demanded. They threatened to deal with him and members of his extended family if he failed to meet their demands. My father called their bluff and refused their demands.
Within three months of the incident, three young members of the family had died suddenly, mysteriously and in quick secession. The first one drowned on the River Niger and his body was never found. All the three who died were sons of his younger brothers. No one could tell if the deaths had any connection with the Agbo incident but the traditional religionists accused my father of sacrificing them instead of his own direct sons. It was a strategy to divide the family. But it did not appear to have worked as the incidents practically brought my father and his siblings much closer together.
Several nights after the deaths of three young members of the family, we would hear mysterious voices outside our house. Sometimes, they would be crying. At other times, they would be shouting and screaming. I would hear some horrible sounds like people in distress. They had also accused my mother of peeping through her window to look at them in the night. That was a very serious allegation as women were forbidden from seeing night masquerades, (Egun Oru). They asked my father for her blood. They threatened to have the blood of her son instead. That was one of the most frightening periods of my life. We had many sleepless nights. After the death of three young members of the family, who was next? I was in fear. I could not sleep for several nights.
Meanwhile, my mother had become very ill, battling with her own allegation. Her illness started very suddenly and degenerated very fast. We thought she was going to die.
My mother was on the sick bed for good three months. She had already been taken as dead. She had become extremely pale unable to stand on her own.
One night, something very strange took place. My mother stood up beside her bed. She had asked for my father. My father was immediately called into her room. She looked up to my father and thanked him. She took a deep breath and lied down again. We had all thought that was the end. But within three days of the unexplained incident, my mother started to recover from her illness and within two weeks she was up and about again.
It was a happy ending to a traumatic personal childhood experience which is still very fresh in my memory. It was an experience that strengthened my confidence in the family. It gave me a practical lesson in the saying, "a house divided against itself can never stand." The incident, unfortunate as it was, instead of dividing the family, kept it together and actually helped to increase the bond among the seven pillars that made up the Medupin dynasty with my father as the head. This was most probably due to their common Roman Catholic connection. The experience laid the foundation for my strong belief in the power of a united family. When the family is internally united, no weapon fashioned against it externally will penetrate.
Family unity is the inner strength to withstand adversity. It is the ability to stand firm and remain hopeful even when the situation appears to be hopeless. In the time of family upheaval like the one I experienced, a united family is like the palm tree. As the palm tree uses the time of storm as an opportunity to showcase its strength and stability, so is the time of crisis designed to demonstrate the strength of the character and stabilit
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