Abija Wara Bi Ekun
During my childhood, I watched a lot of epic Yoruba movies that had to do with incantations. I did not only watch, I acted them out with friends. I made it a thing of fancy to memorize every incantation I came across word-for-word. Some of which I still retain and write as poetry.
My favorite warlord was Abija-wara-bi-ekun and his dwarf-like ghommid known as Ajan. Abija was like Spartacus in a field of battle. I was particularly fascinated by Ajan's telepathy. The deity and Abija-wara communicated in such a way that left me bewildered as a child with the hope to reincarnate such trick.
Soon I and some friends joined others in the neighborhood to form an acting club, without pretense and effects. And it was a rule of the thumb that each participant retained the mystery of a warlord in a movie when acted out. I was the unmovielike, unscripted Abija-wara-bi-ekun with his invincible or almost invincible pedigree.
So to make it look like the real deal we saw on movies, we improvised for Ondes¹ — both Ifunpa¹ and Ifunse¹ which we made out of soft-drink corks and sac ropes. We nailed the corks in the middle and let the ropes through the eyes till they served as holders of the corks. There were as many as 12 corks in a rope as much as an ‘Akogun’¹ (so we called ourselves) wished. I had twice as many as some of my friends.
We tied Ifunpa on our arms and Ifunse we tied around our legs. There was one we tied around our heads, too. Everywhere we went, the corks squeaked and passers-by were forced to behold us. There was the Bante¹ too which we tied around our waists, made out of thick cardboard and layers of used commodity-boxes. We nailed corks to them with sac ropes holding them to dangle.
Our weaponry was the Paro which we stuck with many corks. This we carried in our hands. It is with it our opponents were to eat the dust when repeatedly flogged unless a reversal incantation was chanted. This incantation must be entirely different from earlier incantations he must have chanted. Both defeat and victory, therefore, was how well an Akogun could memorize the incantations. A condition for which I had groomed myself.
I usually made my opponents surrender because I employed the Paro at the briefest of incantations. The corks of the Paro were piercing that one had no option but to submit when repeatedly applied on.
But I was able to evade others incursion of the Paro due to the summons of my Ajan (since Abija had a ghommid in the movie, I had to have one, too) who was younger than I was and must call out, usually from an enclosed place not too distant from the battlefield, each time danger loomed from a random opponent.
The summons were to make me circumvent away from places of danger while repeatedly chanting incantations. An Akogun was not to be attacked while still chanting the incantations. However, this was soon to change.
One fateful day, we went to the battlefield at ‘Ita-Iya-Luku’, named thus after a ground used a fishmonger we all patronized. This battlefield was entirely different from others we had gone because we were summoned by the opponents themselves. It was my culture to first consult my Ajan before taking to any battlefield. But on this day he was nowhere to be found. He had traveled to his Uncle’s place a day earlier. This made me feel reluctant to go, but my party had a way of persuading by ridicule.
I went, to prove a point that my Ajan was never my weakness or strength. On reaching the battlefield, we were bewildered. The opponents were twice our number. They had connived with other streets distant from ours. Streets we feared primarily for their thuggery and banditry attitudes. However, the building interest from the passers-by made sure we were not to sidestep. A decision we are all living to tell the tale.
As soon as they saw us — I mean the opponents — they made our lanes their abodes. Each one of us found himself surrounded by two mischievously looking opponents whose intentions were plainly not to act but to inflict pains. Immediately, I began chanting the incantations.
But my opponents were not to be deceived. They halted my brief rants with the same brief rants, at times briefer. They knew the end of an incantation was the application of Paro. They knew, and I knew. So we were found checkmating with counter-incantations. Then it happened suddenly.
I was about to employ the typical Abija-wara-bi-ekun which was more like an unchecked knockout by slapping my head repeatedly and making my eyes twice the same size as they were while stamping my feet on the ground furiously when the clatters of free corks rattled through my bones. I looked up and realized two Paros had been exhausted on me by either opponent. I was in pain. My head was spinning into a fuzziness.
I was about to stage a comeback when two more Paros emptied their contents on me. I went to the ground beaten, face-down, held my head in agony, watched as tears began to well up in my eyes. I couldn’t look up for fear of those tears punctuating down my cheeks in shame. It took the will of a passer-by for more Paros not to be emptied on me.
When I finally gathered the strength to stand up, my eyes were red like live coals and the opponents were nowhere to be found. I roved my eyes for my friends and realized many of them had suffered the same fate. The ones who were wise had run off. We went home nursing our griefs.
However, our parents had got hold of the situation before we got home. They in turn tended to our bruises passively as a way of rebuke. The consequence was that we were not to watch the television all together much more of our beloved epic, incantatory movies. It took us days to discern that the summon from our opponents was a hired beating and an act of revenge for what we did to some of their members a few weeks before.
1. Ondes: These are charms tied either around the leg, the head or the waist. It consists of Ifunpa — tied around the arms, Ifunse — tied around the legs, and Bante — tied around the waist.
