Lamentations of My Father: The Life and Times of "Ebbe" Muoneke Ironuma

PROLOGUE

The man you are going to read about in this book was an enigma. His departure from Umuobom in 1875, at the age of seven, in company of an absolute stranger, was a miracle. His mother was a prophetess. His father proceeded to the land of collective immortality when he was seven months old. His uncle, Eze Mbionwu, was heir presumptive. His birth set shock waves to Eze Mbionwu and his Dim kindred.

This man you are going to read about was born with the name Muoneke. But he was given other calumniatory and condemnatory names, that turned out in the end to be glorious names – a name that became his greeting name for the rest of his life.

Muoneke’s mother, knowing that her son was born royalty inheritor of Umuobom, told him the history of Umuobom from when he was six years old. She told him as follows: The town, Umuobom, emanated from a man called Obom. Thousands of years ago, a man called Arogu from Ohafia, Nigeria, was a great hunter, migrated to this Umuobom geographical area. He settled in this part, because it is a land of everything. There are rivers, palm trees, bananas, and all kinds of fruits. He later went back near his place of birth and married a woman from Uzoakoli in Bende area. In the process of time, they got a son and named him Obom. Arogu trained Obom in hunting and farming, and Obom got highly skilled in both professions.

Obom Arogu married a woman from Alor in Anambra State, and they got two sons, Onai and Ukwa. The two brothers became very successful in hunting and farming like their father and grandfather. In time, each begot seven sons who grew and developed into the fourteen villages of Umuobom. Akanu village has always been the leader of Umuobom. Your great-great grandfather, Durunnuihe, was senior to his half-brother, Dim. But your great-great grandfather did not like Durunnihe’s mother, so he bequeathed his throne to a younger son, Dim. So Dim’s descendants felt that, by tradition, you are the rightful heir, that you are going to tell them to relinquish the throne, when you grow up, as your late father had fought them. They want you dead, because they killed your father to consolidate the throne," Nwachukwu told her son.

Throughout the 42 years in exile from age 7, serving different European priests, lawyers, and a British business tycoon, the thought of his mother’s narratives about his father, whom he didn’t know, and the origin of Umu (children) Obom lingered in his mind. His unexpected return to Umuobom was more than an earthquake. And he miraculously survived the pernicious conspiracies and catastrophic earthquakes of aggression Eze Mbionwu and his Dim kindred meted out to him. Read and see how.

1

Background of Muoneke’s Birth

Every man is formed and shaped by the norms, values, physical features, and the totality of the social structure of his society. Muoneke was not an exception. The Igbo society in which he was born is a collection of individualistic, autonomous communities where no man owes any allegiance to another man. Authority in pursuing any course of action in this patriarchal society is based on gerontocracy. Each community is a collection of close-knit kindreds. Each kindred may have a population of two thousand people or less. Very often one can see two or three kindreds who cannot intermarry, because they have ties of consanguinity.

Every married male has authority over everybody in his household. And any man, who has the means, can marry more than one wife. Among the Igbos, there is no limit to the number of wives a man could consummate. As Igbo is a patriarchal society, concurrently, it is a patrilineal structure. Consequently, having a son becomes very significant in Igbo society. This is one of the major reasons why polygamy is part of the culture of Igbo society. Not every man has the money to marry a second wife. It becomes very painful, when a man’s first wife could not bear a male child or could not conceive at all. Such a family, by Igbo standards, lives in anguish and fate indignity.

The Igbo system of inheritance in the patriarchal society is culturally determined and does not require a written will. Traditionally, there is nothing like a man dying intestate in Igbo culture. Even in a polygamous Igbo society, where a man has many sons from different wives, the culture has already determined what belongs to the first son, when their father dies. And the culture makes it clear that only the first son from each of the wives will inherit what is left after the first son takes whatever the culture bequeathed to him.¹ In some situations, a father may bequeath some of his assets to his junior son by a written will, or by calling the elders of his kindred to a meeting in his house and tell them who takes a piece of asset when he dies.²

In Igbo society, a collection of kindreds make up a village, and a number of related villages make up a town of distinct geographical expression. My father’s home town is called Umuobom. Umuobom³ predates British colonization of Nigeria in 1849. Umuobom is structured with fourteen villages.⁴ Akanu is the name of my father’s village, and Akanu is regarded as the head of all of the fourteen villages. Consequently, when the British began their system of indirect rule, it was very easy for them to pick the leader of Umuobom from Akanu.

2

ECONOMIC SYSTEM

The economic system of Umuobom, in the early 1800s, was partly subsistence farming and partly commercial farming for the local markets. As was common at that time throughout Africa, Asia, and other continents, the medium of commodity exchange was trade by barter.

Up to the 1950s, the majority of Umuobom population was engaged in agricultural food production more than their neighbors. This is because Umuobom is surrounded by many high hills and perennial rivers and streams. The farmland areas do not require irrigation, because, in addition to perennial rivers and streams, there are also non-perennial streams that flow across the farmland into the perennial rivers and streams. Consequently, for many decades prior to the end of World War II in 1945, young men and women from Umuobom had no incentive to leave the town to go to the emerging urban centers to trade. This is because the high degree of food production of different types assured the youth that they would not hunger coupled with the fact that Umuobom was blessed with naturally planted palm trees, which made palm produce a lucrative cash-crop. The major farm products of Umuobom are yam, cassava, coco-yam, banana, plantain, pumpkin, etc.

In traditional Umuobom society up to the 1950s, the primary most important farm product for which a man’s wealth was measured was the length of his barn of yams. The most wealthy Umuobom man must have a small barn and a large barn. Small barn carries very long and heavy yams, while the large barn carries shorter and thinner yams. But the length of the large barn is usually longer than the small barn.

In a society without mechanized farming, having many hands to work at the man’s farmland is required. In effect, polygamy became the solution. The prerequisite to having both a small-barn and a large-barn became having many wives. Two wives were not enough. The idea is having many wives will more likely yield to having many children who will work on the farm.

Another solution in Igbo society and in Umuobom town in particular to getting many hands work on farmland for the wealthy was bonded labor. The wealthy farmer has many crops to spare and money to lend. As a result, some young married men who want to begin to raise their own farms but do not have yams, may give their labor power to the wealthy farmer for the wealthy farmer to give him a certain quantity of seed-yams. In return, he had to work for the wealthy farmer one or two days of the Igbo 4-day week (Orie, Afo, Nkwo, and Eke).

Another method of raising bonded labor in Igbo society was if a man wants his son to get married, but he doesn’t have the dowry, then he could, with a gallon of palm-wine, go to a wealthy farmer known to have some money to lend. He tells the wealthy farmer the amount of money he wants to borrow to get a wife for his son. And he offers to leave his own younger son or daughter to live and work for the wealthy farmer for a certain number of months or years. If both agree on the terms, traditionally, this agreement is witnessed by parties for the wealthy farmer and the borrower. By the 1900s, some of these type of agreements were made in writing.

Unmistakably, capitalism was not imported in Igbo society. Whereas some acres of land may be owned in common by each kindred, individuals retained other economic possessions for themselves. Sharing and being one’s brother’s keeper was and is still the norm.

3

Igbo Norms and Religion in 1800-1900s

The Igbo religion is based on a Supreme God and minor gods. The minor gods are seen as intermediaries between man and the Supreme God. The Supreme God is known, variously, in Igbo culture as Chukwu, Chineke, Olisa, Obasi-bi n’ehu among different clans.

The Igbo religion is the source of Igbo norms, values, and traditional criminal justice system. The center of the religion is the earth (ala) and its natural manifestations. Each and everyone of the Igbo 4-week days is a distinct market day, and each is pivotal in Igbo religion and philosophy. This is because each market square, where Orie, Afo, Nkwo or Eke market is located, also is an abode of a minor god. There is usually a thick green vegetation grove with trees of interlocked canopy in which the minor god is believed to reside. That market grove is the shrine of the village or town, and it carries the name of the market such as Ogwugwu Orie. That means the Orie shrine of the people. Up to this 21st century Igbo society, you can find in some towns the location and the expression of Ogwugwu-Oke, Ogwugwu-Afo, Ogwugwu-Nkwo, or Ama-Nkwo, Ama-Afo, Ama-Eke, Ama-Orie, which means the driveway of the god of Nkwo, Eke, Orie or Afo.

Traditionally, through these minor gods, families and kindreds appeal to their ancestors to spiritually help them circumvent the ravages of worldly losses inflicted upon them by evil spirits and human enemies.

In the process of time, from time immemorial, Igbos saw that the shrine groves and the minor gods, who live in them, had to be maintained and worshiped daily. They saw that it was not necessary for a whole community to assemble once or twice a year to clean up the grove and pour libations to propitiate the gods. Instead, they saw that dedicating an offender to take care of the shrine was a better system of offender disposal for a serious norm violation. That was the nature of Igbo traditional criminal justice system.

In traditional Igbo religion and philosophy, there are serious deviances known as abomination. They are murder of one’s father, mother, brother or sister; all types of incest; a man having sexual intercourse with one of his father’s wives when his father is still alive; and a person killing and eating a livestock dedicated to a shrine grove. The disposal of any person found guilty of any of the above abominations was by a community coming together, strip the offender stark-naked, with rope on the ankles, pull him in a throng of condemners and muttering curses with bad luck until they abandon him in front of a shrine grove of another town. He/She can never go back to the land of his birth which he has defiled. The strange shrine grove became his home. That is why he cannot shave his hair, take a bathe, visit anybody, and nobody would visit him. He was marooned. He became an abomination even to himself. The individual loses his real name. If the market grove is Eke, the name of the condemned becomes the rat of Eke market shrine grove. The Igbo language for a rat is oke. Therefore the name of the offender dedicated to the Eke shrine becomes, derogatorily, Oke-Eke. If the shrine grove is Afo, he becomes Oke-Afo or Oke-Nkwo, or Oke-Orie, as the case may be. In effect, he becomes an untouchable which the Igbos call Osu.

Unmistakably, it does not mean that any Igbo person whose first or last name is Okeke, Okeafo, Okenkwo, or Okorie is an Osu or untouchable. No, some Igbos, since the emergence of Christianity and western education in the late 1800s started giving their children names of the market day on which they were born. They are not Osu. Rather it was purely ignorance of Igbo religion and philosophy and kinship nomenclature.

In the early 1800s, Igbo religion did not condemn cannibalism. Whereas it was not rampant, but it existed in some parts of Igboland until late 1800s. Additionally, Igbo religion is full of taboos. Among Igbo traditional taboos are giving birth to twin babies; going to farm on a piece of land on a particular day of the Igbo week that is a prohibited day. It is regarded as a desecration of the minor god of that land; clearing a tabooed forest for farm work; etc.

Breach of taboos in Igbo society is like a breach of folkways in any other society. It does not yield to any physical punishment. It is only an overt or covert verbal condemnation. But the reaction to a woman who delivered twin babies was different. The woman was not punished. Instead, the two babies were taken from her and put in two separate large earthenware. The two pots, each holding a live baby, were taken to a tabooed forest and left there for the babies to die of hunger and starvation. In Umuobom and other more traditional communities in Nigeria in the mid-1800s, this taboo was still in existence.

Igbo religious worship is both individualistic and communal. The worship involves invoking the spirits of their ancestors to plead to the Almighty God to get their wishes fulfilled. Virtually every married adult male has a staff (ofo) for invoking the spirit of his ancestors, the minor god of his kindred, the greater minor god of the whole town to come and answer his prayers and carry his prayer to the Almighty God who lives up in the sky.

In traditional Igbo religious worship, the sexagenarians, Septuagenarians, and nonagenarians have an altar at one corner of their parlor or living room, where they kneel on the floor or sit on a chair and pray to God through their ancestors, the minor gods, and the greater minor gods.

Every kindred in traditional Igbo society has a male member who is designated as a care-taker of the minor gods of the kindred. In some clans, the minor god of a kindred does not have a grove. It exists as a spirit guarding and protecting every member of the kindred. A sacrifice is offered to the kindred minor god once a year in form of killing a goat or ram. The blood of the goat or ram is besmeared on the religious staff of the chief priest of the kindred and on the praying staff of all of the elders of the kindred from sexagenarians to the eldest. And the meat is shared with every adult male in the kindred.

The social class system of the Igbo society is based on religion and economic system. In effect, the class system is both open and closed. In the closed system, one is either of noble birth or an untouchable dedicated to a minor or great god of the people. Unfortunately, that status is inherited by birth. In this social classification, among the nobles, the highest class are those men who have taken the "Ozo title and are addressed as Eze or Nze. By Umuobom tradition, a man not born in Umuobom by a noble family cannot take the Ozo title. He can never be an Nze or Eze. Additionally, an Umuobom man may be of noble birth, but if he does not have the wealth to foot the cost of Ozo title, he cannot take the title. In fact, Christianity did not obliterate or devalue the honor and prestige accorded to Nze titled men in Umuobom. The first wife of an Nze titled man becomes Lolo Ozo," and she is highly respected.

4

Kindred Upheaval

In the process of time, Akanu evolved from two kindreds of the same father – Durunnihe and Dim, but not the same mother. By oral history, overtly expressed by octogenarians and nonagenarians from both kindreds, Durunnihe was a senior brother to Dim. In effect, Durunnihe was the first son of their father. Unfortunately, there was no love lost between their father and Durunnihe’s mother. Dim’s mother was the sweetheart of their father. Consequently, Dim was given the staff of power and highest assets that belonged the first son. When their father died, it was like the War of Roses – (The House of Lancaster vs. The House of York, 1399 – 1485).

Unlike the ‘War of Roses,’ the descendant of Durunnihe did not go to infantry war against the descendants of Dim. Instead, it was a unilateral cold war. Some descendants of Dim engaged in diabolical evil missions against key figures of Durunnihe family. It was an aggression intended to retain leadership in the hands of a wrongful party.

This unhealthy relationship between the descendants of Durunnihe and Dim started in the early 1800. Around 1830 to 1840, three great men represented Durunnihe kindred. They were Ironuma, Dike, and Azubike. Ironuma was the oldest and was terribly feared by the descendants of Dim kindred.

Unfortunately, neither Ironuma, Dike, nor Azubike had any grown-up son. In fact, up to 1867, none had a son. Ironuma had his only son, Muoneke, in 1868, a year before he died. When Ironuma died in 1869, undeniably, there was a relief of tension in the minds of Dim’s descendants with the view that the power of Durunnihe was gone. The mother of Muoneke resorted to keeping her only son out of sight of everybody.

At this juncture, the colonial system of indirect rule had recognized Mbionwu of Dim kindred as the Chief of Umuobom. Dike and Azubike were biting their fingers in anger and indignation for their rightful possession was given to an underdog of Dim kindred. But these two kindreds are brothers in our African concept. In fact, only a compound wall separates Durunnihe kindred from Dim’s kindred up to the present day.

Shortly after Ironuma died, Dike had a son and Azubike had two sons. Unfortunately, their sons were teenagers when they died. Durunnihe did not have the manpower to fight Eze Mbionwu and Dim kindred in the late 1800s. But a thunderbolt that would strike Mbionwu’s reign years later was absolutely unforeseen.

5

Protective Child Exile

In the mid-1800s, the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) were spreading the gospel of Christianity throughout Western and Eastern Nigeria. The British colonial administration tried to use English missionaries of both Catholic and Protestant to get southern Nigerians away from their traditional religion which the colonial masters described as paganism. Trying to convert Nigerians to Christianity and making polygamy (bigamy) an offense punishable with seven years of imprisonment was not an easy nut to crack.

The English priests were going from place to place with Nigerian escorts and interpreters preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ at market squares. In the rural villages and towns, wherever they went, many people surrounded them, not to listen to the interpreter, but to see a man with a skin color that was unimaginable to them and whose voice incoherently whizzed through their ears.

Muoneke’s mother, Nwachukwu, had seen such a priest preaching with an interpreter some years earlier in a neighboring town square. She had wondered how she could make Muoneke disappear from Umuobom. She had wondered how she could accomplish it. Fortunately for her, she had a gift of predicting the future, and she could see things in a vision, dream, and trance, and they happen in real life. In fact, she was a prophetess. According to her only 10-year-old daughter, Ohanu, she was always meditating. If anybody is coming to our house, she would tell Muoneke to go to the bedroom. If a guest asks her about Muoneke, she would say, Oh, he went to his grandmother."

Nwachukwu did not tell anybody what she had in mind after she saw an English man preaching the gospel in a neighboring town. Probably she had divine guidance. Luckily for her, the English preacher did not come to Umuobom on an Orie market day. Instead, it was on Eke day with less people at the Orie market square.

It was around noon, Nwachukwu saw some people, as she stood on her front porch, running towards Orie market. She stepped to the edge of their driveway and asked a young man rushing towards Orie market square, What is happening over there? pointing to the direction of Orie. They said a white man and some strangers are preaching, the young man replied. Immediately, Nwachukwu felt that it must be the English preacher she had seen some time ago. Without any waste of time, she grabbed Muoneke and Ohanu and trotted to Orie Market Square. She saw a large number of people surrounding one white man and his interpreter. But the crowd was not as large as it would have been, if it were on an Orie market day. She saw a small gap at one side of the crowd. With her two children each gripped tightly on either hand. She meandered around the crowd and bursted in front of the English preacher and his interpreter. Nobody bothered her or complained why she was fearlessly bulldozing her way through the crowd.

It was like the Holy Spirit was in charge of the situation. Little kids were not supposed to appear in a crowd of adults like that one. Nwachukwu stood calmly as if she was