Godwin Inyang's Blog

Times changed and the choirmaster saw some changes around the ekpo masquerade that made him cringe. He called one of the changes an idiotic display. Young people, mostly teenagers, were openly hooting at the masked men, jumping up to catch arrows the masked men shot at them and would race off as the ekpo chased them and shot arrows at their fleeing backs. Parents shouted themselves hoarse at their wards to stay away from the rowdy elements teeming through the streets. Now and then, one or two youngsters lost their eyes. As the aura around the masquerade was dimmed by the changing times, the choirmaster borrowed a beat or two from the masked folks into the songs he composed for his choir. That got the core traditionalists cross-carpeting. You would see them taking special seats on Sundays to nod their heads to the choirmaster's special anthems till the ekpo season returned. Then some got sucked up and left the shrine permanently for the altar. One even became an elder. Elder Uteh...

Can anyone put on a mask, rub the charcoal and pretend to be an ekpo? Definitely, not in Annang land. Where someone is suspected of doing that, an initiate would approach him and communicate. Not a mouth-to-mouth chat but by signs and symbols. He could scribble on the ground, jump to the side of the path and pluck a leaf or more and position them in special ways the other person would need to interpret. Failure to respond appropriately could lead to fatal consequences. The ekpo means of communication was known as 'Nsibidi' and it was the best kept secret of the cult. Not even the 'akwa ekpo' passed it down to his son, the choirmaster. Apart from the ekpo masquerade, the other plays in Annang land were: ekong, uta, abang, utu-ekpe and mbede Annang. The ekong players wore raffia masks, sang with a device hidden in their masks and which sounded like the call of a raven, ekong ebuk ayop, which they derived their name from. They preceded the ekpo masquerade as their season t...

Ukoko's father was the 'akwa ekpo', the bare-faced leader of the ekpo masquerade, who shook his 'ekpud', the hand-held wooden musical instrument with clappers, chanted and sang from the village square to favoured homes across the clan. When entering a house, the masked man walked backwards, removed his mask and sat on the floor. The ekpo remained ekpo from the start to the end of his activity and the owner of the house or whosoever was free to join them, and of course only initiates, and would never identify them by their real names. When done eating and drinking, the masked men warmed the house with their songs and the rendition would be charming. Apart from the 'ekpud' shook by their leader, the song and the accompaniment were made by the voice. When departing the house, the masked men walked backwards. During the stipulated days of the week for the adult ekpo masquerade, no feet other than those of the initiates walked the paths of the clan. All the basic...

The adult masked men wore masks, from charming to grotesque, carved from wood and some pieces of wood had special powers like the ones derived from the ' nkubia ' tree. Who wore the ' nkubia ' mask had a lasso tied on his waist and held by an able-bodied tender. There were moments the ' nkubia ' wearer acted as if possessed, would go on a rampage and it was up to the tender to restrain him. Sometimes, he would need to smash eggs on the forehead of the mask before the rage would cease. The adult masked men had their head coverings which stretched below the shoulders made from the grass called ' mkpatat '. It was the same grass used for making wreaths placed on graves. ' Ekpo ' for the mask-wearer is also the word used for a spook. The adult masked men painted their trunks and limbs pitch-black with charcoal. They strapped machetes to their waists, wore strips of cloths around their loins and held bows and arrows in their hands. Bells were tied t...

THE drums pulsated rhythmically all night and the choirmaster was gripped with fear. The seven high-pitched lead drums recited familiar themes like the thief who caught a thief, the skinny girl who overthrew the superman and the husband who fancied himself a teacher, measuring every piece of fish with a ruler. The drums had rolled that night in the village square to announce to the clan the start of the adult ekpo masquerade season. The choirmaster who had embraced the new path and was spreading the message of the foreign missionaries with their strange gods as an interpreter had lost favour with the custodians of their tradition and had to vacate his home three days in the traditional week (comprising of eight days) throughout the adult ekpo season. He put a few belongings in his raffia bag, strung it across his shoulder and sneaked along the dirt track to his maternal grandma's place in a neighbouring clan. He was safe there as it was a taboo across the clans for grandparents...

 WARNING: ADULT CONTENT! As the news spread about the returnee, his friends were trooping in, slapping his hand and clapping his shoulder and back. Seeing the mood the father was in, they ordered more bottles of beer and meat.The place was foggy with cigarette smoke. The language changed from Efik diluted with Ibibio and Annang dialects to pidgin English as the Ejagham and Bekwarra-speaking fellows joined their friends. The party was on till dusk. When night bimbled in, the young men and their girlfriends melted away for fear of the known unknown, the police who could swoop in or not. Everyone went away with the instruction by Utai to 'draw the ear' of their friend, Imo. Honestly,  the boys didn't stop smoking and the police boots like vultures' talons on the iron sheets of a slaughter-house didn't stop descending click-clack on the shanties. When the ill-timed marathon persisted, Amba and all his friends eventually vanished from their homes. They slept the nights o...

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT! 'My brother, see me see trouble,' Amba narrated his tale to a group of friends. 'As I hear the kick and Ada shouting and the mention of police, na so I remove my clothes and say make I quick comot outside for the dark. I don sneak from house finish, na so I hear hand grab me for waist. Wetin help me be say I don remove clothes. Policeman see say I no wear anything, na so he on him torchlight. He shout: "Stop or I shoot!" Ah, for mind I say shoot. You catch me with something? Even clothes sef I no wear. Na so I tear race.' His audience were laughing and clapping. Behind the curtains of their louvred window, the Udiongs were smiling. So Amba was the guy the policeman chased naked into their farm? 'But the wahala wey dey now be say the police people no be from here. We don reach station, we no see Ada. But dem direct us to Zone 6,' Adim, Ada's boyfriend, said.  'Ah, na Zone 6 guys? E mean the matter serious,' Amba said....

 WARNING: ADULT CONTENT! A hard kick on a door. A female voice screeched: 'Help me o! Help me o! ...' The din awoke the entire neighbourhood. Eyes stared in the dark and ears were strained to pick the bits of what was amiss. Mr Udiong, in his boxers, removed his hands from his wife's belly as she had suddenly frozen her response to his romantic moves. He stepped down from the bed and tiptoed to the window near the source of the commotion. He pushed the curtain slightly and peered outside. The sky was clear with the stars twinkling in it and the moon peeped from the horizon. Two points of electric light familiarly shimmered at Mr Udiong from the other bank of the brook which adjoined the neighbourhood. The solar-powered security lamps were the only constant ones around and they were one of a poultry farm and the other of the convention ground of a Christian sect. 'Open the door or we would break it,' a voice boomed after a second bang on the door. 'We are police!...

 Iwang saw children running around in a yard kicking a round piece of plastic (or was it leather?), saw a woman in another yard holding a pot with pieces of paper in both hands and striding from a a small shack into a big building and then, he tilted forward and saw in another compound a man lying supine on a mat crossing his legs, one hand holding a gadget to his ear and the other fanning himself with a piece of cardboard. Then, Iwang's eyes roved a bit far and he saw humans banging pieces of wood with their hammers as they covered them with wide sheets of shiny metal. Though Iwang had an inking what it was but he curiously asked his friend: 'What are they doing with stones and wood and making so much noise with their hands?' 'Just what we heard a lovebird told the other lovebirds. They're building a home just like the others,' Isang replied and showed the litter of human homes to his friend. Iwang shook his head. 'They destroy our accommodation but build t...

 The two lovebirds lifted from the tree and swung their wings swiftly in the direction Isang was leading. Along the way, they chatted about everything and everyone they saw. Up above the trees, the birds charted their course with their mental compasses. They were also guided by the sizes, heights and barks of trees; the unique colours like the flaming heads of some and the spaces indicating a valley, stream or even a path for motorized vehicles. Where smoke billowed or its smell was perceived showed nearby was a shack with a human occupant who was probably a hunter, someone setting traps or a gatherer of wild produce. The small spaces humans occupied were along the banks of streams. Isang and Iwang used to count them with the digits of one limb but currently, the picture was drastically changing. With the time his brain computed they had flown, he was certain the imposing edifice he was looking for should just loom in the distance with its yellowish points this fruitful season. But...

 The gold disc had gradually turned silver with blinding beams that pierced through spaces in the overly green foliage of the jungle. The dewdrops were spirited away. Though baking above the outer layer of the leafage, it was comfortably cool below. Isang was sitting on a comfy spot on the bough of an African oil bean tree preening himself. The tree was quite leafy with its dark brown pods dangling from twigs. Now and then, a pod popped open and the seeds were scattered about. They dropped in the vast thicket below, slapping the leaves and branches of shrubs before thudding on the ground. A stream nearby was gurgling, a songbird was singing  and the big birds were soaring above, cawing, as they searched in all directions for brunch. Isang had to groom himself as in a few minutes he was heading to meet his fiancee and her retinue of fun-loving friends whom he had promised to take out for lunch. (This is a long-standing tradition of lovebirds. They would whistle and mimic other ...

 I'm utterly reworking the entire verse with the sole intent of having it from the beginning to the end written in rhyming couplets. Though that was the form I'd wanted to use from the start but based on a complaint from the very first publisher I sent the first three hundred plus stanzas to that the lines were too long, I did break them up forcing the rhyming to appear 'scattered' . But I'm now going back to what I had in mind originally. The new version is currently uploading on the blog . And there are exciting additions to the old tale. Yeah, if you want to stand in my shoes and understand some of the concepts better as 'Dr Fixit' is a tale built around wildlife (don't forget an army ant is the main character and the core villain is the praying mantis), then you wouldn't mind looking up my videos of real wildlife constantly uploading on my YouTube channel .