Weeds Sing

Ewa, beauty, they say, has always been embedded in the river channels of Ugbo, on the surfaces of mangroves, in the lines across bamboos, the curves of canoes, in the hearts of her people. Beauty has always been mundane in Ugbo, but there is a type of beauty that can seep into the hard soil of a land and steal its gems. A type of beauty that is rarely encountered and when encountered, can cause a damage so severe, generations would sing of its bitter tale, the kind of beauty that gave Moremi the power to outsmart and betray one of the earliest Olugbos, twist the sky and win the battle for Ife, the kind of beauty that can launch a hundred warships, the kind of beauty our dear Ladejobi secured so firmly in her palms.

Ladejobi was the kind of woman one would describe as ethereal. If she wasn't mortal, she could've easily been mistaken for a goddess. Her father was the mighty and prosperous Olugbo Akinribido. On the very night she was born, after blood had been wiped off her skin by the royal midwives, after a sumptuous meal of Marugbo soup and Agbadagiri had been eaten, he had offered calabash in appreciation to the sea goddess, Malokun, had carried the infant across the courtyard, cradled her closer to himself, he had stepped outside into the cold night, strolled to the secluded spot his canoe had been tied to a pole at the shore. He had sat in his canoe for hours, without his guards, beneath the gentle gaze of the full moon, facing the tide, staring at her flawless skin, her almond shaped eyes. It has always been something about her eyes. He'd found himself lost in the innocence of her stare and that very second, he'd decided to name her Ladejobi. With her, he could be more than a king with responsibilities, he could be a father that was capable of loving deeply.

He had lots of wives, other daughters, he had sons, potential heirs to his throne, but he loved Lade most. He treated the toddler, who had barely learned how to stand, like a sacred object, treated her like he did his staff of authority, carrying her to every administrative meeting he attended, with the exception of the Ogwa, of course, because women were barred from entering the sacred room.

As a little girl, Ladejobi possessed a quiet curiosity and she would rather sit beside her father, her tiny fingers clasped in his huge hands, listening to issues tabled in the council of elders meeting, than play with her age mates. It wasn't that she didn't want to dive into rivers or climb trees like her age mates, she simply didn't have interest in the playfulness her friends were famous for displaying.

Long before she started wearing menstrual cloth, her father found her unbridled desire for knowledge captivating, so much that he exempted her from certain womanly duties in the palace, duties like cooking and weaving yarn, much to the disappointment of her mother. Instead, he employed personal orators for his princess and she always listened attentively as those old men embellished stories about the history of her land, stories about how people from Ule Ugbo were the original inhabitants of Ile-Ife before Oduduwa arrived and claimed the land in a fierce civil war, stories about Osagangan, the son of Oranfe, the deity of thunder and lightning and his might, stories of how a bolt of lightning had struck a baobab tree the night she was born and how the priests all agreed that she was a special gift from Malokun.

As a young woman, Ladejobi wasn't just famously known across Ilaje for her regal elegance, or how quickly she declined the offers of prospective suitors. Aside from her beauty, she was also known as the King's spokeswoman. Instead of the King's first son, she represented Olugbo at township meetings, stunning indigenes and foreigners with her immense wisdom. Her words were spoken so softly, sometimes it felt like feathers caressing one's skin. She was known for the expensive brass necklaces and iyun she always wore around her neck and the coral beads wound around her waist. It was easy for villagers to love Ladejobi because of her generosity, very easy for wrestlers wearing loincloths to entertain her at festivals by showcasing their physical prowess, but also very easy for elders in the village to despise her because the mighty Olugbo of Ugbo favoured her advice over theirs.

One fateful evening, the elders and chiefs murmured about Olugbo's absence from an important council meeting in the Ogwa and one of the oldest elders volunteered to find the missing king. He strolled around the quarters of each Olori and all lamented that they hadn't seen their husband since the cock crowed in the morning. After hours of fruitless search, a prince reluctantly admitted to the elder that he'd seen Olugbo entering Ladejobi’s room for lunch. Hot with Anger the elder yelled,

“There is fire on the mountain in the Ogwa, rituals to be performed and the king prefers his daughter's company! Your highness, take me to Princess Ladejobi’s room!”

The young prince promptly did as instructed, walking hastily ahead of the fuming elder. When the prince opened the heavy wooden door of his stepsister’s room, the elder stared, mouth agape, at the King's sleeping form on Ladejobi's raffia bed. Ladejobi was applying scented oil on her father's feet.

Without looking at the two intruders, she asked,

“Who do you seek?”

“Your… father of course, the king!” The older man sputtered, looking away because he thought it undignified to look at Olugbo’s sleeping form.

“What do you need him for?”

Still looking away, the elder replied, “He is needed urgently at the Ogwa to preside at the meeting.”

Ladejobi rose up, tightening the knot of her wrapper, picking up her beads.

“Let us go then. I will preside over the meeting on my father's behalf.”

The elder stumbled backwards. “Ewo! Abomination! It is detestable to the gods. No woman…”

“Shut up!” Ladejobi interrupted, staring scornfully at the elder before turning to her brother. “Lead the way.” She ordered.

The meeting was disbanded the moment Ladejobi stepped into the forbidden zone of women and after an uproar, all elders and chiefs exited the palace one by one.

The Olugbo after he arose from his slumber, although furious with his daughter, simply gave her a slap on the wrist by ordering her into her room, turned around to face his chiefs and chastised them,

“We will consult Ifa and appease the gods where necessary, but there is absolutely no need to overreact about Lade's actions, she is young and naive after all.”

The elders disagreed with Olugbo, wagging their fingers, warning him that Ladejobi's reckless audacity would attract severe punishments upon her fertility and upon the land. He was adamant, insisting his daughter's behavior was just another youthful exuberance. Maybe it was because Olugbo rendered the entire situation as inconsequential, or perhaps because of Ladejobi's beauty, but the people of Ugbo, with the exception of some members of the council of elders, forgave Ladejobi and continued to sing her Oriki.

A few years after the princess alleged misdemeanor, during the rise of transatlantic trade, Portuguese merchants anchored their ships in the coast of Ugbo, buying alligator pepper, ivory and slaves. A certain wealthy man, called Bernardo, visited Olugbo in his Palace, presenting guns, silver and gold and other exclusive ornaments and Ladejobi, who was seated beside her father's throne couldn't hide how fascinated she was by the gifts presented. And the white man also couldn't hide how struck he was by Ladejobi’s beauty and he expressed this admiration by showering her with gold necklaces and rings. Olugbo was cordial with Bernardo because the young man was proposing diplomacy and had promised to bring more guns and bags of gun powder upon his next visit. Olugbo welcomed the idea of military empowerment against his enemies in neighbouring villages. After all, the guns promised more fatal destruction than any sword or spear ever could.

Bernardo and Ladejobi on the other hand, formed a routine of meeting at the riverbank and with the help of Akin, Ladejobi's personal guard, a local translator, he was able to satisfy Ladejobi's curiosity about the world beyond the Atlantic Ocean, he described in detail, his home town in Lisbon, because Ladejobi had a hard time imagining it. They both taught themselves the rudiments of their languages, and culture, each intrigued by the other's world. She was struck by his god, who appeared from the picture he showed her, to have died on a cross and she'd refrained from telling him gods aren't supposed to die.

The time for Bernardo to leave Ugbo arrived during a dry season. Ladejobi found herself restless at the thought that her only chance to see a world beyond her own would evade her. Bernardo, himself, for Ladejobi's sake kept delaying his trip until his health could not withstand the mosquitoes of the land.

Ladejobi knew that her father would never allow her to leave the village on a white man's ship, even if it were for just a couple of months. Weeks prior, when her own elder sister had offered to take Lade with her to Lagos on a trading trip, Olugbo had vehemently refused.

In her restless state, she took one of her father's horses from the stable, rode to the riverbank and was not surprised to meet Bernardo already waiting for her. They reached an agreement–she would disguise as a beggar and steal away into his ship at the shore and hide in one of its storage rooms and they would both set sail for Lisbon and she would see a bigger city, a bigger life, and afterwards, he would bring her safely back to her home, back to her father. The next day, they acted exactly according to their plan. It took only a few hours for the king to notice that his beloved was missing. A search party was sent over the land and trees were cut down to make the forest paths clearer. Olugbo frantically bolted to the shrine barefoot and consulted Ifa and Ifa revealed to him that his daughter was currently on the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by white men. Olugbo ripped open his garment upon hearing the discovery. In a fit of rage, he summoned all the elders and chiefs to Eti Okun, the open sea, pointing at each of them.

“You all haven't forgiven my daughter for entering the Ogwa all those years ago and because the gods failed to punish her, you all connived with the white man to exile her like a slave.”

Olugbo refused to hear the pleas of his longtime chiefs and with just a stretch of hand, for the first time since his reign, he utilized his divine power over water and commanded the sea to swallow up all the elders. The elders cried out to him, begging him, begging Malokun, but their pleas fell on deaf ears and like a loyalist she was, the sea rose and sent each elder down her belly. After all the elders had drowned, He fell on his knees, his vision, blinded by tears, and he cursed loudly in the name of Malokun, commanding lakwa to grow from the sea bed and rise to the surface, and create a visible barrier on the sea so that it would be impossible for any foreigner to ever cross the sea towards Ugbo, impossible for any indigene to ever leave the shores of Ugbo, and like the loyalist she was, the sea promptly obeyed. Afterwards, staring at the rough tides, the king wept bitterly and sang,

Mee mà m’úbò, m’úbò èéé, (i don't know where, i don't know where,)

Mee mà m’úbò Àjā gbé ọmọ mi ò. (I don't know where the white man has carried my child to)

Several months later, Princess Ladejobi set sail over the Atlantic back to her riverine home with Bernardo, gold nuggets, loads of gifts, rifles and bags of gun powder were packed on the deck, gifts she'd brought to appease her people, but just half a day's sail from Ugbo, standing side by side, holding the rail of the ship, they both gazed at the stretch of tall dangerous-looking seaweeds and she knew. She knew what her father had done. Agonized, she ripped her necklace off her neck, threw it along with all her coral beads into the sea, gave what used to be her home a last glance before backing away from the rail, sorrowfully following Bernardo back to Portugal, back to his home.

Somewhere in the distant past and in the present, the weeds still sing.