“An Unwanted Two-Spirit”

Creators of Justice Award 2021 | First Prize: Essay

Sunday .O. is a Young Nigerian Literature teacher whose literary passion is to explore unbending cultural practices that undermine rights to self-determination in a traditional African society. He is a graduate of the Lagos State Polytechnic and holds a diploma in Mass communication. He serves as sub-editor for Afrirature Magazine. His Literary works have appeared in: Just-Preachy, Everyday fiction, Afreada, Strange Religion, and other places. His debut novel is forthcoming 2022 from Europe Books.

 Abstract: This piece mirrors stringent inhuman cultural practices that characterize some

African societies where Two-Spirits are seen as abominable and treated as such. This piece is

to serve as an appeal for change of the status quo.

AN UNWANTED TWO-SPIRIT

When a snake sloughs its skin, it doesn’t lose its dreadfulness with its old skin. You came to

us with good news of salvation, we accepted it. You came through our land borders uninvited

and handed to us your books of alphabets, we embraced them even at the expense of our own

tongue(s). You told us to discard our flourishing authorities, they were primitive and unpopular

— we accepted your acclaimed error-free rule by majority. Thereafter, you tethered on our

necks your strange supreme books to guide our indulgences — we didn’t rebel even as the

sleeping eyes of our ancestors glowered angrily at us . You told our children to slough their

God-given soot through the help of your hot anti-melanin oil, and we turned blind-eyed, but the

silent voices of our sleeping ancestors warned us, told us of their wrath, called us unworthy

sons. However, we never questioned you, we didn’t complain, we gobbled them gluttonously so

as not to offend this, our nonreciprocal bromance.

Now, you came with this gospel of self-determination, gospel of free-choice. You told our

men to stand and pee, to climb our palm trees, to become sons, to become husbands; and our

women, you told to become wives, to bear children. Aru! Were snakes to lose their dreadfulness,

women would use them to bind their hair.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was no place like home, one’s ancestral home, especially when one’s first name was

Echezona, “do not forget.” Don’t forget your roots, perhaps. “Don’t forget where you come

from,” a maxim from my father before his death.

Google told me: “Nigeria, an African country on the Gulf of Guinea, has many natural

landmarks and wildlife reserves....”

Then, “Anambra is a state in the southeastern part of Nigeria....’’ nothing was said about

culture and tradition, nothing about Ajoagwo nor Ngenebaka— “they were predominantly

Christians and spoke Igbo,” Google said. My father before his death told me nothing about

Ajoagwo, nor did my mother who died before him.

When our flight touched down on Muritala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, I

knew that I not only made myself happy, but made my father proud. Lagos was the most

populated state of the 36. It was soiled by numerous carcasses of woebegone nylon bags,

discarded empty plastic cans, bagged refuses, and human feces in black nylon bags. Perhaps, in

the absence of a well-structured waste disposal system, the residents of the bellicose but

accommodating city resorted to littering the face of their unsmiling city with their dumps;

maybe in protest of incessant failed governments or as evidence of deficiency in the midst of

sufficiency.

They drove competitively and recklessly on the road in a bid to overtake whomever,

whatever was in front of them. Nobody waited for anyone. Patience was time-wasting. It

was unsafe to adhere to the traffic regulations. Whoever religiously observed the traffic

rules ate his dinner on the road or passed the night on the Lagos roads. But Google didn’t

tell me this, nor did my father.

Lagos to Anambra was about 480 km by road and would take about 9 hours. By

flight, it would take less than an hour. But I was on an expedition. Going by road meant a

better view of the countryside. It was the longest road trip I had ever made. But it wouldn’t

have taken as much time as it did if not for the military and police checkpoints that

punctuated the flow. The checkpoints were notable as much as they were characteristic:

woebegone concrete filled drums, coated yellow paint with uneven black stripes that

punctuated its overall shade of yellow, that stood tactfully on the road in such a way that

only a single vehicle would be able to move slowly in-between the drums in a zigzag. Atop

the drums were tires sprinkled with green leaves of weeds struggling for sunlight. The

policemen (for police checkpoints) or soldiers (military checkpoints) stood side by side on

the road, with longstanding Russian AK-47s held menacingly in their hands. They

pervaded the anxiety in the air as they smiled initially and frowned in the next second,

leaving passengers numb. They conspired in low tones and yelled spitefully in a coercive

pitch at unyielding bus drivers. Many changed their route at the sight of them, to avert a

possible extortion or mistreatment. Sometimes, buses sped off, and tried maneuvering

around the policemen who would wave conspiratorially at the drivers to stop. The drivers

would decelerate and then jam on the brake. One of the policemen would shake hands with

the bus-driver, looking into the passengers’ faces to see if there were any potential threats.

He would then shake his head and hail the driver— a sign that he could pass. He did the

same with other commercial buses that followed until the day ended and another came. If

the driver refused to shake hands with him, he would point at the side of the road and

shout “park well!” The driver would be delayed for so many hours over particulars --

loads on board, licence, etc., after which the bus would be taken to the police station for a

crime that would have been overlooked with a mere handshake (bribe) with one of the

policemen. This was the core task of policing in this part of the world that Google didn’t

tell me.

The historic Niger bridge that lay over Mungo Park was the gateway to the southeastern

part of the country and to my destination, Anambra state.

Amerikanah nno, welcome, they said one after the other— men and women, boys and

girls. One thing was peculiar in their looks: their skin stood out, nitid in its unusual whiteness.

Scurfy, parched, harmattan-whited. Their lips were caked by that same harmattan. Some of the

lips trickled out blood which they licked, usually curiously.

The people visited, then the totem of the land— they moved pridefully as if they owned

the land, fearless, territorial and arrogant. The closest I had come to snakes was during my

college days at Messiah College, Mechanicsburg. Here, they said whenever a visitor entered the

community, these arrogant snakes came to welcome them.

It was in the middle of the night when I was jolted by a rope-like creature descending

onto the bed I lay in from the room window. The room was starkly dark; the power company

was not aware of the existence of the Umunri community, nor was the water corporation. I

switched on my torchlight and the 9-foot variegated (brown, black, white) python was bared to

my petrified eyes. My spinal cord shivered. I scurried to my feet, directed the ray of the

torchlight at its head. Its eyes flickered. The thought of the Singaporean woman swallowed by a

python haunted me as much as the python right before me. Then I realized that I was in a

different, strange, yet familiar environment, in which 911 was useless and in which there was no

replica. Then, the situation was: kill or be killed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day you strolled into this, our land, the atmosphere smelt differently. It was around

Christmas, the dry season, but the heavens heralded the misfortune you would bring upon our

land. The bright and dry heavens bellowed, unleashed its fangs on us — lightning paralyzed the

Udala tree at the village square. The Udala tree was one of the remaining monuments of our

ancestors, where we had our gatherings. The unusual downpour disrupted our festivities, the

cloudburst, as thick as hailstorm, pelted our bodies. They said you had returned from a land

that knew no lack— where fallen crumbs could be picked up from garbage-dumps and eaten.

They said it was a land of no-lack except for mosquitoes and roaches and rats, unless one

wanted to see them in places where they were preserved. They said where you came from

lacked darkness, so it must as well lack culture and manners.

They said that you were born in this our land, by a man from this our land, and a woman

from this land. How then did a leopard change its skin? How did coyotes and wolves become

allies? Nobody knew who you were even though we knew that you were the only child of Mazi

Okonkwo, who went missing so many years ago. It was said that he left with the whitemen that

brought a message of salvation to us. We knew when you were born but now, you have been

reborn. We saw you as a woman from your looped hair touching your torso, your pendulous

legs, your glowing sun-untainted skin, fake mascaraed antenna-like eyelashes, rouged pinkish

cheeks — until you were caught climbing Mazi Uchendu palm tree.

Thereafter, you told us you were not a woman. You showed us at the village square what

made you a man. You said you were a man. You agreed to be part of our village gatherings, to

obey our traditions and culture. You drank from the cup we drank from — because you called

yourself a son of the soil. No sooner had we done these, then you went to the sacred river of our

deity, Mmiri Ngenebaka and swam in it. You told our youths to kill the sacred fishes of the

Ngenebaka river, to hunt the crocodiles — to ridicule us, what made us. As if the killing of the

fishers was not enough, you massacred the sacred bride of Ajoagwo Arusi, our peaceful

pythons. Were you not told that our forefathers met these sacred pythons in this land? Were you

not told that one who killed our python died? Not only did you kill these pythons, you told our

youths to not believe that the pythons had protected them, prospered them, and kept our

farmlands fertile from the time of our ancestors.

As if the wrath of the gods you had brought upon yourself was not enough, you did that

which the tongue had never spoken in our land — that which no ear has ever heard of, which

no heart has ever conceived, in our land. That which was capable of making the gods open up

the earth to swallow us. That which made our farmlands weep and produce no crops, which

caused our streams to dry up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Ikoro gong of war plumbed sonorously in the night, throughout the three clans

that comprised the seven villages in Umunri. From strategic locations in each clan, sharing

the same message. The night became extremely noiseless, aside from the chirps of some

unconcerned crickets. Even owls, which usually relished in the blissful night breeze,

observed the silence. The moon withdrew into its shell stealthily, making the darkness

incomprehensibly thicker. Kerosene lanterns displaying yellowish tongues of fire, and smoke

puffing into the air from its perforated cork, were the only source of luminance. Everywhere

hovered evil spirits, as if the gods had already unleashed their expected fangs. Something

Without fear for the gods and your chi, under the split crimson moon of the night, and at

the paralyzed Udala tree, you were caught soiling the chastity of a bearded man like you. Aru!

He said that you told him that where you came from, the land that knew no lack, that a man was

freeto go in with a man, a woman free to go in with another woman. When the Ikoro, gong of

war went off, it summoned everyone at the village square over your act, the strangest and rarest

in our land. You told the elders and chiefs, children and adults, men and women of Umunri that

there was no wrong in your wrongdoing. You said, though you were a man, you were also a

woman. Amerikanah Wonder! As you offended the land, the gods, the land in turn unleashed on

you its venom for killing our sacred pythons, desecrating the sacred river of our deity, and for

soiling our land by your unspeakable alien culture.

urgent must be done to avert that. Shrubs looked like humans when seen from a distance,

terrifying all who passed them. When Ikoro, gong of war sounded, it was to parade a

nocturnal unusual rapist, and to officially announce the end of strange foreign practices. A

nocturnal rapist who despoiled the longstanding values of the land.

Echezona, now called Amerikanah by Umunri people, continued his staggering, his

sagged scrotum slapping against his thighs. His penis shrank, maybe catching cold, but it

wouldn’t be catching cold in that dire condition. Not when he already received uncountable

strokes of canes in addition to his agbara infested body. The youths steered him to the village

square where a bigger crowd had gathered, awaiting the arrival of the miscreant. His partner in

their alien act, walked beside him. On their heads were crowns of abomination, woven from

tender yellowish fronds. Their waists too, were wreathed with the same fronds. Their bodies,

from head to toe, gleamed with ashes.

The culture and tradition of Umunri was clear and direct on this — it was unpardonable.

In Umunri, the sacred pythons of Ngenebaka were indeed inviolable in acts and in words. They

were gods in disguise. They were tamed by the gods, toothed and venomous yet harmless. Must

be revered, praised by the lips of the women, eulogized and thanked by that of the men. When

the python lay in your bed at night before you, the gods needed it. You were to sleep on the bare

floor or enjoy its warmth in your bed. Whoever killed a python must carry out a burial rite for it

-- the type of burial rite and ritual befitting a chief who had collected many titles before his

death; a chief with the red conic cap with two white ugo feathers by the side. A number of goats

must be slaughtered to accompany the murdered god python to its meticulously dug grave.

Numerous spotless fowls must be sacrificed to the gods so as to appease them; to restore the

purity of the land and ward off the evil spirits that might come in consequence. These rituals and

rites were required to wash off the curse of the gods, to wash untimely death off whomever

killed the inviolable python, and to restore his progress.

Every child of Umunri knew why the sacred pythons, ajoagwo arusi were inviolable,

why the fishes in the sacred Ngenebaka river were sacred, why the river itself wouldn’t be

swam both by intent and in an error. The story of why these must not happen had been told in

hoarse voices, clear voices, in day’s light and in the night’s darkness.

The ancestral father of Umunri, Nwanri had migrated from Nri with his three sons, his

daughters, his wives and the wives of his sons, to settle in the southern part of Ngenebaka river.

His daughters and wives were constantly abducted by neighbouring villages, sold into slavery or

offered as sacrifices to the gods of their abductors. Nwanri and his household could not match

his enemies militarily, so as a result, he offered one of his virgin daughters as a sacrifice to the

goddess of Ngenebaka river by burying her alive at the bark of Ngenebaka river. He pledged his

loyalty to the Ngenebaka’s river-goddess, demanding protection and prosperity from her. The

river-goddess prospered and protected him from his enemies. She fought for him physically

with her pythons, and spiritually as well. From this came about the sacredness of ajaogwo deity.

But the previous cases in Umunri were either the killing of the sacred python, or the

killing of the fishes in the Ngenebaka river. There hadn’t been a case of blatant disregard for

the culture of the people as was in this. Or a case in the time past involving the three offences

committed by one person. Or a case of a man doing that which could only be done with a

woman with his fellow man.

When they arrived at the square, the crescendo of Umu-ada chants thundered into their

mulish ears, piercing his heart and clouding his mind. The same mind which wondered: “why

would human life be ranked below that of a python in this part of the world, and in this 21st

century?” This part of the world in which one’s sexuality could sully the land and invoke the

wrath of the gods. This part of the world in which the right to self-determination was neglected.

Among the irate youths, some said their blood should be used to purge the land of their

sins, some said they should be ostracized, some said they should be castrated, but none said

they should be forgiven. The gods were angry and must be appeased. “Were it limited to killing

of the sacred pythons and swimming in the mmiri Ngenebaka, Amerikanah will be treated with

mercy, but considering the magnitude of the last of the offence: sodomy, it’s unpardonable,” one

of the jeering youths said.

Echezona stood before the unrepentant Umunri people, naked, body sprinkled with

ashes, his hair scraped— those were the inevitable recipes required to appease the gods of the

land on such an occasion. The culprit must be paraded naked with chants from the youths that

relate with the abominable act, after which the final judgement would be passed by the Ndi-ichie

— Chiefs-in-council. He stood feebly on his wobbly legs, awaiting the Ndi-ichie's

pronouncement— his fate.

In the Umunri community, whoever killed the sacred python and refused to carry out the

rituals and rites died. In Umunri, from time immemorial, whoever was caught having sex with

an animal was ostracized. Whoever was caught having sex with his or her blood relative was

sent out of the community with the partner and never to return. But there hadn’t been a case of a

man sleeping with another — the gravest, rarest crime in the land.