Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee ~~ —-~ . — —* ae ee * ; A 5 - ~-_ Some would be buried with him, so that he would be properly attended i in the land of a spirits; others would hang by their necks in the rooms of Oagadi’s dwelling place, while still others, if it were not too dangerous, 2 & i would protect all the paths leading thereto | _ by staying the approach of evil with the propitiatory influence of their dangling bodies. _ _ Later their heads would be hurled into the _ heart of the bush and male children would a search for them, so that, in finding one, the greatness of their future would be assured. _ “He is the son of a snail,” Oagadi said to _ Anetchimi, the mother of his eldest son. “Tn the days of my father his children would _ have been accursed. They would live but _ to pray to the shade of a pig with a gaping _ throat. 2) ‘Squatting upon a mat in the middle of the ; - dirt floor of the room, which was the inner- | S _ most room of the house, and the Oagadi holy F S of holies in the village of Akwanna, the wo- - man, who was wrapped from head to foot ee: A in a piece of red and black print cloth, looked ____ blearily up into the hate-filled eyes of her -_. Jord and rocked ‘her body slowly. 4 She knew that he referred to Benniba, ____ knew exactly what he meant, and knew, too, how ardently Oagadi hated the white man’s laws and punishments. When Ologbosheri, of the King of Benin, the'killer of _ the white bearers of gifts. to Benin City, had - been caught and hanged by the chief of the white man’s government, Oagadi had re- ee turned to Akwanna and had lain flat upon iS & the floor of that inner room, trembling as ___-with a fever. Only she, Anetchimi, had seen him there, and she had known it was not a fever be- cause there was a sweat upon his forehead. Whether he had had anything to do with the ____Inassacre of the gift-bearers and their Kroo- ____boy carriers, she did not know or care. But she knew he was afraid of the white man’s Se ee <s m, : atte NPP ep hem 1 yO yee he as ‘ ie e re _. neck as if the noose were already there. -__. Shriveled as a piece of burned paper, and, ____ to all appearances, just as ready to curl up and blow away, Anetchimi had once been ee young and comely, and Oagadi had paid __* many puncheons of oil so that she might : Be gomee mother of his first-born. Be- in his household had been decided beyond __ peradventure, and her presence in that inner = = _ room was not the least of her privileges. ~ rope, and had seen him fingering his scraggly . Adventure Many of Oagadi’s children had never en- tered there; most of his daughters never would, not even when a wide, deep hole would be dug in the dirt floor and Oagadi, reclining i in the silk-lined glory of a white man’s coffin, would be lowered into it, at- tended by the equally lifeless bodies of such slaves as circumstances decreed it would be . -safe to insist should die with him. . NOATHEAN NIGERIA LOmMOVA - 4 * ee TEES Pe Oe OO Ot OO 0+ Or +t O+ates SOUTHERN NIGcata Ontina orcas og Fad S .* zt » 3 SS GULF oF GuINCA THE room was separated from the + a adjoining one only by a screen of aie yough fiber mats that hung from the ceiling and it contained but little in the © way of furnishings. Aside from several mats which strewed the floor and others of brighter hue which decorated the mud walls, a solitary Maderia chair with broad arms and a leg-rest was the only piece of furniture ' the place boasted. Oagadi sat in that chair in lieu of a throne and waited for Anetchimi to speak. He knew that when she did speak her wis- dom, which was always the wisdom of the tortoise, would take thought of the sons she had borne him. That was important, be- cause just as he, Oagadi, worshiped the spir- its of his fathers, so would his children wor- ship him. And even a woman, when she is old, thinks much of the manner of the death of the father of her children, so that when evil is upon them, they may not lean upon a rotten stick or any shameful thing. Beyond the square hole which served for a window, and which was covered by a semi-transparent mat that did not exclude all the light and air, the shrill voices of naked children and the endless chatter of women penetrated the dim religious quiet of that inner room, but did not disturb the oc- cupants in the Comic begs cor: » — ~ on a er _ - no ee