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He wiped his machete on the sand and went away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When the district commissioner arrived at Okonkwo's compound at the head of an armed band of soldiers and court messengers he found a small crowd of men sitting wearily in the obi . He commanded them to come outside, and they obeyed without a murmur.
"Which among you is called Okonkwo?" he asked through his interpreter.
"He is not here," replied Obierika.
"Where is he?"
"He is not here!"
The Commissioner became angry and red in the face. He warned the men that unless they produced Okonkwo forthwith he would lock them all up. The men murmured among themselves, and Obierika spoke again.
"We can take you where he is, and perhaps your men will help us."
The Commissioner did not understand what Obierika meant when he said, "Perhaps your men will help us." One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words, he thought.
Obierika with five or six others led the way. The Commissioner and his men followe
d their firearms held at the ready. He had warned Obierika that if he and his men played any monkey tricks they would be shot. And so they went.
There was a small bush behind Okonkwo's compound. The only opening into this bush from the compound was a little round hole in the red-earth wall through which fowls went in and out in their endless search for food. The hole would not let a man through. It was to this bush that Obierika led the Commissioner and his men. They skirted round the compound, keeping close to the wall. The only sound they made was with their feet as they crushed dry leaves.
Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo's body was dangling, and they stopped dead.
"Perhaps your men can help us bring him down and bury him," said Obierika. "We have sent for strangers from another village to do it for us, but they may be a long time coming."
The District Commissioner changed instantaneously. The resolute administrator in him gave way to the student of primitive customs.
"Why can't you take him down yourselves?" he asked.
"It is against our custom," said one of the men. "It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers."
"Will you bury him like any other man?" asked the Commissioner.
"We cannot bury him. Only strangers can. We shall pay your men to do it. When he has been buried we will then do our duty by him. We shall make sacrifices to cleanse the desecrated land."
Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend's dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: "That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself/ and now he will be buried like a dog…" He could not say any more. His voice trembled and choked his words.
"Shut up!" shouted one of the messengers, quite unnecessarily.
"Take down the body," the Commissioner ordered his chief messenger, "and bring it and all these people to the court."
"Yes, sah," the messenger said, saluting.
The Commissioner went away, taking three or four of the soldiers with him. In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive
Tribes of the Lower Ni^er.
A GLOSSARY OF IBO WORDS AND PHRASES
i : old woman. - . woman,– also used of a man who has taken no title.
cbi- . personal god.
efukfu : worthless man.
