THE MYSTERIOUS LEAF

Once there lived a man who climbed trees very fast and with so much agility that people said he had the dexterity of the monkey in tree climbing. People from far and near hired him to prune the trees in their farm lands or to harvest their palm fruits and oil bean seeds. His fellow tree climbers, whom he outstripped and outshined in competitions, eyed him askance and nicknamed him “social climber,” but his name was Eburuche.

From above, Climbers observe many untoward things that people do below. It is said that

“Diochi anaghị ekwucha ihe ọhụrụ n’elu nkwụ - A palm wine tapper does not say everything he sees from on top of the palm tree.” In ancient times most of the thieves caught harvesting other people’s crops and stealing other people’s livestock were mostly caught by tree climbers.

One evening, as he was on top of a tree, Eburuche saw a person trudging towards an unusually tall palm tree. Such very tall palm trees are termed Nkwụ agboro. He was not a familiar person. He stopped and stooped down by the foot of the palm tree. Eburuche remained motionless in order to observe what the fellow was up to. The stranger plucked particular leaves crushed them by rubbing them in between his palms in an anticlockwise direction. Then he squeezed the liquid into his eyes like eye drops and vanished instantly. Eburuche was dazed. Could it be that he saw a ghost? He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was neither sleeping nor daydreaming. How could he be sleeping on top of an oil bean tree? He strained his eyes in vain searching anxiously trying to catch a glimpse of the fellow he saw earlier. When he quickly climbed down, he looked at the extraordinary leaves and did the same thing, which the fellow did and he began to see both men and the spirits of the dead whom he knew while they were alive. It did not occur to him that he could undo what he did by repeating the action. He went home like that and continued to see both men and ghosts.   Consequently he behaved abnormally and some people thought that either senility had set in or he had neurosis.

The leaf, which the spirit used was an uncommon herb known only to strong herbalists, diviners or soothsayers. The spirits also used the leaf in order to turn into humans to transact business with human beings and turn back into ghost again. Diviners applied its liquid in order to see beyond the physical realm and to disappear and reappear at will.  That particular herb gave them the agility and swiftness with which to perform their function with so much dexterity hence to saying “When a great fortune-teller performs sacrifices it looks as though he fed the gods with his own hands.” For when a person does what he knows very well it looks as if it is very easy.

Soon after the incident, Eburuche attended the funeral ceremony of a kinsman like everyone else but unlike every other person he saw in attendance many of their town’s dead men and women. He observed how the spirits welcomed the dead as the living bade him farewell. He tried as much as possible to distance himself from ghosts yet they kept following him. He braced up and reproached them asking the ghosts to back off because he was not their fellow ghost.  This made the ghosts to close in on him. They inquired from him how he got the third eye and he narrated the incidence of the fellow who disappeared after using a certain leaf. At the mention of leaf the ghosts knew what happened. They blamed him for his over inquisitiveness and indiscretion and asked him to choose between the world of the living and the world of the living-dead since he was already in-between the two worlds. Eburuche recounted the adage “If all were well above, the hawk would not habitually swoop to steal chicken.” If the world of the dead were better, why would ghosts change into men and even attend ceremonies in the land of the living?  He chose the land of the living and one of the ghosts went into the bush brought the leaf and applied it to his eyes and he became normal once again. He promised to be less inquisitive and not to reveal everything he would be seeing from above. That is why a tree climber does not disclose everything he sees from the tree top.

CRITICAL THINKING

The folktale poses the issue of death, immortality of the soul and the nature of death. Is death simply a means of gaining access to the other side, an opportunity to meet late relatives and the ancestors? Is death an enhancement to human nature since the dead could embody and disembody, appear and disappear?

The experience of the tree climber depicts a dual world of the living-dead and of the living. The fact that the living bid their deceased relations farewell and the living-dead receive them into their fold shows that death does not annihilate life. It means there is life after death, and the two modalities of living are a continuum. If as the tree climber observed, the dead attends functions and sometimes disembodied spirits become embodied in order to transact business with human beings, then the two worlds (the metaphysical and the physical) are cross-linked and mutually inclusive. That the ghosts asked Eburuche to choose between the two worlds implies the freedom of choice and moral responsibility for actions willingly taken. 

Eboh M.P., Fables, Proverbs & Critical Thinking, Pearl Publishers International, Port Harcourt, 2015, pp. 27-31.