Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe [24]
“He tapped three of my best palm trees to death,” said his father, Ukegbu.
“That was about five years ago,” said Ibe, who had begun to pour out the wine, “before I learned how to tap.” He filled the first horn and gave to his father. Then he poured out for the others. Okonkwo brought out his big horn from the goatskin bag, blew into it to remove any dust that might be there, and gave it to Ibe to fill.
As the men drank, they talked about everything except the thing for which they had gathered. It was only after the pot had been emptied that the suitor’s father cleared his voice and announced the object of their visit.
Obierika then presented to him a small bundle of short broomsticks. Ukegbu counted them.
“They are thirty?” he asked.
Obierika nodded in agreement.
“We are at last getting somewhere,” Ukegbu said, and then turning to his brother and his son he said: “Let us go out and whisper together.” The three rose and went outside. When they returned Ukegbu handed the bundle of sticks back to Obierika. He counted them; instead of thirty there were now only fifteen. He passed them over to his eldest brother, Machi, who also counted them and said:
“We had not thought to go below thirty. But as the dog said, ‘If I fall down for you and you fall down for me, it is play’. Marriage should be a play and not a fight; so we are falling down again.” He then added ten sticks to the fifteen and gave the bundle to Ukegbu.
In this way Akuke’s bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries. It was already dusk when the two parties came to this agreement.
“Go and tell Akueke’s mother that we have finished,” Obierika said to his son, Maduka. Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo. Obierika’s second wife followed with a pot of soup, and Maduka brought in a pot of palm-wine.
As the men ate and drank palm-wine they talked about the customs of their neighbors.
“It was only this morning,” said Obierika, “that Okonkwo and I were talking about Abame and Aninta, where titled men climb trees and pound foo-foo for their wives.”
“All their customs are upside-down. They do not decide bride-price as we do, with sticks. They haggle and bargain as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the market.”
“That is very bad,” said Obierika’s eldest brother. “But what is good in one place is bad in another place. In Umunso they do not bargain at all, not even with broomsticks. The suitor just goes on bringing bags of cowries until his in-laws tell him to stop. It is a bad custom because it always leads to a quarrel.”
“The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.”
“That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the children.”
“It is like the story of white men who, they say, are white like this piece of chalk,” said Obierika. He held up a piece of chalk, which every man kept in his obi and with which his guests drew lines on the floor before they ate kola nuts. “And these white men, they say, have no toes.”
“And have you never seen them?” asked Machi.
“Have you?” asked Obierika.
“One of them passes here frequently,” said Machi. “His name is Amadi.”
Those who knew Amadi laughed. He was a leper, and the polite name for leprosy was “the white skin.”
CHAPTER NINE
For the first time in three nights, Okonkwo slept. He woke up once in the middle of the night and his mind went back to the past three days without making him feel uneasy. He began to wonder why he had felt uneasy at all. It was like a man wondering in broad daylight why a dream had appeared so terrible to him at night. He stretched himself and scratched his thigh where a mosquito had bitten him as he slept. Another one was wailing near his right ear. He slapped the ear and hoped he had killed it. Why do they always go for one’s ears? When he was a child his mother had told him a story about it. But it was as silly as all women’s stories. Mosquito, she had said, had asked Ear to marry