ATUPA

In the ancient Yoruba Empire, before new religions arrived in boats, there were marked ancestries with distinct powers and divine mandates.

The Oshun ancestry was known for fertility and love, the Oko ancestry made sure famine never had a way in the lands, the Erinle bloodline were healers, and the descendants of Ogun hunted and fought the wars.

When it came to hunting, any man could do it, but the difference between a taught hunter and an Ogun descendant was the power. A child from the Ogun ancestry had the blood of the god of war, so he could hunt wild creatures. These creatures were not called wild because of their feral nature, they were wild because they housed wicked spirits and beings. To kill them, one needed more than a spear and a brave hunter; one needed to be a male with the Ogun blood running through him.

Each Ogun household had sacred lamps called Atupa. They were passed down from generation to generation.

At the beginning of a moon, when Ogun hunters sang into the most evil of forests in search of animals, these oil-less lamps would flicker to life. Their wives would then sit before the burning lamps and offer prayers to the gods. The intercession could never stop until their husbands and sons returned safely. As long as his Atupa burned, nothing could overcome a hunter in the wild.

The night Ogungbami’s father, one of the most powerful hunters in Agbaale history died with his three sons, their lamps had gone off first. It had been unbelievable. That midnight, his wife had done all she could to get the lamps back on. She incanted, summoned and appeased every deity she knew.

In the morning, Ogunniyi’s body was brought in on the shoulders of his fellow hunters. A formidable beast had torn off his head during a fight. His sons had just vanished.

Ogungbami was a child when his father and brothers passed. But he heard the tale. Of how a strange beast had overcome his mighty father, of how the best and the most experienced hunters had combed the every forest in Agbaale for his brothers.

The night Ogungbami took in his wife, Oshunfunke, he sat her down, and told her how he came to be the only hunter in his family.

“Ni agbara awon irunmole ati awon to laye, emi ati awon omoo mi yi o gba ori lara re.”

One day, he would meet the beast and avenge his father. As the gods lived, he and his sons would have its head.

That night, something happened in Oshunfunke. None of her sons would die like her husband’s brothers.

When the time came for her to deliver, a strange thing happened.

A girl came out of her.

Never in history had a household of Ogun given birth to a female child. Probably because the gods understood females couldn’t be hunters. But now? Could this be a sign that she wasn’t supposed to lose a child to the forests? The news went far and near.

While his wife was happy, Ogungbami became a laughing stock amongst the hunters. A hunter without a male child. God forbid. However, as his daughter, Ogunbunmi grew, he began to see reasons to laugh. The gods couldn’t have favored him better. Ogunbunmi was the bravest child he had ever seen.

One afternoon, ten farm cycles after her birth, Ogunbunmi had run into his hut, excitement written all over her. The moment he glimpsed her, he had shot out of this mat, eyes wide. He couldn’t believe what was standing and smiling before him.

“Ogunbunmi! N’bo lo ti ri eran to gbe k’orun?”

“Emi ni baa mi. Emi ni mo pa!”

Her voice was swollen with pride.

Dangling on the neck of his little girl was a huge antelope still dripping crimson. Her tiny fingers wrapped around a spear twice her height. It kept glinting in the rays pouring through the hut’s lone window.

She had single-handedly chased and speared the animal to death.

Ogunbunmi grew to be the talk of the villages. Her father’s pride crawled back and doubled with her escapades. She was loved and greatly respected. It was one thing for a hunter to be good, it was another for the hunter to be female.

Ogunbunmi was unnaturally fast, strong and precise. Once, she had downed a hawk mid-air by smashing its head with a stone from a treetop. She had thrown just once. She killed anything that had life; that wasn’t human.

One day, Ogunbunmi lumbered into the marketplace. Everyone stopped and gaped as she dragged the thing behind her. How did she do it? Only one person had successfully killed a hippopotamus without help- her grandfather. Now, she was second. And the first female. The power of bloodline!

How she was able to drag the beast that far was a mystery. When she reached the market’s heart, she climbed on the animal and cried,

“K’olobe y’obe, k’alada gbe jade, e dunbu eran. Eyin le ni!”

Before her thick feet could touch the ground again, the market women, men and children had arrived with their knives and cutlasses. Hacks later, what used to be a hippopotamus had become a mere pile of red bones.

They loved her for the random kindnesses. Sometimes, it was a gigantic snake she’d drop at the village center. The people would then come out of their huts in the morning to cut their slices. Her praises and prowess were sung. No man could match her.

Oshunfunke, watched in fear as her only child rose to be the first and a powerful female hunter. She feared one day, when her daughter became ripe, she would enter the forests and never come back home. Her grandfather, in all his might couldn’t even overcome the strange beast which was rumored to be a stranded and forgotten god. Could her daughter be an incarnation of Ogunniyi? Had the great warrior come back to avenge himself?

Deep down, she knew the beast was still somewhere, lurking in the wild; and her daughter, with the path she was on, would encounter it someday. When that day came, she would be there for her.

---

It was the beginning of another moon.

Ogungbami and his daughter stepped out of his hut.

Inside another hut, two lamps flickered to life. Before them, sat Oshunfunke. She began to intercede.

“E lo re, E bo re. Iko kin k’ejo lese…”

For the first time, Ogungbami was taking his daughter to hunt in the same forest that took her grandfather.

Each fearless step she took into the moonlit night drew out smiles from the man behind her. Her charm-and-arrow-filled sac rattled as she rushed forward.

Ogungbami could not put off the ominous feeling. Of course, it was normal to feel some uneasiness; they were going into the home of unusual animals, to kill things that didn’t want to be killed, animals that transformed at will. But this feeling was different, something about not returning with his daughter.

Before he knew it, they had left the narrow path and were already burrowing into the thick.

All of a sudden, from the partial darkness, a woman’s back appeared before them. She turned and did something that resembled a laugh. Ogunbunmi froze.

“Maami.”

But before she could utter another word to her mother, and ask what she was doing in the forest, Ogungbami had sent out his spear. Ogunbunmi’s eyes as though in slow motion, followed as her mother staggered backwards with the spear lodged in between her ribs. More confused than angry, she pushed her father out of the way, and ran forward. When she got there, it was no longer her mother pinned to the ground. It was a hyena.

She shivered and lurched back.

Her father appeared behind her, he gave her two wordless pats, pulled out his spear, lifted the dead hyena, and dumped it on his neck.

At that very moment, it dawned on Ogunbunmi where she was. Instantly, her eyes transformed, and darkness began seeming like day.

---

Back in the hut, the lamps kept burning. Oshunfunke kept praying.

“Ona oni na yin. Ase.”

“Iku oni pa yin. Ase.”

Then in a moment that seemed like a dream, one of the lamps went off.

She blinked.

It was still off. She shut her eyes. By the time she flipped them open again, she heard a shriek. It was her voice.

Slowly, Oshunfunke stood and dropped her wrapper, she removed every piece of clothe on her. Stark naked, she lifted the dead lamp, kneeled and burst into unearthly incantations, taking no breath in between the heavy words.

When she finished, the lamp remained dead.

As though giving out her last energy, she let out another shrill that pierced the night.

---

Ogunbunmi kept running as her father had commanded.

“Sare Ogunbunmi! Ma weyin o!”

The two slits in her head stopped being eyes. They became something else. They became things that could see through trees, animals and seemingly empty spaces. They began seeing the creatures and the spaces in their true forms- old women, slithering babies, beautiful ladies and grinning men.

As she flashed past, she fired arrows into them, pinning them to trees, leaving them to writhe and howl till death. She ducked, broke powerful animal limbs, terminated the flight of eerie snakes and birds in air, and relieved beasts of their hideous heads with almost no effort.

Her body no longer belonged to her.

Moments ago, she had been with her father when the dizzying creature breezed past. It was like nothing she had ever seen. It was like a bat, a gorilla and a panther coming together to form one body. It was as dark as a moonless night, it smelled like burnt flesh and roared like the sea.

The creature had given her father no fighting chance. It was too strong.

Ogungbami had jumped before it, shielding his daughter. He had begun calling the fiercest of incantations, but they ended up to no avail. These were the same spells that had brought down tough animals, but they were doing this beast no harm. When he realized this, he had turned to his daughter,

“Sare Ogunbunmi! Ma weyin o!”

Those were his last words before his head got pulled off by two leathery palms, leaving his body to do a frantic run before finally falling.

The forest wailed louder as Ogunbunmi wounded and killed its inhabitants. She was escaping.

---

Oshunfunke had a burning lamp left in between her thighs. It was that of her only child.

She kept praying. She had shut the hut’s window. Not even the wind could tamper with this one.

Then it flickered off.

She continued praying like nothing happened. It couldn’t be true. Maybe she was getting tired.

“Oro o!”

She released at last.

The world ended for a few seconds. When it restarted, she stood and marched out.

She knew a night like this would come. She was prepared.

Her eyes went icy as she began new chants. She got to a shed, went in, and carried out a gourd wrapped in white clothe. It contained oil. She proceeded to take out a white wrapper.

Tying the wrapper round her waist, she drenched herself with the oil, went on her knees, and started a fire.

She lit up herself.

“Oshun shinginshi o, sho omoo mi dele! Iku o gbodo pa! Aarun o gbodo gbe de!”

As she burned, she yelled for Oshun, the kind Mother, to provide light for her daughter.

The reply came in rain and lightning. The way the lightning forked and twined around her made her appear like a goddess for a brief period.

Despite the rain, in the middle of the compound where she kneeled, she kept burning.

She became a lamp.

---

Back in the forest, beneath the beast’s massive paws, Ogunbunmi gasped to life.

In one easy move, she heaved the beast off and rose into the air. And stayed suspended.

While the beast fought to find its balance, Ogunbunmi landed, ran towards it and delivered a deep blow to its neck. This sent it tumbling backwards, into a branch-breaking, shrub-destroying mission.

Her lips parted and spells she had never learnt began finding their way out. Each word hit the beast like a ball of fire, sending it reeling and howling.

The last invisible blow was dealt to the beast at her final word. It finished it. The beast just faded into the dark, like it had never existed.

---

It had stopped raining.

Oshunfunke, charred and lifeless, remained on her knees, her white mysteriously as clean as before.

Two huts away from where she was, a lamp came back to life.

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