SWEMThe Stone of TivA Poetic Drama in Five ActsAdapted in the spirit of kwagh-alom and Kwagh-hir, the storytelling and theatre traditions of the Tiv people of central NigeriaA NOTE ON THIS BOOKThe Tiv people have no single written epic the way some traditions do. What they have is older and more alive than that: kwagh-alom, the fireside storytelling of moonlit nights after the day's farm work, and its grander descendant Kwagh-hir, the "thing of wonder" — a total theatre of puppetry, masquerade, poetry, music, and dance through which the Tiv have always told and retold the story of who they are.At the center of that story stands a man named Tiv, ancestor of an entire people; his two sons, Ichongo and Ipusu, from whom all Tiv clans descend; and Swem, the sacred hill on the Nigeria–Cameroon borderland where the family is said to have rested on its long migration, and where a stone of truth was set down that the Tiv still swear upon today.What follows is a dramatization — verse, scenes, and dialogue shaped by my own hand — built around that remembered arc: conflict in a distant western homeland, a desperate river crossing, settlement at Swem, the parting of two brothers' descendants, and the final arrival in the Benue Valley the Tiv call home. The bones of the story — the names, the river, the hill, the stone, the two sons — come from the oral record. The flesh — the exact words spoken, the particular night, the weather — is my invention, offered the way any kwagh-alom teller invents detail around a frame everyone already knows. Treat it as a doorway into the tradition, not a transcript of it.DRAMATIS PERSONAETIV — the ancestor; a tired, stubborn, far-seeing manAYAAYA (also remembered as Aliwee) — his wifeGBE — the eldest son, restless, who leaves and does not returnICHONGO — the second sonIPUSU — the third sonANADENDEN — the daughterORTESE — the Announcer, who opens and closes the action, in the manner of the kwagh-hir crierCHORUS — the voice of the watching village, the drums, the dead, and the unbornTHE NEIGHBOR-CHIEF — ruler of the western land Tiv's family fleesA RIVER-WOMAN — spirit-keeper of the crossingTHE UGENYI (Chamba) — a war-host encountered near SwemADZOV — small spirit-voices, played as puppets, who comment and tease throughoutStaging note: In true Kwagh-hir, the ADZOV would be carved puppets worked from below or behind a screen, the CHORUS would drum and dance the transitions, and ORTESE would stand apart from the story, narrating it into being. A modern staging can use shadow puppets, masks, or simply lantern light for the ADZOV, and a single drummer for the CHORUS's rhythms.PROLOGUE — THE ANNOUNCER'S CALL(Darkness. A single drum begins, slow, then quickening. ORTESE enters before the curtain, carrying nothing but a staff.)ORTESE:Come close. The fire is small tonight but it will hold.I am not the story — I only open the door.Behind me: a man, two rivers, a stone, a hill called Swem,and sons enough to fill a valley with their children's children.(beat, listening to the drum)Some of you have heard this before — from a grandmother,from an uncle drunk enough to tell it right,from a kwagh-hir troupe with puppets taller than goatsdancing the river out of cloth and wire.I will tell it again. It does not wear out.A story that explains a whole people to itselfdoes not wear out — it only grows new mouths.(He raps his staff twice.)Bring up the first house. Bring up Tiv.(The CHORUS hums low. Lights rise.)ACT ONE — THE LAND OF GBE'S FATHERSScene 1 — A Compound, West of Here(TIV's compound. AYAAYA grinds something at a low stone. GBE, ICHONGO, IPUSU, and ANADENDEN are at various small tasks. TIV sits apart, watching the horizon line like a man reading weather.)AYAAYA:You watch that line of sky the way you watcha debt you haven't paid.TIV:I watch it because it watches me back.A man's neighbors do not love himfor having more goats than they have, Ayaaya.They love the idea of his goats walking into their own kraal.GBE: (restless, sharpening something)Then let them try. I am tired of this compound.The world is bigger than father's fences.TIV:The world is bigger, yes. It is also hungrier.GBE:I did not ask to be first-born into caution.I am going, father. Not today — but I am going.ICHONGO: (younger, teasing)Going where, big brother? To marry the moon?GBE:To find out if there's a place where a manisn't measured against his father's goats.IPUSU:Bring back a story, at least. We'll need one.(ANADENDEN laughs. The CHORUS, unseen, murmurs a low refrain — almost a lullaby, almost a warning.)CHORUS: (sung, soft)The eldest leaves with the sun on his back —de mvande nan Gbe, share his portion to the ground first,before any other mouth is fed.The eldest leaves. The house remembers himin the first piece of every meal, forever.(GBE rises, embraces his mother, clasps his father's arm a moment longer than necessary, and walks off into the dark beyond the