LARA: THE god OF HEKO

EPISODE SIX

EPISODE SIX

The journey ahead was far and uncertain. No one knew where to find Lara or if they would find her at all. But for these stern looking hunters, there was no retreat. Having taken possession of the severed head of the snake-god, they pressed on in their journey climbing hills and crossing streams. The drums went up, their pride rose with it in their collective confidence. These were warriors whose warfare were not merely canal. They had charms and they invoked the supernatural. They had confidence not only in their guns but also in their charms. They dare ghosts and imps to contest. 

As the drums filled the forest, the noise threw the animals into confusion and they ran in every direction. A good number of them ran into the hunters and they wasted no time in taking them out. In the confusion that besieged the forest, a deer ran into them and they gunned it down. A kangaroo came and it was taken out. Then a buffalo and it was taken for prey. Suddenly, they received an unlikely visitor. It had been too sudden, too fast and too unpredictable when a Lion appeared. Only a few hunters saw him, but when the Head Hunter shouted 'Idu', two third of the hunters hit a retreat. They fled with their guns and charms. It was only a few confident hunters who stayed behind to give the Lion a good fight. They fired shots at the Lion but it had no effect. It was Asipa who suggested that they hunt down the Lion using the Masai hunting method. Six or seven people would surround the Lion. They would close in on the Lion at once and hit him from all directions. He would be distracted and left vulnerable. Most times, he would have no target and thus unable to attack anyone, but sometimes, the man who faced the Lion directly never returned home alive. It was Odegbami who faced the Lion when the attack began. Seven people had surrounded the the king of the jungle and closed in at once. They beat and battered him. The Lion ignored the rest of them but held squarely at the man who had dared to face the king of this territory. At first, the Lion thrusted his claws into Odegbami's flesh and pulled with a powerful muscle, ripping apart his skin. The other attackers continued to batter the Lion with clubs and spares. By the time the attack ended and the hunters were certain of their victory, the Lion's jaws held tightly at Odegbami's throat. The Lion was now lifeless, but he made sure he took Odegbami with him. The man who body had resisted bullets was now laying dead at the hand of a Lion. 

Odegbami was a courageous hunter. He was a slayer of Elephant and Rhino, and once his trap had caught a Hippo. He had refused to go claim his catch because the two tons Hippopotamus was a genuine monster. When she moved, the earth quaked under her feet. Odegbami had told his colleagues that he wouldn't need all that meat. The Hippo was more than he had bargained for. He ran from a live Hippo to preserve his own life and he did live. But a Lion was not an animal Odegbami could run away from. In Bunu, killing an Elephant or a Lion came with promotion and a Title. So he dared the odds. But now, he laid down dead alongside the Lion. He would be honoured among the hunters when they finally returned home. For three days, they would feast, beat their drums and dance the hunter's dance. There would be seven g*n salute to indicate that a hunter was gone. 

Six hunters were selected to return Odegbami's body to the village. The expedition would continue. The Head Hunter squatted around the Lion and started to take off his vital parts. He removed the claws, the beard, the heart and tail and some canines. All these were needed to prepare some potent charms for future use. The claws were believed to offer some protection. Those who consumed the Lion heart would remain fearless forever, and the beard was a veritable poison for those who must die. Done with the Lion, the hunters regrouped and advanced. Soon, they arrived at a plain leaving behind the thick forest. Here was good for camping as night was fast approaching. They laid down their burdens and by the time they counted, these hunters had forty one animals that was more than enough for their food. The drums stopped and it was time to give the forest some peace. 

Gathering logs and woods, the hunters made a huge fire where animals were roasted and dried for dinner. 

Shortly afterwards, a herd of buffalo appeared. Next to them, was a lone Lion. The buffalos were huge and threatening. Before long, they made a point to encircle the Lion but the king found a refuge. His only escape route was a nearby tree. He climbed the tree out of the reach of the buffalos and tried to cling to it. The hunters watched as the buffalos encircled the tree. They hit the tree trunk with their powerful horns. The Lion held on with a painful endurance. But Lion by nature was not a great climber. The more he strove to hold on to the tree, the more his weight his weight pulled him down. Soon, Lion, the king of the jungle, dropped from the tree and hit the earth, falling straight into the midst of the buffalos. The buffalos wasted no time. They rammed into the Lion with brute force. A giant buffalo with a wide horn hit the Lion so hard against the trunk of the tree he had fallen from. The tree shook and the Lion groaned. A few more kicks like this got the Lion totally weakened. He laid there helpless and yet his adversaries were not done. They trampled and kicked and in the end, the king was dead. The buffalos had seen to the death of the king of the jungle. It looked like against the will of the Lion, democracy was finding it's way into the wild. If you had the population like the buffalos, you might just force the jungle dictators to listen to your opinion or they paid the ultimate price. 

Lion, king of the jungle, was a very exacting king and quite very undemocratic in his dealings. If he made a rule and other animals defied him, he simply delivered the ultimate penalty - death! The Lion set the rules, delivered judgements and executed his rulings. Somehow, he found a way to combine in himself the powers of the legislature, the judiciary and the executive. Occasionally, other animals in the jungle resisted his autocracy and sometimes the results were fatal at both ends. 

And so, as the hunters continued to watch, they saw a giraffe grazing the field alone. Soon enough, a Lion arrived and joined the giraffe. The Lion asked for space telling the giraffe to vacate the environment. The giraffe stood there towering into the sky. It was often said among the people that when the giraffe needed her food, she stood on earth and took her food from heaven. She was that tall - the long legs, the huge body, and the elongated neck put together. Giraffe, the giant of Africa, looked at the Lion down below. It appeared there was going to be a faceoff for the giraffe had asked to be respected as the tallest animal in the jungle. Without a compromise reached and with no one willing to shift grounds, the eventual result of this disagreement was going to depend on raw might. 

The Lion surged forward in a bid to his authority. The giraffe raised her giant legs and kicked. The combined force of those legs would kill any animal without a bargain. The first kick missed the target. But when the giraffe retreated and surged forward with all her might and weight kicking the Lion with both of her forelimbs, the huge legs caught the Lion by the neck and he fell unconscious. The giraffe persisted, trampling the Lion to the earth. Some bones were broken and some intestines burst open. With Lion the king down and dead, it appeared there was going to be a royal funeral. 

Should this revolt continue unchecked, the king of the jungle may one day lose his exalted office. The Head Hunter pointedly noted: 'as it is in animal kingdom, so it is with humans'.

At daybreak, the hunters put their baggages together, the drummers hit the cowskin hard, the atmosphere was thrown into a renewed frenzy and the search for Lara continued. They had just moved a few yards when they saw a zebra. She was grazing the field but the deafening sounds of drums and flute had left her confused and stuck to a position. They looked on with a jaw dropping surprise. Such a stunning beauty in the wild. Her black and white stripes and how they were perfectly arranged; the artistic design that enveloped her body from the tip of her mouth to her tail; her feminine shape and her majestic demure that saw a generous flesh loaded to her buttocks thereby giving her a round and voluptuous shape. These and more kept the hunters spellbound. Looking at the zebra up there, she looked like a beautiful woman in the wild. 

The Head Hunter ordered that no one fired a shot at the animal. They would rather capture her alive and take her to the village for others to see and admire. In no time, the hunters surrounded the zebra and they closed in. The circle became smaller and smaller until the animal was captured and tied to a tree. On their way back, they would take the animal home.

They put stick sticks to cowskin and the drums roared into the sky. The expedition continued in search for Lara. As they pressed forward in the march, Asipa, who was always at the frontline, saw a tiny shack in far away distance. Beside the shack was a tiny smoke heading for the sky. Asipa called called the attention of his team to what he had seen. "There are signs of life over there", he said. They increased their pace and the sound of their drums as they headed for the shack.

Olu Majek