K’editöngö, Abasi akanam Enyong ye Isong.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
There is a veil that separates this world from the world of the spirits. This veil is invisible to all but the few who know where to look. In the oldest parts of this world, there are points where the veil is worn thin, like a skin stretched taut over the mouth of a drum, and traces of what might be described as magic dance in the rays of sunlight. If you were to stand in such a place and were sensitive, after the fashion, to these things, you would be afforded a glimpse into a time when the veil was rent open and the first spirits cloaked themselves in the fabric of the earth.
For these are the magic places of the world, where eternal echoes of words of power, long forgotten, linger, suspended as clouds of memory scattered throughout the atmosphere by an invisible hand. Here, the air is dense with the presence of the watchful ones, their enchantments imbuing the land with an iridescent glow that illuminates the soul.
Many are the numinous places of the world, filled with portals long traversed by spirits, doors concealed within the atmosphere, hidden in plain sight; with no region containing as many portals as the first landmass, that prehistoric centre, drawn forth by the Mother herself from her primordial ocean. The world has been broken and remade several times since that day before days, yet this landmass remains at the core. She has been called by many names over the course of time, but her true name has long remained hidden, deep within her bowels, lest her magic be usurped and misused.
This land is the cradle of life. It is the origin of civilisations, of gods and monsters, of sprites of wood, air and water. This is the birthplace of nymphs, of faeries, of guardians great and small. It is the source of pools, of waterfalls, of mist and rainbows, of worship, of mystery and of magic. This is the abode of the face of the Nameless, most sacred of all, Eka Abasi. She is the Mother, supreme giver of life, source of abundance and bringer of sun and moon. Her essence can be found within all living things. She is the heart, the soul, the Word made manifest. Her melody can be heard in the song of the sunbird and in the tinkle of cascading water.
Bearer of light and shadow, she is one, though her faces are many. Split a log and you will find her, cleave the rock and there she dwells. She is Abasi Isong, the earth, and Abasi Offiong, the moon. She it is who spoke the word that gave rise to an eternally unfolding saga. She is the Mysterious, the Unknowable, that which is unseen, but felt as a gentle whisper. She is not as the others, for she is the one who has her dwelling place beyond the veil. Nor can she be counted among lesser gods, for it is she who drew them forth from her womb. Between them is fixed a gulf so vast, which cannot be negotiated, lest she herself wills it to be.
She it is who birthed her son and consort, Abasi Obumo, the Thunderer, commanding him to split the sky with his rod of lightning, thereby separating night from day. She it is who commanded him to raise the holy mountains and rent valleys from which the living would spring. She it is who imparted her essence into the guttural word, ushering the spirits to come into being. For within her word is contained the divine spark, the source of all life, that peculiar element that gives rise to animation. She is the water, the void, the womb from which all things spring. Weaver of fates, author of stories, she alone composed the constellations.
In the silence of the void the Nameless sought to become aware of herself that she might increase in wisdom and understanding, and in order to expand her capacity to love, intuits that she must replicate through separation. For consciousness cannot know itself through a fixed angle, to have knowledge of the whole it must perceive itself through a spectrum of gazes. Long before humanity discovered how to split the atom, she gave rise to herself, spoke the Word and split the divine atom, thereby pulling out new forms of being. From her singularity many emerge, and in a twinkle, a myriad awakens.
Through sound these forms are made visible, and dancing, pass through the veil into the void. Within each form she imparts a name, the unique vehicle through which their power issues. These names are entrusted to Obumo, who is commanded to speak them in the correct order, thereby drawing the personas into the world. And he calls them individually by their rightful names, and they issue forth through the veil, cloaking themselves in the raiment prepared by the Unknowable.
They emerge, slowly at first, one by one according to their rank they come, inhaling the new air and delighting in their surroundings. From the oceans and the mountains they appear, spirits at once magnificent and terrible to behold. The invisible is made manifest and their magic fills the viscous void. The guardians take their forms, issuing forth tree, and rock and fire. They begin a great work, undertaking the will of the Nameless, preparing the world for the pleasure of her offspring.
The weavers of destiny are the first to appear, chief of these being Atai, Lady of the Fates, who on looms of enigma and paradox weaves with nimble fingers the tapestry of time. All fates are decreed by her, there is none that is not known by her, for she alone knows where the story is birthed and where it goes to die. Next are the elementals. Imbued with superior intelligence, these beings are the building blocks from which all others are made. Born of the dazzling darkness, they dance a great dance, giving rise to collision and calamity wondrous to behold, and in their wake the heavenly bodies are formed.
They ascend from the heights and from the deep, these ancient mothers of all creatures great and small, higher and lower spirits materialising, each one following the former in order of rank. Sprites of fire populate the void, with sprites of liquid, earth, metal and air, in vast numbers and in order of rank.
From the skies they appear, spirits cloaked as dragons spewing flames imperishable. From the swamps they arise, crocodile, panthera, eagle and leviathan. They issue forth through the veil into the void. Minotaurs, chimeras, mermaids, faeries, spirits of mysterious gifting and strange proportions. All will play their part in the great unfolding. They take their rightful places, and the void is filled with a holy sound.
They celebrate, and they watch, and they wait. They wait for that sacred hour, the hour which has long been appointed in the mind of the Mother. It is in this hour that the Unknowable rises from her throne and fills the void with the enchanting sound of her heart song. Her song is like the rush of many waters, a living tapestry that causes every knee to bow. As she sings, all that she has birthed joins as one, weaving notes forged of unearthly light in worship of her glory and her mystery.
But the voice of the Nameless comes as mighty drops imbued with such power, and beauty, and bliss and melancholy, her chords at once profound and deep, that as one, all of creation falls as dead. And of the song she sang, only fragments of shadows now remain, for there are none now living who remember.
Yet memories linger, for the land is but a storehouse of memory and the heavens ring with echoes of that eternally unfolding song, a fragmented vision of a fading dream, its spectral fingers unfurling wide and long. These ghostly appendages conceal harmonies suffused with hidden power, a force unstoppable, suspending dreams in place, a splendid symphony of all uncharted hours. And if one pauses for a moment and listens with ears unseen, the concealed will be revealed, for the powers speak ceaselessly, in urgent speech, awaiting an open vessel.
They were there, the earth and her breath, on that, the most hallowed of days. Co-creators, ancient witnesses to a remarkable thing, a souvenir of which they retain. For in this sacred hour, encircled by celestial chords, the Nameless fashions a thing exceedingly strange and marvellous to behold. From breath of Enyong and flesh of Isong she forms a living nephish into which she sings life, and her song is the sweetest kiss, and sending forth her soul she awakens, Adiaha, Mother of humanity, sung into being from darkness into light.
She is breathtaking, a babe defenceless in her purity, rousing from long slumber into blissful paradise that she herself has created. Her obsidian skin sparkles after the manner of the depths of the deep; for from darkness is born all that was, is and will be. She is black and comely, a wonder above wonders, forged in splendid perfection, fat, rolling and healthy, the rarest specimen of divine beauty, for within her is set the very universe in motion.
It is with laughter, that she who is called Adiaha opens new eyes filled with astonishment beneath the watchful gaze of the lady of the night. Inhaling deeply, she drinks air yet untouched by mortal kind as she rests in the most sacred spot on earth, buried deep within mouth of Ubong Obot, the holy mount. Here she frolics with butterflies and brown-limbed faeries, their wings, spry, delicate things, hued in colours that have long passed out of living memory. For the guardians have cloaked themselves in a manner that will be pleasing to the babe while they prepare to guide her in the ways of the world.
Here the powers converge, higher and lower orders, they minister unto her, swaddling the infant in a cloth woven of threads of light, coloured by Atai herself. Awestruck, they bless this exceptionally strange and exquisite creature, this miracle that glitters as a living coal beneath the glow of the first light. In their hordes they come, a multitude without number, sprites of purity and protection, sprites both winsome and ferocious, gently they approach her, for she speaks without words to the core of their innocence, and she knows no fear, for fear has not yet passed through the veil.
This is the holiest of nights, a night like no other, filled with all manner of wonderment and elegant dreams of enchantment. In this moment unparalleled, all lives are entwined, dreams and legends intersect and the earth hums with burgeoning promise. All powers bow before the feet of the blessed babe with minds of one accord. Guardians of forest and of mountain, stewards of river, of grass, of sky, they jealously guard the babe in her infancy, smiling as she frolics with the birds, sprites and all creatures of delight. They look upon her and they love her, singing as she drifts into euphoric sleep, sprinkling her dreams with prayers that caress her, imbuing her thought with images woven of laughter.
As she wakes, her sight is filled with unquantified discoveries and smiling, she absorbs the majestic scenery wild eyed. All is new to the babe, for the mantle of flesh has banished her memory beyond the furthest recesses of the most distant stars. It is in this state of forgetfulness that the child is nourished, for she imbibes living waters supplied by river sprites. The air still rings with unbridled potency, causing the bowels of Isong to swell with a bounty of fruits that murmur of forgotten charms. These are harvested by guardians of flora, tree nymphs that make ready the yield for the infant to consume. So the child eats and is strengthened, and turning her mind to thoughts of abandon, she has no limit to her playful diversions, delighting in the innumerable gifts bestowed at her feet.
Cavorting with butterflies, she is watched by the powers, who tenderly pre-empt all her needs. They walk beside her, she that draws them into being, instructing her in their arts, divulging the secrets of the stars, thrilling her with displays of skin changing, and she imprints herself within their hearts. All are smitten by this intoxicating marvel and vigilantly guard her path.
So she grows. Deliberately, solidly. The magic of the new morning infused with a tonic for uninhibited growth, for all are giants in these days, as enlargement has not yet been barred with restraint. First the babe is sitting, then she is standing then crawling, now she is walking, and as she walks, all bow, for all that she touches is greatly blessed, where her shadow falls new things waken, and flowers instantly sprout in grassy indentations left by her tiny feet. Her smile is a thing of uncommon beauty, filling the heavens with rainbows and a heady mood of magic. When she laughs, it is as though the whole universe erupts into song, causing streams to bubble where before the earth was barren.
So walks Adiaha, first daughter, beloved and cherished of life and her days are filled with bliss and plenty. Growing and learning, she converses with guardians and companions in silent thought until the moment she conceives of a new design. The powers watch as she fashions the first repository of speech, a living bough gifted by a gnarled Iroko and covered with the gift of a sheath from Asabo. In amazement, they listen as she forges audible speech, words erupting as an unrestrained mighty river from a source deep within her belly. They stand awestruck as she converses with the drum, marvelling as her words explode into living, breathing things that unfurl into songs of their own.
How she grows, this rarest of diamonds, waxing in wisdom, beauty and grandeur. She is glorious, a being without blemish, the pinnacle of unfathomable design. And how the guardians cherish her, this curious phenomenon, this enigma they perceive to be larger than revealed.
They are with her by the waters as she speaks words into the glass, setting in motion songs and stories that will take on life and breathe millennia after her present form has passed. They stand poised and guarded as she discovers portals into parallel worlds, guiding her as she travels, leading her to doorways that return her to her abode. Revelling in her exploits, the powers expand with her, responding to moods corresponding with the melodies from which they were called.
But as the new day lengthens it brings with it subtle changes. It begins with the withering of desire, slowly, vaguely, a gentle erosion of the longing for flights of fancy. No longer content to dance with nymphs and converse with merpeople by hallowed creeks, all thought of wild roaming to distant galaxies fills her heart now with sorrow. Her disposition becomes melancholic, for she is filled with a quiet yearning, and searches for something she cannot yet name. Driven to aloofness, increasingly she evades those charged with her keep, for she intuits that the answer to her riddle must be solved by her and her alone.
From a respectful distance, the powers observe as she wanders long and far, consumed by a familiar sweet forgetfulness, oblivious to all but her gnawing need. Discovering liquid leaking from her eyes, she ponders upon it, a strange occurrence to one who has never known the sting of tears. Immersing herself fully in the alien sensation, she savours the salty taste of the large, glassy drops that now run freely down her face, and calling out a name she does yet know she stumbles. As she weeps, the wind looks upon her and is moved to pity, and whispering words of comfort to ease her distressed soul, increases her gentle dance and begins to grow.
The wind rises, disturbing the peace of all that obstruct her path, her gentle whistles transforming to forceful howls. As flower sprites flee, nymphs of wood return to their boughs and mermaids slink into watery chasms to shield themselves from the unlooked-for spectacle. Obumo speaks. Fire sprites answer. Still the maiden weeps, yet the wind’s arms surround her, a typhoon that veils the girl from sight. Blinded by her tears, the wind transports her, carrying her gently to a concealed place.
She is deposited at the entrance to a narrow corridor, a path leading to a hidden vale and slowly pries open blurred eyes. Whispering words of strength and kissing her brow, the wind departs, for she is not permitted to enter the vale. There is something peculiar about this place and it is noted by the girl who stares now, drawn always forward by an unseen magnetic charge.
She knows this place, she is sure of it, yet her feet have never trodden this path. The walls are made of the smoothest rock, black, sheer and glittering, mirroring the girl’s flawless skin—a picture of ebony liquid frozen to stone. Silken to the touch, the walls ring with a strange fire, murmuring of forgotten spells. These are pillars that stretch for miles above ground, towering precipices reaching unto the heavens, lending the sky the appearance of a distant sapphire serpent who watches the girl with a smile.
With each step she is drawn ever closer to waters that mutter of a deep magic unknown to the powers. This is a strange place, a secret place, a place of lightness of being, easing the girl of her unnamed sorrow. She walks through the passage with a heart that is gladdened, her tears now nothing more than a dismembered memory. With newfound purpose, she moves steadily towards a coloured refraction, a spectrum of light that is not of this world. It draws her onwards, curving and bending until she is greeted by the voice of a stream. Its words are a thing of delight, chattering and playful, its excited chortle giving way to rivulets of rumbling speech.
Onwards she walks, listening to the river, remembrance roused by words uttered from the deep. The river speaks of a dream, a dream of beginnings, of words of power and a song of awakening. The road by the river twists and writhes and suddenly leads to an open creek. A perplexing enigma, this a place of raw might, guarded at the mouth by higher incarnations of Ekpe, Asabo and the hawk-eyed fish eagle who watches from above. These guardians of land, sky and water fiercely protect the place from unwelcome, prying eyes.
This is a place deceptively small yet with a sense other than sight, she perceives that this place is veiled. Its apparent smallness merely serves to add to its alluring mystique; it is a land laced with the remnant of world-forming utterances, hinting at a brilliance sweltering with secrets, which if divulged would destroy all but the purest who gaze upon it. It lies as if at the bottom of a great well, an unlikely bowl deftly hewn by an unknown entity. Encircled by high banks of obsidian, a natural vessel whose bottom is cloaked in a grassy vale girdled by the great river. All is enclosed, save for the narrow neck through which the child has entered.
The banks of the vale slope upwards and at its centre stands a single palm whose branches reach high into the clouds. Here Enyong, Isong and Inyang meet, for this is a place where worlds converge. Lifting up her gaze, the child is met by an uncommon spectacle, a thing strange and never before glimpsed by mortal kind. Hugging the island on the opposing bank, the waters flow into a great fall, the current moving upwards instead of down, defying universal laws of gravitational pull. Momentarily pondering the strange marvel, the child’s gaze soon flits to absorb more sights which perplex.
She stands at the mouth of a garden whose opaque, coloured waters are strewn with myriad twinkling lights. The surface is scattered with innumerable flowers, great lilies, milk white with cores of solid gold. The voice of the river has grown into a chorus, a cacophony of thought arising from liquid glass teeming with life. These are the whispers of trillions of souls, housed in sacred kingfish that are the source of the mysterious glow. Here they dance in a ghostly circle, awaiting a time they will be reclothed.
Tentatively and trembling, the child wades into the water, entering the holy of holies, her footfall drawing a effervescent dew that falls as gentle flakes from a breach in the heavens. Time does not exist in this place. As the girl walks forward, a presence rises, a voice cloaked in a dense mist and adorned in fat, rolling clouds. As it walks forward to meet her, it surrounds her. Enveloping, cooling, warming, brightening. All thoughts of longing are banished to the shadows, for she has found what she did not know that she sought. This is a being crowned in splendour, wreathed in rainbows, lightning and sparkling flame, Eka Abasi, Isu Mma, her Mother. Herself. Her higher incarnation.
“Adiaha. My child. My self,” utters the voice in a guttural rumble, causing lava to dance and Isong to tremble. None are privy to the communion that unfolds, save the guardians of the abode and the souls that swim in the great river of forgetfulness. They converse long and deep as far from this place stewards drift into fresh dreams.
Night falls and Offiong rises, bringing with her a blossoming. As the Nameless divulges creation’s deep secrets, so Adiaha blossoms into an exceptionally beguiling creature, the like of whom will never again be seen on the face of the earth. It is here that her first moon blood is borne into the teeming waters, a living sacrifice for the purification of generations to come. Here she grows in grace and in stature, glowing as a vessel housing the first light.
The woman eventually emerges from the sweetest communion irrevocably altered. As a being wrought in fire she returns changed to her abode. All shield their eyes from her newfound brilliance for it appears to the powers that a star has fallen from the skies.
With newfound authority she speaks a word and draws life into being within her own womb. As her belly begins to swell with a light, the guardians watch over her, until travailing, she pulls him forth, reversing within him her genitalia after divine blueprint. They are there at his birth, he that is called Akpan, her opposing mirror image. They bear witness to a wonder of wonders, as Woman and Man are created in one vessel, and separated through song that they might multiply and populate the world.
Vigilantly they watch their charge and her new babe, nurturing him as they nurtured her, watching as the two wax in strength as they forge a story of love that will last through ages unnumbered. For the new babe grows quickly, and as the shoot from young plants overtake their sires in stature, soon he overtakes his mother and embraces her, so they appear as one, though they are now two. To each is given power and authority to govern their environment in equilibrium, in accordance with their stature. But to the woman, Adiaha, the greater power is given, as she is created mother after the fashion of the Nameless.
Theirs is a sacred love that will outlive time. It is a pure love, wholly incorruptible, a love that spans distant galaxies and far-flung worlds. Of all she has discovered she teaches him tenderly, save the secrets divulged to her by Isu Mma, for woman is of the order of creator. Of the secrets concerning the guarding of words of power, man is not permitted to know, for in foresight the Nameless knew that the day would come when her sons would desecrate and attempt to erase her.
And as the child Akpan grows, he is aware of the long disappearance of Adiaha and resentment blossoms in his heart but he skilfully conceals it. Thus, the seed of enmity is planted between the woman and the man she birthed, and as the seed germinates and grows within the womb of the world, so the silent seed of enmity bides its time, taking root within the hearts of men.
Soon the two venture down from Ubong Obot, and copulating at the foot of the great mound, bring forth twin daughters, Ima and Idara, one spirit in two vessels, of whose like has never before been seen on the earth. The hallowed family are in an eternal dream, from which there is no awakening save through a thing not yet conceived, but even this is no end, merely a return to recurring beginnings.
This is a tale passed through generations without number, a story existing beyond the confines of space and time. It has known many endings and borne many versions, yet beneath the variation lies a truth eternal and unchanging. For there is only one story, one desire that seeks fulfilment of a designated end. An ending which is in truth a beginning. For the world is much older than is supposed, and all that is, it has already been, and what is human life if not anguished arpeggios of a recurring dream?
But what is one story to a face that has lived many lives? What is this dream to one summoned repeatedly over the course of time? One fated to be summoned ever at greatest need, and need again calls me, coaxing me gently from sweet clutches of sleep.
This is my story, my unfinished melody and she summons me now, disturbing my peace. Once more I am called to breathe into my dream by bloodied steps repeating the pattern of the Iroko’s first speech. I see her now, this child that I shall soon call my mother. The girl with fire in her face, the moon in her belly and wild midnight for hair. She flees through conical pyramids, testaments to lost civilisations of unsurpassed grandeur, wrought and perished in days long forgotten. Her way is cleared by guardians not yet known to her, for if she knew what hunted and protected her she would be driven to the brink of an abyss from which there is no return.
It has grown too large. This thing that pursues her. A madness wanders here, a thing utterly wretched and without redemption, its very presence marring the land which for all beauty retained, lies now darkened, blighted by the offspring of this foulest of creatures, fell beasts that brood and creep among both living and unborn. Where it passes, it poisons even the most righteous of thought, rendering all words and deeds indelibly corrupted.
Even lesser guardians cower from its great shadow, for it is wreathed in vile incantations loosed at the great splintering so long ago, that the memory of its origins are but a whisper in the oldest of legends. This is a relic of a time when the word was besmirched and its potency tarred. The Egbo has grown. It has long consumed those that wrested the protective cults from the first daughters, their tortured souls now forming his profane cloak. He is a law unto none but his own self, a spirit ravenous with unnatural terror, desperate to feast on all that is sacred and pure. Where he treads, far below in the womb of Isong, even the bones of the dead cower.
As he passes town after town he cries a terrible cry, alerting the townsfolk to his malevolent intent. All twins are left this night by the edge of the once-sacred forest, the ultimate sacrifice. How the sprites of purity weep, a great cry that erupts in the firmament, for the greatest affliction is borne upon them. Yet this night is unlike any other. A strange magic is afoot and guardians and witnesses once more walk abroad. All must conspire together for this very hour. They move to protect her, the powers have woken, they wrestle to bring her to that sacred place that countless lives ago I once called home.
I have worn many faces, returned many times, but few have insight to glimpse beneath my veiled disguise. Others go before me. Spirit children, ordained before birth as my living oracles. At times the people hearken to them but this is a rarity. Mostly they are shunned and driven to live as outcasts. Their gifts manifest in different ways; they have the power to speak and effect change, but do not always know their power.
Some are driven to dreams of madness by this spirit, this frightful masquerade that nets their steps, for it will do anything to prevent the emergence of a rogue element, an agent of change that will alter its ghastly steps. They speak in strange tongues of dreams of rivers and oceans blood, of the death of an old world and the birth of a new. They speak of the advent of gods of industry and of trade, gods of metal, of steel and war.
As I prepare to be once more reborn, I recall the story of my beginnings. This time I shall not forget. I will be born into a new vessel full of knowing, full of remembrance and regret. Some will look at me as some sort of prodigy, but others shall accuse me of sorcery. I will know great suffering for I am the solace for pain. When they ask me who I am I will tell them. I am the voice of one who long ago fell silent, and my silence has lasted an age and an age.
Mary Okon Ononokpono is a writer, artist and illustrator. Born in Calabar, Nigeria, Mary moved to the United Kingdom as a baby and has lived there ever since. Mary has a passion for African arts, culture and history. With a background in design and journalism, Mary has been featured in numerous Pan-African publications. Following a brief return home to Nigeria in December 2012, Mary turned her hand towards creative writing. Mary has recently completed her first work of children’s fiction and is currently working on her debut novel.