The guests held their breath. The drummers ceased playing. Even the rain seemed to stop on cue as Fámorótì lifted the blazing torch by its handle and presented it to Oyíndàmọ́lá.
‘Take this flame,’ he said to her. ‘I will marry you. If anyone objects, burn their house.’
The sharp, percussive roar of the drums sailed far into the night, pealing across the towering trees of the forest, as if bestriding the land from a great height the thunder god himself had rumbled his approval.
Oyíndàmọ́lá waited until the uproar had died down.
‘Those standing – let them stand well,’ she said to the guests. ‘Those kneeling – let them kneel well. Those sitting outside – let them receive our thanks. Those who could not join us tonight – we thank you for the priceless gift of goodwill. You the elders, who have braved the storm, I thank you for honouring this day.’
She passed the torch to a maiden who passed it on to another maiden, until the torch, passing from one hand to the next, had done a relay in the gathering.
‘I pounded yam softly and offered it to destiny’s gatekeeper Èṣù himself,’ Oyíndàmọ́lá said. ‘Èṣù refused to eat. Then I asked him: “Will you stay indoors or outside?”’
‘Outside,’ answered the guests.
‘When Death comes looking for me,’ she said.
‘It will meet Èṣù outside,’ they chorused.
‘When illness comes looking for me.’
‘It will meet Èṣù outside.’
‘When poverty comes looking for me.’
‘It will meet Èṣù outside.’
‘When evil comes looking for me.’
‘It will meet Èṣù outside.’
‘What if a child comes looking for me?’
‘Èṣù will bring him into your room.’
‘And if laughter comes looking for me?’
‘Èṣù will show him in.’
‘And if good fortune comes looking for me?’
‘Èṣù will tell her to knock on your door.’
The drummers affirmed her prayers with an invocation on wood and hide.
‘When I left my house,’ she said, moving, in rhapsody, to the gbẹ̀du, ‘my mother told me not to go through the market. I said—’
‘But why?’ they joined her in asking. ‘Are you in debt? Do you owe the fishmonger?’
‘When I left my house my mother told me not to go through the market. I said—’
‘But why?’ they asked. ‘Are you in debt? Do you owe the salt seller?’
‘Some people wanted to lead me to my husband’s house, like a sheep to the market. But my mother said I should be escorted through the streets, like a freeborn child. You people of the world help me to thank my mother, for she decked me out in clothes rich enough to make a goddess envious. Let everybody thank my mother: she did not allow me to borrow dresses from those who would turn around and insult me. She dressed me in clothes so rich, I could confuse a god. And you my parent, Aya’ba Ọyátómi. When you don’t see me any more, will you forget me? Is it not you who decides when a child is old enough to have a quiver? Is it not you who decides when a child is old enough to have an arrow? It was you who decided that I was old enough to move to another house. Mother, don’t leave me alone in that place. I look right, and left, I look behind and in front of me, but I do not see my other parents, the ones who birthed me. What kind of god created me in a world of sickness to make my mother die like rotten yam? What kind of òrìṣà created me in a violent world to make my father die in war? If my head is not against me, I shall have them back with me in my husband’s house. If my head is not against me, they shall re-enter the world through me. My head – which is wearing a bright scarf today – will surely give me male children and female children. My people; mothers, and fathers: today is a glorious day!’
Up in the sky outside, in a blinding shock wave of radiant light that exploded into the harsh, deep-belly laughter of the thunder god himself, a bolt of lightning formed a fiery arch that straddled the cloudy heavens above and the flooded earth of the forest canopy below.
It was a sign, all agreed, that the union had found favour with Ṣàngó.