I never knew I could ever bring myself to narrate this experience of mine, but i recently got to find out about 
When I was a teenager, some time in the 90's, death rate was on the increase in my community. For some strange reason, people were dying on an almost daily basis. It was so weird because the cause could be anything at all: a cold, a fever, choking on food, excessive swimming...virtually anything could kill people.
The elders of my village made a series of consultations and libations to the gods (it was so weird to me; how were those ugly carved objects expected to give a reply?).
The name of my village is "Ogbunabali." It's an Ikwerre-speaking community in Rivers state, Nigeria. Ogbunabali literally means "What kills at night", the "what" representing the gods that guard the land.
So the elders said the gods (called "okanramini") were angry for some reason and that they had to be appeased immediately and appropriately. Then and only then would the mysterious deaths cease.
My father was late at the time so my mother raised us, all 8 of us, alone. She was a devout Christian who couldn't care less about anything fetish. She hissed when I asked of her thoughts on the whole matter. "Those people don't have better things to do with their lives" she said in our native tongue.
The elders went ahead to bring a seer to "remove" the "okanramini", at least that was the way they described the absolution of the land.
On the day the seer came, almost everyone was gathered at the town hall.
To my surprise, the seer was a woman!
She was so scary-looking: She was dressed in a long white flowing gown and her very uncommon hair-do was adorned with cowries. She had "nzu" (native chalk) marks circling both her eyes, and painted on her cheeks. She also had patterns, drawn in charcoal, on her face, neck and shoulders. Her lips were painted black. She carried a really long staff bedecked with all sorts of colourful feathers and rattles that chimed with each contact the staff made with the ground. That was what announced her arrival.
She didn't speak to anyone. She just stood in front of the hall and stared into the sky, as though there were answers there. Suddenly she started vibrating so vigorously, so unnaturally. She spun in very rapid oscillations and I was so scared she would fall. She didn't. Instead she started mouthing incantations and started moving towards us, still spinning.
She moved from one end of the compound towards us with unimaginable prowess. I was observing the whole movement in awe.
Until I realized she had stopped.
In front of me. Pointing at me.
My heart stopped beating
"O bu ya" she screamed. "O bu ya o" (It means "It is her").
She kept screaming and screaming, while I stood there staring and shivering. She suddenly stopped and collapsed in a heap on the ground, as abruptly as she had started.
Two "fortified" men gently carried her into the hall's mini shrine. I became the object of attention: people were whispering to each other and pointing at me; others just kept staring at me. The people that were initially standing close to me had given some reasonable distance. I was still standing and shivering, in utter shock.
That evening, some of the elders came to my house. They first discussed among themselves in low tones, then the leader spoke to my mother in our dialect.
"Achai, the gods spoke today. Your daughter is, one way or another, responsible for the wrong things that have been happening here. What abomination did she commit? What laws did she break?"
My mother stared daggers at them. She had already given me a good beating for disobeying her and going to that town hall.
Finally she spoke "my family is a Christian family. We have no business with gods and traditions. My daughter has done nothing wrong"
They kept arguing, trying to convince my mother to bring me for cleansing otherwise I'd die next, but she would have none of that. Finally, they left in defeat.
"Mama please I'm sorry." I said softly, sobbing.
The woman was sobbing too. She couldn't understand what kind of gods killed people on account of a child.
**image gotten from google
