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Title: Before they came
Author: Udenta O. Udenta
Publisher: Kraft Book, Ibadan
Pagination: 120
Year: 2015
Reviewer: Henry Akubuiro
Juvenilia are not often the best masterpieces in literature, for they are precocious writings of teenage authors, yet some of them have become classics, read widely from Canada to Madagascar. The British writer, Jane Austen, ranks among the most popular authors of juvenilia with many classics, some of which were written in her notebooks, not deliberately meant for the public.
Udenta O. Udenta started writing early as a schoolboy, but his works of juvenilia, which were scribbled on notes, never saw the light of day until recently. To portray the naivety of the author as at the time he wrote the scripts, Udenta has published them in their original structures. Before They Came is one of such juvenilia works that has survived decades of neglect. It is a prose work that takes a backward glance at the Igbo nation, bereft of the modern-day shortcomings of acculturation and multiculturalism.
The society painted here is rustic and unambitious, yet organised. Juxtaposed with Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Udenta’s Before They Came appears to be a parody of the bestseller, but it is not. Here, we do not have a valiant Okonkwo calling the bluff of the colonial authorities. The story rather, centres on a poor orphan hard done by his uncle and aunty, but a chosen child of the gods. Through him, Udenta rewrites a hard luck story with a happy ending.
In the clan where this novel is set, we do not have teachers and students or warrant chiefs and court clerks working in concert with colonial adventuerers. The local heroes are palm wine tappers, farmers and warriors –ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Wars are used to settle animosities between one clan and another, with human heads as trophies; while oracles adjudicate on the affairs of mortals, often with fatal consequences.
Set in the rustic Umuanagu community, the people are noted for their rich culture and festivities. Ikeji is the New Yam Festival. Aja aho is a rite to chase away evil spirits from the community, while Iboegu is a ceremony where anybody can take certain things that belong to the other, and it cannot be classified as stealing. Twins, victims of Amadioha’s thunderbolt and abominable diseases, like leprosy and swelling of the stomach, are cast into the ajohia.
The major characters in this novel include the protagonist, Ugagwu; the wicked maternal uncle, Okepatu, and his wife, Oliakudiya, who get more than they bargained for, with a chain of disasters in their household. The author sanctions codemixing occasionally to garnish the narrative and to give it a snap of Igboness, for it is an Igbo story with variegated imports.
As the plot unfurls, the author hints on the beauty and innocence of rural life long before the advent of colonialists: “…they could produce what they ate. Farming and tapping were their important occupations. The main crops were yams, plantains and oil palm. Maize and cassava production were practiced by the women…. The houses were arranged in order in each compound. There were at least four buildings in man’s compound in the clan….If he owned a goat, there were huts for them also in the compound. Palm trees was owned by an individual…. The people believed in all sorts of spirits and feasts…” (p.25).
Subsistence agriculture was predominant mode of sustenance, with simple tools like machetes and cutlasses used in clearing farms. The local blacksmiths made axes used in felling trees. There were different forms of entertainment, but chief among them for the kids were playing in the ilo –the village square.
Like other village kids, life is full of fun for young Ugagwu while living with his father, Okete, a palm wine tapper, until he falls from a palm tree on his knife, dying three days later. His wife dies, too, after ten market days, leaving Ugagwu brokenhearted and orphaned. On the advice of his seventeen year old sister, who is already married to a wealthy trader, Ugagwu travels to Umuanagu, a village miles away, to live with the younger brother of their mother, who, unfortunately, is a “wicked brute”.
Sadly, he is considered surplus to the household. Worse still, he is detailed to the forbidden forest to fetch firewood, a place where disaster lurks. But luck comes his way when a kid, Kagara, he meets on the road, who is to become a bosom friend, advises him on the implications of going to the evil forest. During a hunting expedition later, Ugagwu is beaten by a snake and survives with little help.
Udenta, for most part of the novel, creates a protagonist, whose life is an archetype of misery. When Okepatu’s home catches fire from lightning and thunder, he blames Ugagwu. But respite comes the orphan’s way when an invited native doctor clears him of the act.
Aside serving as a form of entertainment, wrestling contests in the clan is an avenue to test the might of the natives. Ugagwu becomes champion among his peers and is presented with a goat. The Umuanagu village is a land of warriors. When the neighbouring Ijideka destroys their farms, they respond by routing them. Ugagwu, unexpectedly, emerges as one of the heroes of the war by killing their leader with a spear.
As Okeaputa’s wickedness against Ugagwu grows, the gods continue to fight for him. Unable to mend their evil ways, both Okepatu and Oliakudiya die following a thunderbolt from Amadioha. Ugagwu returns to his village, where he becomes an instant hero, a great wrestler and farmer, a holder of three titles and the lord of his clan.
However, there are some tense inconsistencies in this work, which is deliberate, as the author hints in the introduction. There are also occasionally narrative snag. If you can ignore them, what you have before you is an interesting read that makes you understand African past and shibboleths from the eye of a restless, juvenile spirit.
