THE LEGEND OF KIWAKAAZI

Once upon a time, during the Saharan Civilization, five empires existed; the Southern Empire; the Northern Empire; the Western Empire; the Eastern and the Central Empire. Each empire was made up of kingdoms and each kingdom comprised of villages. A king ruled a kingdom and a chief ruled a village. In the eastern empire, there was a village called Lalaman (the village of great singers). Lalaman was the village closest to the south from the east. In this village the singers that entertained the great kings and empires of the world were born, bred and sent out to spread the gospel; the gospel about the healing effect of great music.

Man has always loved music and the people of Lalaman made the best music in the entire world. They did not only know how to use their vocal chords to produce intoxicating melodies, but, they also made instruments that produced sounds fit to entertain the gods themselves. It did not matter what kind of music you like they can make it. Is it Jazz or rock you want? The people of Lalaman will make it for you.

Lalaman had a great ruler named Obina. Maazi (Chief) Obina had only one son he named, Emene. When Maazi Obina finally died, his son Emene succeeded him. The boy was too young to rule but he did his best. After a few years as Maazi, Emene knew everything about being a ruler and was ready to take a wife. He fell in love with a beautiful girl called Uchie, a witch. Emene knew from the start that she was a witch but the young man was so much in love that this information was of no significance.

It is common for two people in love to share their interests. Chief Emene loved music and his wife-to-be Uchie loved to practice magic. So, Uchie taught Emene the art of magic and he taught her how to make and appreciate good music. Everything was fine until a few days to their marriage, Emene just called it off. Why? Because he fell out of love with her and in love with another beauty called, Dume.

Uchie was shattered. She did not care about wealth; she did not care about position; she did not care about anything but Emene. She loved him; she trusted him; she gave her very soul to him. So what happened? How did he fall out of love with her and in love with another? She will not sit back but fight for the man she loved.

Uchie tried to talk to Emene but he did not want to see her at all. She used all means possible; she visited his palace but was thrown out. She tried spiritual communication but Emene will not respond to her calls. The chief started acting violently towards her. He sent some of his very muscular guards to threaten her. She was to stay away from the chief and Dume. Failure to do so will land her in prison or worse; death. But Uchie could just not stay away. She was in love and staying away from the man she loved was punishment more severe than imprisonment or death.

She tried too hard. She pushed too much. Now her cup was full. Chief Emene had Uchie arrested for practicing witchcraft. He accused her of using her witchy powers on him. She had put a spell him to fall in love with her. Meeting Dume, the gods bless her soul, lifted this spell. He has found true love and suspected Uchie was planning something diabolical against his lovely wife-to-be. She was condemned and burned alive. While she burned, she cried out loudly and with her last breath, cast a spell on the chief “shawe, shawi, etaka shawi” were the words she shouted.

What kind of spell was this? You know how a witch can cause someone to go blind or deaf; or how they can paralyze someone or cause the person to suffer from epilepsy. Well, Uchie did not want any of these. The curse she placed on Emene can be interpreted as “you will fart; each step you take will be a fart”. Can you believe it? She wanted Emene to fart always. How cruel of her. She should have paralyzed him or something but farting, man that is some really messed up shit. Please forgive my language. I think watching too much boondocks is getting to my head. Big ups to the makers of boondocks. “Nigga that show is great!”

Okay back to the story. Where were we? Oh I remember. So Emene had been cursed. The following day was perhaps the best day of Emene’s life. He woke up from his huge royal bed and felt alive and well. So alive and well that the young Maazi (chief) screamed out “I am alive!” The air that morning was sweet. The day was bright. He enjoyed the best breakfast and the best shower. What a day it promised to be. The best day in his life, I guess.

But Maazi Emene was mistaken. His best day turned into his worst nightmare. Emene’s wedding to Dume was approaching. Music was their thing and on his wedding day he planned on showing how good Lalaman music was. The very best had been selected to play the gig at his wedding and he was for the very first time going to personally assess them. However, a loud sound was heard when he took his first step outside his palace. All the people around agreed the sound came from Maazi Emene’s rear.

Glances were exchanged and people returned to their work as if nothing had been heard. But after a few steps when not only this loud sound but the smell that accompanied it started polluting the air, people became worried.

It was shameful. Chief Emene was polluting the air. His fart was noisy and smelly; it smelled like rotten eggs. No one could stand it. Maazi Emene immediately called for the palanquin hoping it could be the solution to his problem. He climbed into the palanquin and was carried on the shoulders by four of his guards. Unfortunately, every step they took caused the chief to fart; louder and smelled worse than before. How does he prevent this? He thought “this whole thing started when I stepped out of the palace, so let me go back to my palace and I am sure it will stop”.

Well, sorry Emene, because it did not stop. Inside his palace he still farted. The sound and smell could be heard by people even outside the palace. With time, all his servants deserted him. Then his guards left him. Even before his lowly servants had abandoned him, the woman he claimed to love so much that he broke up with Uchie, Dume had long left. Lalaman now had an atmosphere of foul air surrounding it; air being produced by their chief. The name of the village was then changed from Lalaman to Yolopo (the village ruled by the farting chief; chief fartuad; the phantom farter!).

The people of Yolopo came together and decided to eliminate their chief. Many people had deserted the village by this time and the few that remained had to constantly wear baskets over their heads to breathe air that did not smell of rotten eggs. They were tired of it.

Maazi Emene was certainly not comfortable with his farting habits. Remember he had picked up a thing or two from Uchie about magic and tried using that knowledge to break the spell. But it did not work. At least his powers helped him to learn about the plans of his people right in time to escape death. After a while he just gave up trying to break the curse and tried a new approach – a simpler approach. Instead of breaking the curse, he will just transfer it to another person. So he created a powerful spell that will allow him to transfer the curse and guess what, it worked!

The first person he transferred the curse to was a woman – beautiful but fat who had been married for more than seven years without children. She had travelled the world over and yet children would not grace her marriage. She had tried science in the West and herbs in the south and none worked. She met the priests of the east and the wise men of the north and none of them could help her.

When she met Emene, the foul air that surrounded him suggested to her that this deal will lead to no good. But when man is desperate, he lets go of all rational reasoning. Emene to convince his first victim collected some sand from the ground and threw it up in the air. The particles of the sand revealed in clear detail how this woman was going to get pregnant and have a beautiful baby boy after shaking hands with Emene. No words required; she saw everything for herself and so she believed him.

She shook hands with him and repeated the magic words “shami shawi etaka shawi” meaning “transfer the power of farting to me”. A few weeks later she was pregnant and delivered a beautiful son after eight months and fourteen days. Then the curse began.

Initially friends and family thought it was the after effect of childbirth. So they would laugh about it but after a while, no one could be around her anymore. She was like a rotten eggs producing machine. A fat woman who farted with every step. What a dangerous combination. Call her “big Mama farter” or the “fat farting queen” or simply the “bomb!” Wherever she stepped she released bombs that scattered people. Bombs that did not require complicated chemicals. It came naturally from inside her body and exited through her anus. I wonder what is wrong with that anyway. Don’t we all do it?!

She too was lucky enough to find a man whom was short. He was so short that no woman wanted to marry him. He just wanted to be tall. He was desperate and when the woman showed him how his life will change after a handshake while repeating some magic words, he was impressed and accepted the deal. His heart’s desire was fulfilled. He woke up one day and he was tall. Women wanted him and he selected one as wife. But just before his marriage, his curse commenced. Sing with me: Fart in the morning; fart in the afternoon; fart all day long! Ha-ha-haa! Tell me you are enjoying this chapter. What a farting devil he became. He too passed it on; the next person did the same and on and on it went from one person to the next. The curse travelled all over the world until it finally came to the doorstep of another chief.

Segetse (Chief) Ajete was ruler of Kuntunshie (village of cloth makers) inside the Western Empire. It was the village closes to the south from the west. Their close neighbors inside the Southern Empire were Fokoman (village founded by a man named, Foko). The two villages shared a common water source – a river that also served as a boundary. They lived peacefully until the river, their water source started to dry up. Water was becoming scarce and greed showed his face to the villagers. The people of Fokoman attacked people of Kuntunshie when they came close to the river claiming the water was theirs and vice versa. Who owns a river anyway?

War finally broke and the people of Kuntunshie were losing. So what did chief Ajete do? He accepted the curse. Some say it was not only his strength but the strong smell that he released during the war that won Kuntunshie the war.

After the war, the people of Kuntunshie could also not endure the sound and smell being released by their chief. And so they also planned to assassinate their chief. Some of the people of Kuntushie were still loyal to the chief and reported to him the plans of his own people. But when Chief Ajete found out about their plan, he did not flee but rather delivered a message that his people.

“I am disappointed that my own people want to kill me. I am disappointed that my people have forgotten so soon the sacrifice I made to save our brave men; to save our fathers and our brothers. I knew the consequences and I still did it because I could not just stand back and watch while my people were being slaughtered. So after saving you from death you have all decided to repay me by taking my life. How soon you have all forgotten.” This was Chief Ajete’s speech.

The chief’s message touched his people whom repented. Many of the villagers were now ready to take upon themselves the curse and relieve their brave ruler of this shame. But chief Ajete believed as the leader it was his responsibility to shoulder this burden. Where are the Chief Ajetes in Africa? They have become extinct! Instead, he commanded his people to go out into the world and find a way to rid the world of the curse once and for all.

Many people left Kuntunshie to find the cure to this curse but none returned with the cure. One day, an old man claiming to be a ‘curse remover’ visited Kuntunshie. He was virtually wearing rags. He asked to see the chief and was granted audience. He explained to chief Ajete that he heard the rumors about the chief and one thing that touched his heart was the chief’s desire to rid the world of this curse. Many have accepted this curse but very few have expressed the desire to rid the world of it.

At first, the chief was skeptical. He was convinced the old man may be one of his own people pretending to be a ‘curse remover’ just to take up the curse and free him, Segetse Ajete, of it. To convince the chief, the ‘curse remover’ changed his appearance from an old man to a handsome, young and rich prince. Chief Ajete seeing this agreed the ‘curse remover’ was capable. He shook hands with the old man after he had taught him the magic words. The curse was now finally lifted. But long before this, the name of the village had been changed from Kuntunshie to Yolopo as well. So this is how two villages, one in the eastern empire and one in the western empire were both named Yolopo – the two villages were once each ruled by a farting chief.

As for the curse remover, he died. Apparently he was Emene whom after a long time of solitude and deliberation understood how to break the curse. The curse claimed the life of his one-time-love Uchie and could only be broken by taking another life – his own life. They say after taking the curse upon himself once again from Chief Ajete. He repeated some words and burnt to crisps. He died with the curse.