The Egungun Festival.

 It was that time of the year when Egunguns were expected to come out. My family were at the dining table eating supper when my grandfather's call came in. Pa Delemo hardly called. My father just got him a cell phone which he was still trying to figure out how it worked. He would beckon on anyone he saw around to help him dial a particular number from the phonebook where they were written down.So, anytime his call came through, it had to be that he wanted to say something significant or ask for money.

"Hello," my father said. " Money?...is it time already?... How much?...Okay..." Father ended the call.

" What's wrong?" My mother asked him.

" Egungun festival is around the corner and father wants me to send him money to celebrate," he said.

" Is it time already?" My mother said, more of a statement than a question. She was never in support of The Egungun Festival. She was of the Christian faith and she believed that it was fetish. She was fed up of my father financing such event. 

" Tell him to ask brother Ayo for the money," my mother said.

" You know I have to be the one to pay it. You understand the norm." Father reminded her. My grandfather had fifteen children--ten males and five females--in which my father was the first child.My grandmother gave birth to the fifteen of them. They all practice our traditional religion except for my father who was now a Christian. Every year, an Egungun must come out of each clan during the Egungun Festival.We were from the Arulogun clan. It was our custom that the first son must be the one to foot the bill of the ceremony and rituals. Hence, my father was always called upon. I , my father and my elder brother, Kunle, usually stayed at my grandparents house in the village during the week of the festival. Those were the moments my mother and father usually have some squabbles about him letting us in on the crazy family tradition.

" These masquerades are possessed. They have unclean spirits. Don't drag my children into this. They have the light of God," she would say.

" It's nothing, dear. It's just the custom of the family. It's part of the Yoruba beliefs," my father would try to explain. Because of this issue, a beef ensued between my mother and my grandparents. They were of the opinion that she turned my father away from the family tradition to her way and not only that, she was also trying to separate him completely from his duty and responsibility.Mother had to give up in convincing dad to step out of the family rituals just for peace to reign.

When my father got the opportunity to take us to America, my mother gained back her peace. She knew we would no longer be hanging around my grandparents' house. We would be free from them. But here we were, having supper, when grandpa's call came in, reminding us of what we left behind at home. 

I remembered quite a lot about this Egungun Festival. Grandpa was always the one to orchestrate the masquerade that would be coming out of the family clan.Back at the village, he had a room which was out of bounds to all of us because he considered it to be sacred.That was where the whole rituals and preparations for the festival always took place. Kunle and I did not know how someone got into the room, but all we could make out was that every Egungun Festival, the masquerade always emmerged from that room. Clad in brown ensembles with his face concealed under a mask, the masquerade, accomplished by his acolytes, would howled and swayed from side to side while they sang his praises.He would then be led to the Odan tree where prayers and supplications would be made.

" May this year Egungun Festival favour us," grandpa would say.

" Amen!" The crowd would reply.

" Let evil depart from us."

" Amen!"

" May pregnant women deliver safely!"

"Amen!"

" May barren womb conceive!"

"Amen!"

After the litany, what usually followed was the women getting into formations to perform the traditional dance by moving and swaying their hips to the beat from the bata drums. My grandmother was a terrific dancer. Even at old age, she knew how to grace the dance floor. The bata dancers would show some acrobatic dance steps by mounting one another, wavering in the air, balancing their legs on another's heads and vigorously moving their bodies. The impressed crowd would hailed them. Afterwards, the followers of the Egungun, equiped with whips and cane made out of the Odan branches, would start lashing at one another, stoic and indifferent. When things got really messy, they would wield their matchets at the others. As the weapon sliced through their skins, blood would oozle out and the people would scream for joy. The procession of the bata dancers, the Egungun and his acolytes, the drummers, women and men of the clan, and children would then moved across the street only to be joined by urchins and on-lookers afterwards. Grandpa who was very old and frail would walk back to his chamber. I, my brother and my grandma usually followed the procession from a safe distance.I looked so much like my grandmother and she usually teased me that I would become The Yeyeluwa of the clan if she was gone. We would move from street to street, path to path and road to road paying homage to the important figures in the village. At times, we would be met with masquerades from the other clans. Pandemonium would ensue and there would be more lashings and much chaos.As regards the origin of The Egungun Festival, my grandparents believed that Egunguns were messengers from heavens.

" They are the conduits that channel the blessings of heavens to the inhabitants of the earth. They are from the above. They connect we, the living, to our dead ancestors in heavens," my grandparents would explain. These Egunguns were the ones my mother saw as the demons of hell released to confuse the inhabitants of the earth, the unclean creatures.

" Egunguns are just part of the Yoruba culture. They are specifically there to pay homage to kings and chiefs. There is nothing spiritual about that." My father had a contrary opinion.

"I have seen an egungun from the clan of Ajiroba remove his mask just to drown a bottle of whiskey." A boy who was my agemate had once said to me. " He became drunk and fell inside the gutter. The whole clan was put to shame." That made me believe that Egunguns were just humans like us under the disguise of a masked face and complicated costumes. My brother who was an avid reader had an opinion fairly related to mine. He always made sense of whatever was happening around him to the western world.

" Just like Halloween in America, The Egungun Festival is no different," he would say.My eyes would twinkled, my attention fully focused on him. My brother who derieved pleasure in showing off his intellect would make use of the opportunity to reel off more fact to me.

" Just like we have Santa Claus," he would say while I kept nodding my head in agreement, " we also have Egunguns. Really, what's the difference?" He would shrugged. " Except that Egungun never gives out gifts. He would rather collect from others. Very stingy thing." We would both laugh.

" Do you know Pennywise from IT?" He asked. 

" What IT?" I said.

" The novel by Stephen King."

" We have seen the movie."

"Yes, Doesn't the Egungun our grandparents worship have something in common with it?" He said. " One day, I will unmask it!" He added.