ALOBE - Festival of Kukuú (Cocoyam) and Otsor (Native Beans)

By Modlin Odu 

By and by, the people of Udé and Buebushwo had gotten their respective place of settlement and were now generally known and called "erué" with other communities birthed by either of them. They were struck by a great famine, one that tales told by moonlight in Erue today refer to as, the greatest famine of all times. To complement Otsór,(native beans), an extremely rare food which takes a much longer time to prepare is, a strange specie of cocoyam which grows like weed and is common in surrounding bushes. The cocoyam is called "Kukuú oni korùn". The myth around this kukuù is that to get it cooked alongside Otsor so as to be enough for everyone, the women cry when they put them in their cooking pot to cook on fire, the more the tears and emotions shown, the softer the strange food gets and so, despite the illnesses and deaths recorded from eating the meal, the women continued to feed their husbands and children with it. The strong ones survived and the not too strong ones, died. Tears became a step in the preparation of Kukuú Oni Korùn, a meal eaten due to starvation. It went on and on, male children grew malnurished and the already grown ones lost their masculinity, they lost the will and strength for amorous exploits. The voluptuous maidens grew unattractive like the woman in terracotta sculptures. Life seemed bleak, the people of "erué" started living in uncertainty of what the next dawn holds, they became accustomed to women's tears for loss of children. Death became a routine. They had abandoned "Olom Bolo", the deity that witnessed the injustice and betrayal they suffered from Nsadop, many have created their personal gods, it was a little more like, every man for himself and his conscience because the rain of affliction drenched every home.

SEE ALSO: [History] Gizard - The ERUE Migration

One day, a woman from Buetié wandered into the bush in search of Kukuú Oni korùn. As she went deep into the bush, uprooting the regular day's meal of torment, she stumbled upon a different specie of Kukuú, gathered it differently from the regular poisonous Kukuú. In the evening when women were getting ready to cook the  meal that requires tears,  she called her neighbour Alo and showed her the strange specie of Kukuú. That evening, they both cooked Kukuú Oni korùn, gave the children to eat but didn't partake in the supper so as to test-run the effect of the coming meal, they instructed their children to sleep much earlier than usual not to mistakenly participate in what looks like a last supper for the women. . Whatever this strange food is, they will find out and if any calamity worst than what they're experiencing will befall them, let the children and their husbands be safe at least, from this particular one. She and her neighbour Alo, began to cook the Kukuú the usual way as they did Kukuú Oni korùn and Otsor. Starvation and sleep connived to overwhelm them, they decided to inspect the outcome of their experiment almost closed to midnight. Shockingly, they discovered the food had been overcooked even without tears. Scared but resolute to see to the end of what looks like a new beginning or a tragic end, they went on to eat it and wait for the worst as they retired to their various homes to sleep after waiting up for the first signs of whatever is to come.

Worried not to have invited calamity upon her community, she slept a little and at the first sign of dawn, she woke up terrified, looked around to be sure she is not immortal, touched herself severally, recognised her environment and abruptly got up and dashed out of the door to call on her neighbour. She called out from lips shivering with joy and bewilderment "Alo naa, eri bèn?, she waited for a response and repeated the call again. Obviously, Alo was still sleeping and the third time she called and heard a response "erh, eriben" from an uncontrollably  excited Alo who appear to be shocked at her own breathe and sound health. That was how the women greeted themselves and broke into an ear deafening jubilation at their generation saving discovery. It is a festival of hope and of life,  it is a festival of plenty and every woman and their children went about the bush in search of more cocoyams and gathered so much of it, the news spread round and got to Buebusho and they also went out to search for Kukuú. Half pieces remaining in the soil blossomed into better and bigger ones till date. Erue started celebrating "Eri'ben" as a better celebration than the Otsè Ekwé (gizard) they celebrated in Nsadop. This to them is synonymous with the biblical manna from heaven, it doesn't require any secrecy, cult or sacrifice to celebrate. However, Udé celebrates Alobé festival before Buebushwo because they discovered it first. The Buetie woman, Eyayo Njo Obi is the heroine of this festival.

Today, the food(Otsor né Kukuú) in preparation for the festival is done at night, on the eve of the festival emphatically, as a remembrance of what took place generations ago. Regrettably, while Traditional mischief makers have attempt and are still attempting to turn the festival to something mysterious and deadly,  some Christian religious fanatics have attached idolatry and other unclean spiritual practices to it and contemporary generation of Erue young men and women see it as a festival of sexual immorality. These sentiments should not be allowed to replace this beautiful historic event else, in less than no time, we may not have tales to tell our children and to what honour will it be that, we completely accept foreign traditions beautifully imposed directly or indirectly on us and ours go into extinction?  Cocoyam in erue, as in other tribes is seen as women's crop and it actually yields better when cultivated by them. This is factual.

Modlin Odu's Fiction from Facts on Alobé Festival.