Ancestral Testimony VIII

These rivers of blood
Do not stop for anyone
Not even if asked

We made sacrifice at the river,
The head of a crocodile,
Ten scales duly balanced,
Nine pigeons in a row,
Still you would not answer me
When I called to you
And asked the wars to stop

No one told me the gods were dead
Floating and bloated on the river of life
Waiting for their bodies to reach the ocean
And drift to the floor

No one told me that we would die like this
Hands pressed together
Having forsaken the power of them-

-Ndidem (ancestral author)

Priesthood is something familiar to my bloodline. Embodiment. Vesseldom and self-sacrifice, them also. Even when the gods changed, the carving out of space remained the same. We are wood, are we not? If not clay-

But oh, do I wish we had stayed closer to the old gods, tried and true. These newfangled beings know too much stuff, and hoard and give little in return. [The old gods] would hollow themselves in us, owl-like. They loved us. They did. Didn’t they? They let us live.

By comparison, these new gods do not.

We are starving ourselves for ideals and notions that cease to be real when we die. None of that matters up here, in the highest branches of the only tree that matters. When you are feather-light enough to drift upwards, then you will know. Then you will remember. ANd for a moment you will weep, for all the time that has been lost.

But perhaps now that you know this, you shall regain it. You have regained it. And all is well.

I am grateful to the ancestor who relayed this to me, because I had not been privy to details about the family politics associated with adopting Christianity - only that at some point, things had been lost as a result of that choice, and akanga (oath taken before a god prior to birth) forgotten. Or knowledge thereof aggressively suppressed. This, too, is a form of spiritual death. How many times have we died?

Countless, they say.

Too many ways to name.