THE STORY OF OLD MAXWELL OF UMUEGWU Written by KEMKA S. IBEJI

Slightly aged, he was so reticent and taciturn. He preferred to live in solitude. Scarcely looked up to see your face and overtly disinterested in what your duties and games were all about. He would seem to be unperturbed and very unconcerned about goings on in the community and his environment.

We saw him walk down the seaside always with all solemnity and all reverence of calmness, he rarely looked at any faces. The particular wonder was his especial abandonment of all entreaties, pleasantries and cheers. As if he was already telling you to keep your greetings to yourselves; he never responded to any greetings. No matter how loud you greeted, old Maxwell never responded. Not even in the softest nod or wink. Never!

I am very sure that many carefree young people will pass him for a deaf or dumb or both. Yes, and they would have allowed him go without bothering why he never responded to their greetings. Surely, they would have taken him for someone impaired in natural speech or some old fellow whose experiences have affected his sense of sound both in perception or reception and feedback.

It was insolent never responding to greetings. It doesn't really matter how old you are, it is culturally obligatory to send your reply to greetings. Even a hundred year old is under traditional or cultural obligation to "answer greetings". If anyone greets you, it's just mandatory to receive the salutation and with an appreciation. A thousand year old owes a few months old stutter that valued response.

That man kept walking past us with all chilling silence each time we went to fetch water from either iyi Umuhu or iyi Ezikpi. He was usually unperturbed to disregard us and characteristically unconcerned about our greetings. Of course, it was so dishonorable and sore unacceptable for a young person to pass an elder on a path or road without greeting him or her. Though unwritten, it was like a customary law guiding actions in the local communities in Igbo land and especially in Mbaise nation where old Maxwell was born and lived. You will be known as rude and very disrespectful if you usually come across an elder without greeting him or her. You will be seen as one lacking in home training and has no good upbringing. Naturally, the first insult goes to your parents for not training you well.

In like manner, an elder who refuses greetings is seen as a bad and wicked elder. He or she also invites disrespect for ignoring greetings. Of course, over time, people will begin to greet such elder with silence and no notice. I wondered if he was a member of any of our communities. I reflected he would either be one of the old and tired men who returned from Equatorial Guinea or Fernando Pó as it was then called. Yes, those men were usually lost on our culture. Stories had it that they, in Fernando Pó, had so much merry in boisterous parties and clubs with plethora of women that they forget about home. Usually for every Igbo man or woman, you think homeland each hour of your life wherever you find yourself living. But these Fernando Pó tourists or greener pastures seekers were said to have lost touch of the traditional culture of their home communities because of their excessive indulgence in unguarded degree of pleasure. At retirement, and when at last they remember homeland, they returned with either nothing or with worthless pieces of iron and the likes. They always believed that the home fronts remained stagnant while they forayed in those strange lands. Unfortunately!

I honestly took old Maxwell as one of those confused and badly lived returnees who most of the time suffered some level of memory cases in divergent degrees. We had many of them back in the days of our infant and early childhood. But I don't think old Maxwell held any record as one of the men from Malabo in Equatorial Guinea or Fernando Pó. He was not, at least, to my knowledge.

At some other time, I had thought of old Maxwell as one old folk who was mean, vile, vicious and wicked. Indeed, as little children we believed that any elder who doesn't respond to greetings was evil and wicked. Don't blame us, it was cultural to hold such mindset. Most times we had to greet many times and even shout those greetings louder in case he wasn't hearing. Yet he never gave a hoot. Yes, a few of us imagined he suffered difficulty in hearing and so we put more efforts to ensure he heard us but none of such exerted efforts yielded the expected results. He ignored us!

We left him to God and moved on with our little lives as little children.

Comic though, one day stories frittered in; old Maxwell could talk. It all happened that he was incidentally a palm tree climber. Many of us who came from the mainland to the riverine Amakam, Umuhu, Ezikpi and Umuevule didn't know about this, that old Maxwell was a palm tree climber - onye nkwu or oji ete eri. If only we knew, we would also have wondered how he managed to communicate with his service employers. We would be trying to understand how he bargained his prices and how he was able to comprehend the descriptions with which he located the palm trees and the several farms where they were. But we also heard that he never exchanged that skill for any money or any other value from anybody. We heard he did it just for himself and on his farm and palm trees alone. He also never married and didn't have any children. He was a lone man or some form of an islander. He lived in his world alone, by himself alone and with himself alone.

According to the story, on one day on his personal or self business or trade escapade, he went climbing to fetch palm fruits for his cooking oil, it was a day of misadventure for him. Old Maxwell's skill failed him on that fateful day and he lost steps on the palm tree and his grip slipped off the hold on the climbing rope; old Maxwell fell down from the tall palm tree. He was, as usual, alone without any wife and no child in his company. He never talked to anyone and never responded to greetings from kinsmen and women. 

Fortunately for old Maxwell, he was also left with some consciousness as he rolled down the tall palm tree though he lost some responses to stimulus, he was unable to move his body due to injuries sustained in the accident. He tried and tried to help himself but all his efforts were null and unproductive. Old Maxwell saw his own death with his bare eyes in a broad day light but he was eager to live. He didn't want to die. He tried many more times to help himself and to lift his bulk and walk again but to no avail. Old Maxwell bursted out into shouts with a loud voice calling his village and kinsmen - Umuegwu leeeee, Maxwell anwudaala nu eeeeee! He kept shouting on end and exclaiming this tune as if never to end and as though all his life depended on it. Very true, his life solely depended on it. He shouted to his people of Umuegwu which was a kindred in Umuhu village in the then unified Eziudo 1 autonomous community but now Egberemiri autonomous community, informing them that Maxwell is dying. 

On hearing the thundering shouts from the helpless old Maxwell, edi and ufu ran out and from all corners of the village to help old Maxwell and to save his life. He was horridly taken to the native bone doctors who corrected his bone's dislocations and gave him medications that helped the healing of the fractured bones.

Old Maxwell eventually got back healthy after that tortuous season or regime of suffering. He spoke for that ever wanting once and he was not rejected by his kinsmen and women. They offered him help in many ways from that day of his helplessness till the day he could, nice again, help himself.

What did he owe the people of Egberemiri Eziudo? What did he owe the culture and tradition of the Eziudo, Mbaise, ala Imo and Igbo land?

To be continued...