he changing fortunes of pythons of Idemmili (eke Idemmili)

There was no way of ever forgetting that day. I just woke up on the first day of my first summer holiday at Nnobi without my parents. I walked onto the veranda of our house and stretched my little seven-year-old body. With hands in the air and body twisted like an athlete about to throw a javelin, I let out a loud and wide yawn that neighbors heard in their farms and palm wine tappers on top of palm trees. Amidst the yawn, I saw my grandmother walking across our compound from her kitchen area towards the iron gate at the entrance. Held high in her right hand was a giant python twice my height. She had the giant python by the tail and its body wringing around and its head dangling in the air. My face froze with the unfinished yawn firmly plastered on it. My grandmother opened the small gate, walked up, and threw the python out into the cocoyam farm beside the road. She turned around and walked back into the compound as if nothing had happened. It was more dramatic than anything I had seen in an Indian movie then.

That was my introduction to the lives and mysteries of eke Idemmili, the python of Idemmili. In a matter-of-fact lecture my grandmother delivered, l quickly learned that these pythons are massagers of the Gods of Idemmili, and nobody must cause them any harm. Whether intentionally or by accident, any person who killed one would give it…