When it comes to characters, D.O. Fagunwa did not impose any limitation; he allowed his imagination to run riot. This was what made his books fascinating.
The title of the first chapter of Ireke Onibudo was “Pipade Awon Abami Eda”, translated “An Encounter with Strange, Unusual and Extraordinary Beings”. He opted for “Eda” (being, creation, creature) instead of “enia”, which is very narrow in meaning and refers to human beings. A student of Yoruba language would know straight away that the characters in this chapter won’t all look like the next door neighbour.
In the first chapter, there was a boy on the way to the farmstead during the school holidays with his sister, Mary. However, the river had overflowed, so, he sent his sister back to town but he swam across to the other side of the river. As he continued his journey on foot, he noticed a strange man ahead of him. The first unusual thing about the man was his height. He was so short that he only reached the hips of the boy who himself was short. At the time the boy noticed him, the strange man was ahead of him. Before he knew it, the man ahead disappeared only to reappear behind him.
As if that was not enough, the face of the unusual man was more surprising. There was only one eye on his forehead. The eye was like a small mirror that young ladies put in their purse. To cap it all, the strange being was exercising influence on the boy’s vocal chords and his somatic nervous system, preventing him from being able to shout for help or run away.
The image in this post is that of another Fagunwa character: Arogidigba, the queen of the all the fishes in the sea. Ireke Onibudo, the main character, was travelling by boat when a storm overturned it. As he tried to survive by clinging to the boat, he was captured and taken right down to the sea bed into the kingdom of the fishes. Ireke Onibudo described his captor as a man but once again, a very unusual one: he wore an apron to cover his modesty, had no hair, his nails were very long, his eyes were several times bigger than that of humans and was shaped like the moon; his teeth were like that of a lion, he had hair in his nose and he had a tail that looked like the tail fin of a fish.
It turned out the queen of the fishes, Arogidigba, was looking for human meat to celebrate a festival, the very reason Ireke Onibudo was captured. On the first look, the queen of the fishes did not look like a fish at all. Instead, it was the visage of a young lady, with a nice hairdo (hairdo always matter!). When Arogidigba rose up, her tail fin became visible to all. Arogidigba’s mother had more tricks: she had some pots in her house and once she enters a particular one, a big snake comes out.
The animal characters in Fagunwa’s books are also fascinating ones. For example, there was “Ewure Iberu” (the fearesome goat), with a very substantial beard who made his residence in hell with the devil himself. Also of note was Ologbo Ijakadi ( the wrestling cat) who was so full of mischief that he was eventually caught in a web of his own making.
The last character I want to mention in Ireke Onibudo is Itanforiti, a man (can we actually call him that?) who lived in a hole in the ground. Itanforiti was the epitome of wisdom, despite dwelling in a hole in the ground. He had the head of a human but the feet of a cow. Furthermore, he was also the most powerful man (in terms of the supernatural) in the world. To reach his dwelling, Ireke Onibudo had to travel through a couple of unusual towns one of which was a town of men only. When it wass time for a man to marry in that town, a custom made woman from heaven had to be sourced. Surprise, Surprise, the next town was a town of women only. On a more serious note, Fagunwa used these two towns to illustrate the complimentary role of men and women in human society.
And what about the trees in Fagunwa’s book? They were full of surprises. Ireke Onibudo described a few trees that were white in colour and free to walk around! As he passed through a forest called “Aginju Mimo” (Holy Wilderness), Ireke Onibudo described trees that were planted in one day and on the the same day grew and brought forth “fruits”; those fruits included snakes, scorpions, lions, and a human being. As we say in Yoruba, Irohin Kayefi! (astounding stories).
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