The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories Read Free

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    Now, inside the sack, he waited, expecting his father to drag the three sacks into the grave.
    After about an hour, the witch doctor and his servants came in the darkness to the grave. His servants then carried the sacks to his house, and he followed them with a lamp in his hand. His servants had hardly put the three sacks down in front of his gods in the shrine before he took out his dagger and started to open the first sack, hoping to bring a ram out of it and then kill it.
    He and his servants were greatly shocked when they saw the sand in the first sack, and then in the second sack as well. And he had hardly opened the third sack when Ajaiyi jumped out suddenly with his long machete. He raised the machete above his head.
    ‘What? Ajaiyi! You were in the sack,’ the witch doctor screamed as he and his servants defended their heads and faces with their hands.
    Ajaiyi, scowling, stood firmly before the witch doctor, with the machete upraised, and said quietly, ‘Hun-un! my rams, because of which I have pawned myself to the third pawnbroker, and you – my dead father –’
    ‘Oh, Ajaiyi,’ the witch doctor said, ‘let me confess to you now. It was not your dead father who took all your rams, but I was the one who took them from the grave.’
    ‘But I believe you are my dead father,’ Ajaiyi shouted, threatening with his machete. ‘Therefore you are to set me free of my poverty this midnight!’
    The frightened witch doctor cleared his throat, and then insisted, ‘Not at all! I am not your dead father. Therefore I have not the power to set you free from poverty!’
    Ajaiyi, as if he had not heard, snatched the witch doctor’s right hand suddenly and asked loudly, ‘Tell me the truth! Will you set me free from my poverty this midnight or not?’
    The witch doctor cried out in fear, closing his eyes tightly, ‘Ajaiyi, you look at me with angry eyes that frighten me even more than your long machete. Please look at me with cheerful eyes!’
    ‘I shall never look at you with cheerful eyes because one should look at a bad thing with bad eyes,’ Ajaiyi shouted. ‘A corpse is not looked at with cheerful eyes! You know that!’
    ‘But I am not dead or a corpse!’ the witch doctor cried, soaked with the sweat of fear.
    ‘Ah, you cannot say whether my machete will turn you into a corpse this midnight!’ Ajaiyi answered. ‘Just tell me the truth! Will you set me free of my poverty this midnight?’
    ‘No! Only your dead father has the power to set you free from your poverty,’ the witch doctor said, opening hiseyes just as all his servants rushed against Ajaiyi suddenly. Now a fight started as the witch doctor and his servants tried to wrestle the machete from Ajaiyi’s hand. After a few minutes’ struggle all over the shrine, Ajaiyi overpowered them, striking them mercilessly with his machete.
    Now Ajaiyi again grasped the right hand of the witch doctor, and began to drag him here and there in the shrine. When he began to shout for help, Ajaiyi closed his mouth with the flat part of the machete. All the servants kept quiet and stretched up their hands in fear. ‘Surely,’ Ajaiyi said, ‘you are my dead father who will set me free from my poverty this midnight. You are joking by telling me you are not a dead man!’
    ‘Joking? Joking on the point of death like this? Not at all!’
    Ajaiyi swung his machete as if to cut off the witch doctor’s head. ‘Whether you are a dead man or not, show me where you keep your money!’
    Willingly or not, the trembling witch doctor walked to the place in front of the gods where he had buried the two large water pots of money which he stole from the bush years ago, after he and Ajaiyi’s grandfather buried them under the Iroko tree. The money belonged to Ajaiyi’s grandfather.
    As soon as the witch doctor pointed out the spot where he buried the two pitchers, Ajaiyu dug them out and swiftly carried them to his house that midnight.
    When he and his wife counted the