There was a man and his name was Agorie. He was quite lazy and while his mates were labouring on the farm to make food, he preferred to sit in his obi and play at his harp and drums and sing, for you see Agorie was quite a jolly man who wanted nothing but enjoyment.
One afternoon his wife walked into the obi while Agorie was beating his drums and applying his snuff.
“Agorie,” his wife Mbaji cried. “Your children are hungry and yet you sit here playing your drums.”
“What is the world about if not for enjoyment?” Agorie said.
And so Mbaji chased him away with a cutlass and they ran and ran and then he came upon a palm tree and he climbed it to escape Mbaji.
And because the palm tree was quite tall, Agorie kept climbing and climbing and soon he forgot why he was climbing.
The palm tree ached into the sky and he kept climbing and climbing. He was curious to know what resided at the top of the palm tree.
And soon, he passed the sky, passed the providence of mankind and finally, he came into the land of the spirits just where the leaves of the palm tree branched.
He came upon a bunch of spirits playing I’tche. They stopped in their tracks on seeing him and Agorie, scared to his bones, offered the spirits snuff as appeasement. They applied it to their nostrils and were pleased with it.
They jumped about and in return, they offered water from their bowl.
He drank and he shrieked in joy, “But this is not water!” and since he found no word to describe the silky, milky taste of palm wine, he danced. “What is this?” he asked.
“Juice from the tree,” one the spirit said and they told him all the secrets about palm wine and how the best time to get it, early in the morning just before the sun-induced capillary action.
And one of them asked him, “Who are you?”
“I am Agorie,” he replied. “From Ifite ani.”
And they shivered amongst themselves because the spirits were not supposed to reveal the secrets of palm wine to men.
And so they plotted amongst themselves, one said, “We have to kill the human man.”
“But how do we do it?” another asked.
“We shall give him too many to drink and then when he is drunk enough and not strong, we shall slay him.”
And so the spirits took him into their house and fed him Nchi and made him drink palm wine upon palm wine.
And to make sure he was drunk enough, they always asked, “Agorie, Agorie, do you feel your legs?”
“Yes,” he would reply and they would give him more and more to drink.
But Agorie was no fool, when he could no longer feel the little finger on his right hand, he began pouring the drink on the floor.
Finally they asked him one last time, “Can you feel your legs?”
“I cannot,” Agorie answered.
“Aha,” one the spirits said. “Now we shall kill you and no man shall discover the secrets of palm wine.”
“I have just one final request,” Agorie pleaded.
“We shall grant you no request,” the spirits chided.
“Just one request,” the man pleaded. “One last request from a man who shall soon be killed.”
“and what may that be?” They said.
“I want to urinate,” the man said. “Let it be the last thing I do.”
So the spirits confided amongst themselves and thought, “What shall it profit anyone if we denied this man his request.”
And since he pretended not to be able to stand, the spirits took him outside to grant the last absurd request of his.
When the spirits granted him privacy to do his business, Agorie took off and ran to the tree and hurriedly began to climb down.
The spirits knew they had to act quick because if Agorie set his foot on the soil then they had no effects on humankind and he would spill the secrets of the palm wine.
And so they flew down to the base of the tree where Mbaji still waited with her machete still beside her.
“Cut down the tree,” they told her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Cut the tree, lest you unleash the curses of Chukwu,” they lied.
“But what about my husband?” Mbaji asked.
“He is doing well,” they lied. “He sends his regards from the land of the spirits.”
“When is coming back?” she asked.
“He is never coming back, he has chosen to stay amongst the spirits,” they claimed.
And the spirits amplified the sound of Agorie climbing down the tree and claimed it was the Chukwu’s curses coming down the tree and so Mbaji took up her cutlass and began cutting at the stem of the palm tree.
Agorie saw his wife cutting the tree. He screamed but he was too far up and she couldn’t hear him.
Mbaji chopped the tree more and more and Agorie held the stem of the tree tightly and with one last chop and the great palm tree was felled.
Agori held on tight to the branch as the tree fell and fell.
But Agorie’s chi was on his side and his chi blew and blew the wind so that finally the tree fell just across the great Oshimilli.
At first, Agorie could not believe his luck. He climbed onto the tree and walked across the river as one would walk across a bridge.
The people around gathered as they could not understand how a man fell from the sky.
Agorie was too impatient to tell the secret he uncovered in the land of the spirits.
“I have a wonderful thing to tell,” he began. “It is water from the jute of the palm tree. The spirits themselves drink it. It is as sweet as a nursing mother’s milk and smoother on the throat than water. But be careful you don’t drink too much, lest you won’t feel your legs.”
