The Village Where The Dead Come Back To Life
One bright Sunday afternoon after Church, Chida was planning to have her favorite traditional meal, achu. In the village of Wen there is a saying: “achu taste best the next day.” Chida had spent the entire day looking forward to this moment. Right before the priest could close Sunday mass, Chida quietly began leaving her seat and headed for the exit. She broke through the maple wood doors and ran down the hill through the graveyard, creating a dusty smoke against the dry red soil beneath her feet. When she got home, she quickly placed her bible on the firewood outside and headed straight for the kitchen. She was so close to achieving the one mission she had had all day. First she peeled the pounded cocoa yams from the wrapped plantain leaves covering and proceeded to create a circular motion to form a hole in the middle. Once she had perfected the closed two dimensional shaped curve, she poured in yellow soup. With no care for her Sunday dress, Chida sat down by the firewood where she placed her bible, washed her hands and took her first bite. She hurried for the next scoop of food, and as it reached her mouth, Chida passed out and died.
The villagers questioned what happened to Chida. Some say she was cursed; the Christian folks said God punished her for being distracted during mass. No one knows what led to her death, but what scared the villagers most was what happened after she was buried. Two weeks after her passing, Anthony, the graveyard caretaker, noticed there were footsteps leading from her grave every morning. He didn’t think much of it until Chida’s mom started telling stories of seeing her daughter at night. Every late evening, Chida rose from her grave, Chida’s mom claimed. She headed down the dusty hills to her home, sat by the firewood where she died and proceeded to have the same meal.
As a kid, I heard many stories like Chida’s in the village of Wen where the dead come back to life. There is an even more famous story of a well renowned baptist pastor who passed away. The whole village was devastated by his loss. Even neighboring tribes mourned his passing. His funeral even brought together tribes who had long hated each other. When the time came for everyone to observe his corpse, the pastor rose from his coffin. The whole village was in shock. The village chief had to release the spiritual juju to dance through town and cleanse the energy before the villagers felt safe enough to continue life as usual. I’ve always been curious if these stories were true, if the village was cursed and if so what was bringing the dead back to life. Neighboring villages did not have such tails. Little did I know, I was about to find out.
After many years of renting, my parents were finally able to afford a house. My mother had inherited land in the village of Wen from her father, and now they had the opportunity to build a house. That meant we had to leave the city and move 15 miles into a remote area. I was excited about the prospect because I could have my own room and we could have a dog and raise farm animals. I should’ve been worried when my parents had to get the land blessed and cleansed by a priest. During the build, construction workers kept running into skeletons. We were using a combination of soil from the grounds and manufactured cement. As they dug, they found skulls and bones, both from humans and animals. It would take a couple of months into construction until we learned that the land was a former graveyard. It was home, so we pushed through.
Week one in the new home in Wen was exciting! The lights were not installed, so we spent evenings with candles. For entertainment, we used pencils to carve out our shadows on pieces of cardboard boxes left over from construction. Sometimes, as we drew shadows of each other, we noticed other shadows in the room. We blamed it on the construction equipment; exposed pipes and electric cables that were still hanging from corners of the room. And when we heard noises, we blamed the new animals we had just purchased for the farm.
Two months in the new home, we had many incidents that seemed abnormal. At night we heard our dog, bojong, barking aggressively. Then we heard some chatter from outside the house but no one was ever there. One night all the animals were very restless and bojong was barking loud. We could hear someone murmuring from outside. That proceeded with loud bangs at the door, followed by a voice yelling in pigeon English, “wunna let me in!” I peeked through the blinds to see who was there but there was no one. The only way to find out was to open the door and do a search outside. My cousins who were staying with us lined up in a straight line like a brigade and creeped slowly towards the door. I slowly opened the door, peeking to see if I could see any sign of who it might possibly be. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear a voice. I felt someone grab my leg. I immediately jumped up and crashed into my cousins and then heard from a distance “it’s Ngufor the drunk.” Seems the village drunk, Ngufor, had gotten wasted and mistakenly arrived at our house thinking it was his.
My parents were Christians and never spoke much of the incidents in Wen as much as other villagers. After the Ngufor scare, I had to know the genesis of the strange happenings in Wen. Luckily, my grandmother and her sister were visiting us that weekend and they could tell me about the village founder Mispa and her curse on the village.
The story goes — The village of Wen was once settled on a mountainous area in the far northwest province of Cameroon. The stony soil made it hard for agriculture and long term life for the Wen people. Every summer, they would send a group of explorers to go down the mountain and discover potential new land fertile enough for the village to resettle. Many summers and years passed and no one found good land. For many summers the people of Wen suffered and lived on minimal resources.
Until one day, Mispa decided to go adventuring for food for her family. Instead of going south, as most explorers had done, she went north. Many weeks passed and her family assumed she had died. A month later, Mispa returned to the village with good news — she had discovered a valley with rich soil for crops and water. The villagers did not believe her. She was the woman who bested all of the best men in Wen. So the leaders, deceivingly acting in good faith, asked her to show them this found land. Excited to be recognized by the village and proud that her people could now live a rich life, Mispa led them to the valley. Once the men had seen enough, they surrounded her and killed her.
The men returned to the village and said Mispa had lied about her discovery, and while on their way back they discovered this new valley. The new valley was what Mispa had led them to. When Mispas blood hit the soil, it cursed it with misfortune and unrest for the dead. The ground where she was murdered grew great baobab-like trees whose leaves never change color or drop as the season changed.
Mispa’s curse on the village of Wen continues till this day. No one knows what might end it, but the villagers now make amends for the deeds of their ancestors. When they walk by the baobab trees where she was murdered, they go into complete silence. A pin dropped couldn’t even be heard within a mile. They hold the trees in high regard, some even worship it, hoping Mispa will forgive them and let the spirits of their loved ones rest.
