There was a certain blind man who lived in a rural village among his relatives — the ‘umu-onye-alushi’, translated as ‘descendants of the one who stays away from fights’. This was a friendly name at a time when family feuds and tribal warfare were the order of the day, but a name that would pay a price in the form of a difficult dilemma.
The blind man had been suspicious and negative for as long as anyone could remember, and he wasn’t about to give it up. Not wanting to provoke a fight, his relatives did their best to please and pacify him.
Relatives are close or extended family members, usually born in the same age group. Then, and even now to some degree, they traveled far and wide, often barefoot, to represent their people in marriages, entertainment, and cultural ceremonies.
Satisfied hosts often gave gifts in the form of chickens, goats, and sheep, which relatives shared upon returning home.
‘Take this goat,’ a cheerful father, whose daughter had just become engaged, told the family. Share it among yourselves.
On its return home, the goat was slaughtered and thirty-five equal portions of its meat were placed on a wooden sacrificial slab behind a thatched-roof mud house. Members lined up to collect their shares, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest. A flock of houseflies hovered over the meat, and two dogs, one wild and the other domestic, ran close by with some expectation.
When it was the blind man’s turn to take out a portion, he massaged, squeezed, sniffed, and weighed each and every one of the remaining portions with both palms. With every twist and turn, he wondered if there was a plot to steal his rightful share.
Still not satisfied with his scrutiny, he muttered, “If I had sight, I wouldn’t have been a fool among my kin.”
‘Well,’ said his relatives, eager to please him, ‘next time we’ll ask his friend to choose for him.’ There is no way they can see the result of his new effort to please the blind.
The answer they sought, though hidden from them, was already recorded in the Book of Life, as are all present encounters. But it was not revealed to them in case they cowered in fear.
Kinship can let the skeptic resolve his suspicions in time, confront him every step of the way, or try to locate him forever.
Appeasement, whether for the sane or the mad, the weak or the brave, the capable or the disabled, only produces more turbulence.
One day before the relatives’ yam festival ended, the relatives were invited to entertain a rich king. They danced so well that the king got excited and rewarded them.
‘Take these goats, thirty-four in all, and give one to each member of your kin,’ said the generous king.
When they got home, the relatives agreed: ‘Let us first choose the best goat for our dear brother who cannot see, because his heart will rejoice.’ And they do it like that.
As soon as the goat was handed over to the skeptic, he began to wonder profusely. Images of cows appeared in his mind. New thoughts began to form in his brain.
‘If my relatives gave me a whole goat,’ he mused, scratching his hair with the five fingers of his left hand, ‘they must have gotten something bigger, a cow each, perhaps.’ She moaned and sighed, and the goat, tied to a neck rope tied to the barn wood, joined her. Furious rage furrowed his blind man’s face. Blood stains appeared on the white part of his right eyeball.
This story raises a number of questions. How far must one person go to place another? How does one deal with what he has in relation to what others have? How does one judge oneself after glimpsing others?
Postscript
My father told this fable to my brother, who related it to me. I’m not sure if Dad heard this from my grandfather. Mine is a surrender. The fable is in no way intended to belittle the truly physically blind.