Hey my good people🖐️
Hope you're all good?
I'd be taking you all on a tour and you're going to enjoy it. Please fasten your seatbelt.
Okay, before I start, have you ever seen the source of any river or ocean? You haven't, right?
I grew up in a rural area in calm Community in Delta State of Nigeria, we are beautifully endowed with natural bush(is there even an artificial bush? Lol), oil and rivers.
At the back of the street of my house has this wide flow of river, and our parents never allowed us to swim there because of some dangerous occurances. Although, it was a preventive measures to them because this river often times swallow children.
How do I mean by swallow? Yeah, we came to understand that the river has a spiritual back up and when the spirits are hungry, they come out and take anybody to their kingdom to please themselves. Isn't that weird?
So with those beliefs, they always caution us on the danger of the river. They only give a warrant to go to the river when we are being accompanied by an elderly or more matured person....we were very tender then.
Hey! If you grew up in the rural areas, you'd understand those bravery acts displayed. If your mates are doing something and you are not among, they'll make you look like a coward. I want to be among the brave, I and some other children in my compound Started sneaking out to river to swim. If our parents find out, that day will be a sorrowful day for us because of merciless beating. And the funny thing is that, after the beating we'll still find ourselves disobeying the strong warning against river.
As of then, there's no three months without the river taking either two or three children. When it becomes so rampant, the community would go and appease the gods of the river with some foods and materials.
This brings us to the source of this water, where the sacrifices are made.
For my Nigerian People, you must have heard about the river Ethiope, the deepest river in Africa. The source is located at a neighbouring Community called UMUAJA in Ukwuani Local Government in Delta State.
The source is from a big iroko tree, the water runs out from a shallow depth of the tree.
From vanguardngr.com;
The main lure of River Ethiope is the uniqueness of its source and the secrecy the river is said to possess. Considered as a sacred location, the river sprouts out from four different locations with two of these locations directly underneath the tree, while the other two from around the tree.Owing to the spiritual affiliation attached, some areas of the groove surrounding the river source are restricted to visitors with a footpath leading to the grove, which is covered by thick bushes and finally opens into the Onoku shrine. Less than two meters away stands the giant silk-cotton tree wrapped with yards of white and red clothes while different sacrificial objects brought by suppliants are seen around the tree. Read more here
Back then in teen age, I and my colleagues normally sneaks out of school to visit rivers and enjoy the coolness, Since at home we are not allowed to swim in rivers, we always take the advantage of school freedom to visit rivers.
One day, we decided to sneak out to pay the source of the river a visit. We knew it wasn't the way my parents described it with fear, People do visit there. We were on school uniform, when we got to the entrance, we met the shrines attendant, he pursued us back because we looked tender and that's because we were on school uniform. After running away, we decided to go back and beg him again. When we approached him again, he demanded for $10 as gate fee. "Where are we going to get the money from?" We questioned ourselves. We pleaded that he should give us a task/assignment to perform which would serve as a replacement to the $10 he called, and he later agreed after much begging.
He offered us long brooms 🧹 to sweep some certain areas of the premises, a little bit far from the tree.
Mehn! We entered the premises and fear gripped us. The big tree they said is very long and big, its branches covered the whole place and making it look a bit scary.
After sweeping, he pointed a direction we would take and he gave us just 5mins to view and return.
We saw the Source, just as they described, the water was flowing out from a the shallow depth from the root sections. It so amazing was amazing.
We looked around and source sacrifices that people dropped, sacrifices with small pots, head of chicken inside, coke Fanta, tubbers of yam etc. We dare not touch anything.
On our way coming out, we met the main chief priest, we greeted him in our dialect three times and he didn't answered, and we left him.
That was how we fulfilled the thirst of seeing the source of river Ethiope.
Back to home, when we started advancing in age, we were given freedom to visit the river and that became a normal routine because that's where we get our water from.
Rives were our major and simplest source of water then, we usually go there to fetch water before school. Sometimes we go there around 6:00am where the weather is still dark and often times, we've met mermaids. If you go to those rivers at night or early hours of the morning, you'd meet mermaids playing
You've heard of water mermaid?
Let me keep the story about that to the next Article.
Thank you for reading
25th November 2021
A big thanks to @Freedom007 for sponsorship, I really appreciate it. Your pocket no go run dry. Say a big AMEN!
The images are not mine, I picked them from those Sources. When I visited I was tender and not having a phone. Maybe when I go for Christmas, I'll snap and dispay here
It's a wonderful site to fish.. Hahaha