Dear Bolu,
Ògún is roused from slumber by the vibrations of the filaments in his chambers. It's been 873 years since they shook in this manner, and that was when the priests of Ẹ prepared a wall of sacrifice reaching the heights of an adult Iroko, to invoke his protection against the invaders. In return, he sharpened their swords and spears, and made their shields light as a feather yet strong as the bones of a mammoth. The morning of the battle, the invaders who outnumbered the Ẹ's by a factor of two woke up to rusty blades and shields thrice their usual weight. The battle was over before it began, a historic win for the ones the God of Iron favoured, storied for generations, until it became myth.
Curious to see what is again causing the filaments to tremble, Ògún wearily pokes his head out of the white clouds that overlook the coastal town of Ọ. Below in the food market, a crowd gathers in a makeshift circle around a young man, morphing until it learns to speak in a singular voice. "Ole ole! Thief thief!" the crowd cries in unison. Jimi, shirtless and surrounded by accusatory glances, pleads his innocence on bended knees. Streams of tears pour down his cheeks like water cascading from a bucket beneath a leaking spigot.
With his right hand, Jimi yanks the steel bracelet off his left wrist in one swift motion. The crowd gasps, and Ògún rebukes the vestiges of sleep from his eyes. Jimi touches the sand with the bracelet, paying homage to the ones who have gone before him. He places the sandy bracelet on the tip of his tongue, imbuing the ritual with his essence before stretching his hand to the heavens, pointing at the very god whose judgement he now invokes. With his left hand on his head, he says the words in the language of his forefathers, "If I, Ògúnjìmí, the son of Balógun, the son of Bógundé, stole the money from the shop, may Ògún strike me dead this very moment." "Ah!" Ògún exclaims, in thunderous shock. He searches for a reason to invalidate the invocation. Perhaps he's not wearing a necklace, Ògún thinks. But he is, a matching set with the bracelet that now calls for judgement. "Ahh!!" Ògún exclaims again, this time with a vibration of his head in mournful regret.
No one remembers the rules for swearing by Ògún, and yet it seems that by some strange and fatal misfortune, all the conditions have been satisfied, save one. Ògún looks around for any sign of the last remaining component, and sure enough, he finds it: a hunter's dog, fast asleep in front of the garri seller's stall. "Ahhh!!!" he exclaims one final time. The sky darkens in a flash and rumbles. Jimi freezes and falls flat on his face to the ground. Commotion ensues and the crowd disperses in a chaotic procession. Ògún sighs and retreats into his rest.
Long ago, before man knew to preserve history in glyphs and blood, before gods were praised in foreign tongues and blamed in alien accents, swears provided an assurance that we were speaking the truth. We would swear our innocence according to the rules laid down by the first men, and the gods would deliver immediate judgement on us accordingly. Some rules were generic, such as swearing before a witness. Someone—an adult, never a child, for they do not comprehend what they see—must watch and hear you swear for the gods to attend. Also, your swear must include a penalty, incurred only by yourself; otherwise there is no verdict to be passed.
Other rules were god-specific, such as the phrasing, language, time of day, and the acceptable penalty. For example, you cannot swear on the river goddess and ask to be consumed by fire if you cheated on your woman, nor can you invoke the god of thunder and ask him to drown you if you stole from your mother's pot. You may need to hold a piece of unrefined metal in your left hand and a tuber of yam in your right to have the ears of a god, or swear with eyes closed on the river bank at sundown to have the eyes of another. Oh, you don't recall the name of your great-grandfather? Then you can't swear by the god of this land. I'm sorry, but you can't say the swear words correctly without an h-factor or a nasal inflection.
These rules—these recipes are now lost and forgotten. Why and how? I'm not sure. Maybe it's the dilution of language. Half the time we don't know what the other party is saying, so we can't even bear proper witness. It could also be that administering judgement when people swear may not be such an easy task, and given how much we swear, surely it doesn't help that we're numbered in billions. Judgement from lesser gods may require a peer review from their senior counterparts, but if the process takes too long—perhaps because the senior deity is unavailable—the window for judgement closes, and the swearer escapes consequence. This emboldens him to swear more often, and over decades, piece by piece, he strips away the swearing elements until, generations later, nothing remains but a hollow "I swear".
I swear. By what? On what? So what? It's such a shallow, empty phrase that does nothing. How can the gods be bothered? Who's going to take the request to pass judgement on you when you've not named any god? You can't just swear. “Fine, fine. If I can't just swear, can I at least swear down? As in, I swear down.” No, you can't do that either. Why swear down and not left or right or up? What does it mean to swear down? "Alright, I see what you mean." Do you really? "I do bro. Swears." You can't just say "swears". It's like saying "smiles", when you should, in fact, be smiling. You can't say "swears". You have to swear. "Okaay bro, pinky swear then?" Oh no, this is how young people start. Pinky swearing. What happened to your forefinger? Or your middle finger? Is a pinky swear supposed to be a small swear? If so, what counts as a big one? "That's swearing on something. Like, I swear on my granddad's grave." Okaay, but what happens if you're lying? It still doesn't mean much. "I swear on my life.” Brother, no one in their right mind wants your life. Come on now.
We've lost our swearing recipes, and it's rather unfortunate. All we say these days are empty fillers. Even when we swear on the grave of our forefathers or the lives of our children, there's no consequence. We merely drag them into a matter they have no business with. And God? We often drag him into it as well. On God. What does that mean? Nothing. It’s in vain. We need people to take swearing seriously, and for that we need our recipes back. Let us again swear as the first men did, on the old gods. If we did, I would swear on their names, in the tongues of the ancients, and on the little good that is left of me, that you are the only one, dear friend. You are, I swear.
Fin.
P.S.
Again I’m sorry I was gone a while without notice.
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Write you soon, merci!
- Wolemercy