CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The missionaries spent their first four or five nights in the marketplace, and went into
the village in the morning to preach the gospel. They asked who the king of the village
was, but the villagers told them that there was no king. "We have men of high title and
the chief priests and the elders," they said.
It was not very easy getting the men of high title and the elders together after the
excitement of the first day. But the arrivees persevered, and in the end they were
received by them They asked for a plot of land to build on, An evil forest was where the
clan buried all those who died of the really evil diseases, like leprosy and smallpox. It
was also the dumping ground for highly potent fetishes of great medicine men when
they died. An evil forest was, therefore, alive with sinister forces and powers of
darkness. It was such a forest that, the rulers of Mbanta gave to the missionaries. They
did not really want them near to the clan, and so they made them that offer which
nobody in his right senses would accept.
"They want a piece of land to build their shrine," said Uchendu to his peers
when they consulted among themselves. "We shall give them a piece of land." He
paused, and there was a murmur of surprise and disagreement. "Let us give them a
portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real
battlefield in which to show their victory." They laughed and agreed, and sent for the
missionaries, whom they had asked to leave them for a while so that they might
"whisper together." They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take.
And to their greatest amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.
"They do not understand," said some of the elders. "But they will understand
when they go to their plot of land tomorrow morning." And they dispersed.
The next morning the crazy men actually began to clear a part of the forest and
to build their house. The inhabitants of Mbanta expected them all to be dead within four
days. The first day passed and the second and third and fourth, and none of them died.