"We are at last getting somewhere," Ukegbu said, and then turning to his brother
and his son he said: "Let us go out and whisper together." The three rose and went
outside. When they returned Ukegbu handed the bundle of sticks back to Obierika. He
counted them,- instead of thirty there were now only fifteen. He passed them over to his
eldest brother, Machi, who also counted them and said: "We had not thought to go
below thirty. But as the dog said, 'If I fall down for you and you fall down for me, it is
play'. Marriage should be a play and not a fight so we are falling down again." He then
added ten sticks to the fifteen and gave the bundle to Ukegbu.
In this way Akuke's bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries. It
was already dusk when the two parties came to this agreement.
"Go and tell Akueke's mother that we have finished," Obierika said to his son,
Maduka. Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo. Obierika's
second wife followed with a pot of soup, and Maduka brought in a pot of palm-wine.
As the men ate and drank palm-wine they talked about the customs of their
neighbours.
"It was only this morning," said Obierika, "that Okonkwo and I were talking
about Abame and Aninta, where titled men climb trees and pound foo-foo for their
wives."
"All their customs are upside-down. They do not decide bride-price as we do,
with sticks. They haggle and bargain as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the
market."
"That is very bad," said Obierika's eldest brother. "But what is good in one place
is bad in another place. In Umunso they do not bargain at all, not even with
broomsticks. The suitor just goes on bringing bags of cowries until his in-laws tell him
to stop. It is a bad custom because it always leads to a quarrel."
"The world is large," said Okonkwo. "I have even heard that in some tribes a
man's children belong to his wife and her family."