THE FISHERMAN AND THE SKYFATHER
(a tribute to fatherhood )
A father’s Day Tale from the Creeks
by
Linda Somiari-Stewart
in the voice of Kombare, Keeper of the Tide-Songs.
In time before timepieces , when the tide carried secrets instead of plastic, there was a village called Opu-Toru-Piri,nestled in the belly of the Delta where the Lufafa River split into seven winding tongues.
The people of this village were born with salt in their blood and paddle-strokes in their hearts.
They spoke to the spirits with drums and fetched fish with prayers.
In this famed village of fishermen lived a young man named Biebuma- sharp-eyed, hot-blooded, and full of questions.
His father, AyibaTonye, was once the most respected fisherman on the Lufafa River.
His canoe, Ebiegberi, had once sliced through the waters like a blade of light.
His nets returned with fish so fat,
you could hear the fat sing while melting on the kitchen altar.
But time, as it does even to crocodiles, bent AyibaTonye’s back.
It drained the fire from his bones.
His boat groaned with every journey.
His nets came up empty.
His hands, once sure, trembled like leaves in Harmattan.
Biebuma watched in silence.
Then in anger.
“You say the river blessed you,” he spat one night,
“but all I see is a weak old man who sits in the dark, clinging to ghosts of old conquests, past glories “
AyibaTonye did not raise his voice.
He only looked into the boy’s eyes and said:
“The day you understand the cost of keeping a household afloat,
you will speak with softer lips.”
Biebuma turned away.
That night, when even the moon slept
and only the fireflies kept watch,
he paddled silently into the outer river
and called upon Opu-ama-so—the Skyfather, the Spirit of winds. The father of the firmament, whose voice shakes palm trees and whose eyes see the beginning and the end.
“Skyfather!” Biebuma cried, standing in his canoe.
“I am the son of a broken man. It is shameful.
Grant me the strength he never gave me!”
The river stilled. The stars blinked once.
Then came the Skyfather’s reply, low and vast:
“You ask for strength.
But do you know the shape of sacrifice?
Here, carry this little burden for one tide.”
A calabash rose from the river, sealed with threads of lightning and marked with ancestral art, than it looked.
Skyfather warned:
“Do not spill even one drop.”
Biebuma took it, laughing.
What weight could break the arms of a youth
who paddled against the tides?
He paddled home and carried the calabash on his shoulder.
But as he walked the narrow footpath to his father’s compound,the calabash grew heavier.
It whispered. It wept.
It spoke in the voices of many distraught of fathers.
His arms ached. His legs trembled.
The trees watched in silence. He staggered and fell!
The calabash shattered into several pieces.
From it poured a vapor of visions - not water, not smoke, but a vapor of remembrances.
As the vapor rose skyward, Biebuma saw his father - young, fierce, strong;
*trading his only canoe to pay for Biebuma’s medicine during the Great Fever.
*Selling the sacred necklace from his grandmother to buy books for Biebuma.
*Wrestling the river god Owoi-Tuburu at midnight, so Biebuma would not drown during his naming rites by the river.
And finally;
*AyibaTonye declining an invitation the Council of Elders feast just to stay home and sing his son to sleep so his wife could rest.
Biebuma fell on his face on the footpath, breathless.
“I did not know,” he whispered.
The Skyfather’s voice returned, gentle now- like rain on old roofs:
“Fathers do not always explain.
Some carry the world in silence.
Some love with backs bent, not with words spoken but with their stoic presence ”
Biebuma became a changed man.
When he got home he didn’t find his father in their house .
He found him at the riverbank,mending a net with cracked fingers.
His father did not look up.
But when Biebuma knelt, AyibaTonye’s hands paused just for a moment. Then he smiled.
From that day forward ,Biebuma fished with the soul of his father in his heart.
His nets filled not only with fish, but with understanding.
He built a new canoe for AyibaTonye but the old man never used it.
He only smiled and said,
“The river gives…
when the son learns to paddle with both arms.”
And the griots still say today in the creeks of Lufafa:
“To know the weight of a present father’s love,
you must carry what he carried…
and listen for the silence he bore.
THE FISHERMAN AND THE SKYFATHER
(a tribute to fatherhood )
A father’s Day Tale from the Creeks
by
Linda Somiari-Stewart
in the voice of Kombare, Keeper of the Tide-Songs.
In time before timepieces , when the tide carried secrets instead of plastic, there was a village called Opu-Toru-Piri,nestled in the belly of the Delta where the Lufafa River split into seven winding tongues.
The people of this village were born with salt in their blood and paddle-strokes in their hearts.
They spoke to the spirits with drums and fetched fish with prayers.
In this famed village of fishermen lived a young man named Biebuma- sharp-eyed, hot-blooded, and full of questions.
His father, AyibaTonye, was once the most respected fisherman on the Lufafa River.
His canoe, Ebiegberi, had once sliced through the waters like a blade of light.
His nets returned with fish so fat,
you could hear the fat sing while melting on the kitchen altar.
But time, as it does even to crocodiles, bent AyibaTonye’s back.
It drained the fire from his bones.
His boat groaned with every journey.
His nets came up empty.
His hands, once sure, trembled like leaves in Harmattan.
Biebuma watched in silence.
Then in anger.
“You say the river blessed you,” he spat one night,
“but all I see is a weak old man who sits in the dark, clinging to ghosts of old conquests, past glories “
AyibaTonye did not raise his voice.
He only looked into the boy’s eyes and said:
“The day you understand the cost of keeping a household afloat,
you will speak with softer lips.”
Biebuma turned away.
That night, when even the moon slept
and only the fireflies kept watch,
he paddled silently into the outer river
and called upon Opu-ama-so—the Skyfather, the Spirit of winds. The father of the firmament, whose voice shakes palm trees and whose eyes see the beginning and the end.
“Skyfather!” Biebuma cried, standing in his canoe.
“I am the son of a broken man. It is shameful.
Grant me the strength he never gave me!”
The river stilled. The stars blinked once.
Then came the Skyfather’s reply, low and vast:
“You ask for strength.
But do you know the shape of sacrifice?
Here, carry this little burden for one tide.”
A calabash rose from the river, sealed with threads of lightning and marked with ancestral art, than it looked.
Skyfather warned:
“Do not spill even one drop.”
Biebuma took it, laughing.
What weight could break the arms of a youth
who paddled against the tides?
He paddled home and carried the calabash on his shoulder.
But as he walked the narrow footpath to his father’s compound,the calabash grew heavier.
It whispered. It wept.
It spoke in the voices of many distraught of fathers.
His arms ached. His legs trembled.
The trees watched in silence. He staggered and fell!
The calabash shattered into several pieces.
From it poured a vapor of visions - not water, not smoke, but a vapor of remembrances.
As the vapor rose skyward, Biebuma saw his father - young, fierce, strong;
*trading his only canoe to pay for Biebuma’s medicine during the Great Fever.
*Selling the sacred necklace from his grandmother to buy books for Biebuma.
*Wrestling the river god Owoi-Tuburu at midnight, so Biebuma would not drown during his naming rites by the river.
And finally;
*AyibaTonye declining an invitation the Council of Elders feast just to stay home and sing his son to sleep so his wife could rest.
Biebuma fell on his face on the footpath, breathless.
“I did not know,” he whispered.
The Skyfather’s voice returned, gentle now- like rain on old roofs:
“Fathers do not always explain.
Some carry the world in silence.
Some love with backs bent, not with words spoken but with their stoic presence ”
Biebuma became a changed man.
When he got home he didn’t find his father in their house .
He found him at the riverbank,mending a net with cracked fingers.
His father did not look up.
But when Biebuma knelt, AyibaTonye’s hands paused just for a moment. Then he smiled.
From that day forward ,Biebuma fished with the soul of his father in his heart.
His nets filled not only with fish, but with understanding.
He built a new canoe for AyibaTonye but the old man never used it.
He only smiled and said,
“The river gives…
when the son learns to paddle with both arms.”
And the griots still say today in the creeks of Lufafa:
“To know the weight of a present father’s love,
you must carry what he carried…
and listen for the silence he bore.
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