You ate it, your parents did, your siblings did, your neighbours did…WE ALL DID…WE ALL DID…

Do you ever sit with the horrific thought that perhaps you have consumed human flesh? I believe most of us have but if and when asked by others, our answers might be a resounding NO!  But what if you ate once or twice without knowing it? WHAT IF?

I

In my town, Mummy N.D and her Ụkwa was the stuff of legend from the early ‘90s until 2002.

If you grew up around Onitsha in those days, you must have heard of Mummy N.D and her white canopied, wooden-benched, open-air restaurant filled on weekdays with children on their way to school clutching their plastic Thermostar flasks and adults on their way to Main Market or Ọchanja Market for business, you must have heard there was never space for sitting or enough food to satisfy customers as food was sold out within minutes.

You were also told much later as you grew older and certain memories flooded in that Mummy N.D never existed and that she was the boogeylady for those averse to homemade meals, Ha! They lied, Mummy N.D was real and whether fights broke out between customers over her food or whether the shuddering story that unfolds in a moment was exaggerated or not, I only tell what I witnessed.

Mummy N.D was the envy of every other food vendor in town—she incited hateful murmurings among many that what happened on July 17, 2002 should have never been a complete surprise.

The rumours at first were mild, it was said that she never showered or cleaned her utensils which meant her food was unhygienic, it was also said that she used charms to hold the community, our destinies and our bellies hostage, nobody paid those rumours any mind, her meals were affordable and her Ụkwa was the best around, she can freely charm us all——then it got worse——they said she used her menstrual blood as seasoning, even more horrific, that she used human cadavers for meat and pus-filled corpse bath water from the mortuary for Mmiri Ụkwa.

That did it, paranoia spread and with the economic hardships, most needed someone to blame and punish, she eventually became the target of their frustrations.

I recall her smile, she was beautiful, robust, short, in her 40s, she was a single mother with two teenage sons——Ndubuisi and Arinze.

How she became a food vendor, we never knew but it was said she migrated from Enugu to Onitsha and ate her husband’s penis——maybe most of him to survive during the Biafran War——they said. In fact, much was unknown of her and her personal life, same could not be said for her food.

July 17, 2002

It was like every other day in our household, my parents, already on their way to the market, woke me, then I woke my younger brother, in hasty sluggishness we got ready for school, ate breakfast and off we went, walking…walking…to get lunch at Mummy N.D’s.

“Evil woman, devil…WHY!?!…god…you have killed us..!”, the sudden disembodied voices echoing and thundering a short distance ahead roused me, I stiffened in vigilance, ordering my brother to hold my hand.

There was a crowd as usual within and around Mummy N.D’s canopy but something was different, there were Black Marias (the ride of death either with the Nigerian Police or the Bakassi boys)——and the noises the crowd made were not of laughter or bickering for Mummy N.D to serve them——they were not there for food, they were out for blood.

II

We approached in confusion peering between the shouting, murmuring people to see what the commotion was about only to be yelled at by one of the chanting, scowling, angry men for our troubles.

“Leave this place and get to school now!”, then he spurn around, resuming his angry chants. We ran to school scared and confused, with questions and without our lunch. 

WHY WAS MUMMY N.D AND HER SONS HOGTIED AND BLOODIED?

WHY WAS EVERYONE ANGRY?

WHY…WHAT HAPPENED?

III

We got to school, breathless, after the morning assembly and before the first lesson of the day in my class, the story unfolded.

Somto was the first to tell us of how Mummy N.D was caught with a human head in her pot of Ụkwa when one of her customers somehow stole a look inside, Abuchi said it was his father that saw and alerted everyone and they brought Bakassi.

NOW, THAT MEANT SERIOUS BAD NEWS…

You see, when Bakassi is involved, nobody doubts the guilt of the accused because this vigilante group had a “foolproof” guilt identifier——they just laid their shiny silver machetes on your body and IF it turned red, you were very guilty and very DEAD.

Of course, you would never see this magick in action, they said it happened, so it did.

Through the day, I was traumatised with stories of how we have been eating human meat and drinking cadaver water in the name of eating Ụkwa.

Late noon, end of school day, we treaded the same route but there was no Mummy N.D’s canopy or benches, even the buzzing crowd of that morning were dispersed leaving a torn down, half-burnt canopy with a blackened mass on top of it wrapped in charred car tires, a headless, limbless mass that could have been the body of someone we used to know——an unforgettable sight but was it Mummy N.D, Ndubuisi or Arinze? We would never know because they were never seen again and nobody was willing to tell.

At home, we were forbidden on recounting the event, my mother would always appear in a flash like a phantom to shush us in whispers, pointing to the ceiling, “Fellow, don’t ever mention that woman in my house again”.

And so, we moved on, kept all thoughts of it to ourselves and pretended it never happened…

But it did and you remember, you remember Mummy N.D, you ate her food, your parents did, your siblings did, your neighbours did…WE ALL DID…

-

I wrote this recounting morbid local myths and legends I grew up with.

Food is an important part of our culture and identities, with time, we developed fears and superstitions around it, one being that food not prepared by family or at home could be tainted in the most horrible ways.

Cannibalism is an unthinkable act across cultures but I WANTED TO THINK ABOUT IT and I did, for a night, for my first story ever.

— Tessy.