Uremma the River Goddess

it was the time long before European ships ventured into Africa. In the small town of Ukeh, amongst the Igbos, myths and legends abounded. Nwangele River was the big deal in this town; it was both their source of drinking water and their god. Tales were woven by the elders of Ukeh about the power of the gods who dwelt in the river. There was a time when the children of the river gods began to find their way into the lives of the people of Ukeh by being born as mortals. Those children of the gods brought with them wealth and riches into the families they were born.

At a point it became a common practice to inquire from oracles if a newborn child was of the gods or men; in the cases where a child was of the gods, it would call for great celebration. The family into which a child of the gods was born would know that its affairs were lack and penury were over; their new child would fill their houses with riches. Their barns would be filled with plenty, their farms would produce abundantly, their chickens, sheep, goats, and cows would increase; and even the woman in the family would know no bareness.

However as Ukeh prospered and the sound of joy filled it; their river gods were not happy, they sat and agreed to recall to the river kingdom all their children who had been born as humans in Ukeh. So one eke market day, death began to sweep through the land of Ukeh; the children of the gods were being summoned home.

At the streams, at the market place and in the farms dead bodies piled up. Wailing and sorrow filled the land. On that day, Ukeh, a once happy town, became a byword for sorrow. If one cried over one's dead relatives or losses, such a person would be told, "Do not cry like Ukeh, it shall be well again with you".

However, there were few children of the gods who did not heed the call to return to the river kingdom.

They found life in Ukeh much more enjoyable than their lives in the river as children of the elder river gods. They made a stand and refused to return to their kingdom. The river gods sat yet again and sent emissaries to them, but they did not heed the call of the gods; their minds had been made up to live as men. So the gods of the river kingdom cursed them, and in one day, all twenty of them ran mad and began to feed on the people of Ukeh like the beasts of the field.

The elders of Ukeh sought the gods for answers and were told to bring to Nwangele River the heads of those twenty rebellious sons and daughters of the gods. Warriors skilled in the art of killing were sent and within weeks the heads of those children of the gods were supplied at Nwangele River and so the curse of the children of the gods feeding on the people of Ukeh ceased. After the departure of the children of the gods, the wealth they brought with them began to diminish until there was nothing left of them. After the pain and searing sorrows that overtook the joy those children of the gods brought to the land of Ukeh, the people of the land decided they would never let the children of the gods dwell amongst them nor seek them to be born into their homes. They made it their tradition to inquire when a baby is born whether it is of the gods or men. Before celebrations would begin for the newborn child in their midst, they would first seek their river gods to know if the child was theirs. Such inquiry was done by throwing newborn babies into the Nwangele River. If the child disappeared into the river, then it was a child of the gods, but if it floated, then it was of men.

Though mothers hated the practice, they still had to do it to forestall the danger of the children growing up only to turn into flesh-eating beasts.

After ages had passed and the pain of the people of Ukeh over the loss of many of its sons and children of the gods who were born as men- had dulled, a princess of the river kingdom was born in Ukeh as a baby girl. A barren woman, Ngbankwo by name, who took in after many years of barrenness gave birth to a baby girl whose kingdom could not be determined by being thrown into Nwangele River. When the child was thrown into the river it sunk in the moments later it sprang up. It kept doing this until the priest who tested it in the river lifted it and gave it back to its mother and pronounced the child to be of men. The priest did not understand what happened nor had he seen anything like that all the years he had been testing babies in Nwangele River. When the baby was handed back to Ngbankwo, she and her poor husband broke into celebration. They had thought the baby was gone when it sunk into the river. They took the baby home and named it Urenma. And so the baby began to grow. When the baby had grown into a girl, tales of her unusual beauty spread through Ukeh and beyond. Men and women described her as beautiful as the moon while others said her face shone brighter than the sun and some even dared the gods and said they must be jealous of her beauty. Young boys of her age claimed she was no human; no one took the little boys seriously because she had survived the test at the river and so must be human.

When Urenma reached the age of seventeen, her father's house became some form of tourist center; men of different classes and from all climes began to flock to her father's house to ask for her hand in marriage. Urenma's father, Okeke, who had since the birth of his daughter become a wealthy man, was loaded with all forms of gifts and presents by men who sought to marry Urenma.

Those men hoped that their gifts would persuade Okeke to make them his choice for his daughter.

Though Okeke gladly received their gifts, the power to choose who Urenma would marry was far removed from his hands. His daughter Urenma, had made it clear to her parents that the choice of whom to marry would be hers to decide.

However, Urenma had no intention of ever getting married. She was a princess of the gods from the river kingdom who was granted permission by the gods to be born as mortal and to dwell amongst mortals for a brief time and then return to the water kingdom to fill her role as a princess of the gods. Okeke and Ngbankwo were not aware of this. Though they had often wondered how she was able to do some of the things she did, they did not think she was a child of the gods. How could she have been, after all the gods returned her when she sunk into the river? When her parents asked her about how she could do the unusual things they saw her do, she would explain that she saw them in her dreams.

Though she always visited the river world every night in her dreams, that was however not an explanation for the things she could do. Urenma was able to heal her parent's sick animals, predict the weather, describe un-harvested farm produce, tell her parents the persons who would visit them before the guests arrived, and speak to animals.