These men would not carry a burden all day, if they could give it up for some time to feel differently and relieved. They came to the joint to lighten up their lives. They knew they had to prepare for the next day's hard work by resting. They could not be busy all day long and still be strong enough to work hard the following day. One had to replenish lost energy to finish the work started, and they came often to the ohwarha to replenish themselves. But theirs was a compulsive calendar that called for work all year round. Even the festival days, when they were supposed to rest and be entertained, demanded hard work. Commonly seen as the gossip joint of the town, the ohwarha was removed from the streets. Its location was not arbitrary. Rather, the area was specially selected and set up to be outside earshot of normal street traffic. No town or village grew into the direction of the ohwarha, since it was not meant to be intruded into by any form of development. Once they arrived there, the men threw off their guard, became hilarious and noisy; they could talk loosely without being inhibited by concerns for children and women. Even those known in town as taciturn and quiet men became parrots in the ohwarha whose spirit loosened every tongue to speak its desire. The men were by themselves for what they described as men's talk. They so much relished this male aloneness that some frequenters of the ohwarha hurried over their day's work to be there on time. Others would leave some of the work they could complete that day just to be among the first to arrive at the joint. Many newly married men preferred the company of other men in the joint to that of their brides.
As if the joint was a conclave, the men had a mutual understanding not to expose their private discussions. They composed a song to describe their obligations at the joint:
What the eyes see in Okunever you tell it outside—Oku is your lover's nakedness.
What the ears pick in Okunever you broadcast it—Oku is your confidant's confession.
What the nose perceives in Okunever you disclose it—Oku is your talisman.
What the hands touch in Okunever you lift it away—Oku is your god's shrine.
Whatever you suffer from in Okunever you complain to anyone—Oku is your oracle.
Whatever ever happensnever never disrobe Okuof its brush—
Oku is the warriors' conclaveleave there dumbleave there dazed.
The ohwarha joint had bamboo seats set in rows. The seats were high; neither rain nor heat damaged them. Water did not remain on the surface of the bamboo wood; it dribbled off as soon as it fell on it. Also the sun's heat bounced off the smooth shine of the plant. Bamboo wood was light but resistant to weight as well. There was abundance of bamboo plants in Agbon forests to create as many of such joints as needed. And so there were many of these ohwarha joints in every Agbon town and village. Created in grove-like areas, the trees shaded folks from the sun. Frequenters loved to sit in the shade. If cotton and umbrella trees were not there, the original builders planted them for their shade. Occasionally they had palm trees around. Agbon people in general planted few trees, since they attributed planting trees in their forested land to the onset of madness. This they had known from experience. However, cotton and umbrella trees were two of the four trees they planted. There was oghriki, which was planted by founders of a settlement, to mark a town or village centre. Rubber trees were more recent and were tapped to make money.
“Who goes to the ohwarha hears the latest gossip,” the saying went.
That was partially true as its frequenters told what they had heard. They protected themselves and exposed others. Many of them came there to know what was current in the neighbourhood and outside.
Wives were not welcome, but daughters of the place were occasionally tolerated for short moments. Agbon women had to live with their division by men into wives and daughters. The men were hostile to any wife who came there, as if to spy on her husband. Should a man's wife come there, she would be insulted by all the men. No man there picked a quarrel with other men for insulting his wife and in fact joined in humiliating his own wife. It was one of the many codes they kept at the joint.
This hostility to wives occurred even when there was an emergency that demanded the man's urgent attention. Even if a snake or dog bit a child, or he were stung by a scorpion, or pierced by a nail, which often happened, the men expected their wives to send their children to call them. Despite the emergency, the men frowned before leaving the joint for home to attend to their hurt children. They behaved as if they were being deprived of their rights to be alone with other men.
The women saw the male joint as a prohibited zone. In their minds they drew a line that they would not cross. They saw overstepping the line as fraught with perils. If they crossed it, they would become the butt of the men's jokes. And the men could make the violators miserable with humiliating insults that the specific women's husbands contributed to.
Deep-rooted fear could make slaves of free people. Those who should be on a pedestal not only stepped down but also grovelled on sand; they made gods of those that should be their worshipers. The so-called line was never drawn with chalk. It was not done with blood either. It was the limitation the men set for the women, who accepted it for lack of nothing to do about it.
The women knew from stories that women used to come to these joints. Then they were meant for all adults. But the ohwarha joints became meeting places for lovers. Elopement became rampant. Men took other men's wives, as women took over other women's husbands. Men and women plotted sleeping together beyond the first day of the yearly festival, as was traditionally allowed; an opportunity that was hardly used. The ohwarha joint turned into a rowdy place, where men challenged their wives and wives also challenged their husbands. Men fought men taking their wives; women fought women taking or flirting with their husbands. Some took rumours as truth and fought fiercely over a supposed violation of their marital rights. The spirit of the joint was definitely being abused and a remedy was needed.
The men, who always felt they had to take measures to stop any abuse in Agbon society, as if only women were involved in the abuse, banned their wives from coming to the joints. The women tried feebly to resist their unilateral and unreasonable expulsion by men from what belonged to all. The boldest of them wanted them to deny sex to their husbands to force them to abrogate the unfair rule. But on the night of the protest, most women did not resist when some men started beating their wives for denying them sex, which they felt was their right by virtue of marriage. The wails were loud enough for other women to hear. Their resolve was soon broken and they accepted the ban the men had imposed on them not to step into the joints again. Thus began the long era of ohwarha as a men's-only joint.
These places were virtually empty in the morning and the early afternoon. Every healthy man was expected to work from dawn till late afternoon. Those who farmed had to cover enough grounds before the sun drained them of energy. Those who produced palm oil had to go far into the forest before the sun set their soles ablaze. The more the day advanced, the more people lost their zest for work. So the ohwarha joints had people from late afternoon through the evening.
The session often started with light banter, which revolved around men-women relationships, such as what women liked in men and what men liked in women. The gathering would agree that many men did not like their wives to have those qualities they cherished in other women. That meant they did not want their wives to be too attractive and seductive to be the desire of every other man.
If there had been the rare case of elopement, it was there that they tried to analyze why the woman left one man for another. If a man made passes at another person's wife, they heard its unspoken narrative in the ohwarha joint. They deliberately spiced up what they heard to make it more appealing for others to hear.
The men gossiped about women who were