Dutor Torgbuiga Wenya I and the founding of the Anlo Kingdom. Pt. 7
Thursday, May 5, 2022
THE AWOAMEZI AND THE TITTLE AWOAMEFIA
Still on Anlo Stools, it would be necessary to recall an incident which occurred and which had since regulated the succession to the Awoamezi/Awoamefia stool. After Torgbiga Wenya I died, Fia Sri I took over the administration of the kingdom. However, the tribe experienced some difficult times. There was severe famine and it was said that even women and animals could not bring forth. When they did they brought forth only females and no males.
After much divination, it was learnt that a stool was left at Notsie, and until that stool was brought to Anlo, things would not improve. It was Fia Sri I’s stool. The stool was kept with the great fetish of Notsie and it was not possible for Fia Sri I who was escaping with his people from the tyranny of King Agorkoli to retrieve it from the fetish house which was part of Agorkorli’s house. A decision was taken to send some people back to Notsie to look for it and bring it. But it was feared that the fate of the messengers might not be pleasant.
For King Agorkorli might want to have a personal vengeance on Fia Sri and his people for having run away. Also, the hazards of the journey to and from Notsie would be formidable. However, something had to be done. A chieftain’s stool was the most precious possession of the tribe and was worth risking life for even in a war.
A council of elders met and decided to send two sons of Fia Sri I and other messengers to Notsie to fetch the stool. When Fia Sri communicated the decision to his wives whose sons were chosen to children to be sent back to Notsie only to be killed by King Agorkorli before the elders. He did not know what to do. In this predicament Fia Sri I was approached by his sisters. They offered that Fia Sri could send his nephews to Notsie to recover the stool. And even if they saved the face of Fia Sri before the tribe by having made the attempt; no offer could have been more generous and opportune.
After prayers to the ancestral spirits and the gods had been said, the two young men, Adeladza and Torgolo and their companions were sent to Notsie to fetch the stool. Braving all dangers of the journey, the messengers arrived at Notsie. They went before the King and narrated their errand. The King gave a short smile. He told the messengers that after the Ewes had left, the stool was brought to him from the great fetish house and had since been in his possession because he knew that Fia Sri would be needing it.
He said he would not part with the stool until the Dogbo had cut off the head of Fia Sri and sent it to him. That would be punishment enough for Fia Sri and sent it to him against his King, and sufficient reparation by the people for the grievous offence they had committed against their overlord by leaving Notsie without his knowledge and permission.
The messengers returned to Anloga and narrated their story. The council of elders met once more. They pondered over the message for a long time. How could they murder their Fia in order to pacify a tyrant? But the stool must be recovered. After some days' deliberation the elders hit on a plan.
A substitute old man whose hands and feet looked very much like those of Fia Sri. They were marked white by scars of yaws like those of Fia Sri. The elders decided to kill this man, cut off his hands and feet, preserve and send them to King Agokoli as those of Fia Sri. The plan was executed.
Adeladza and Torgolo were again sent to Notsie with the parcel. They were to tell the King that the elders of the Dogbo thanked him very much for the reception given to the messengers. Though the King’s request was a bit hard on them, they could not help but grant it. But unluckily Fia Sri had grown so old as a result of the long journey and illness that his face became completely disfigured and hard to recognized by all that knew him before.
When they killed him they saw that the face could not be preserved to reach Notsie in good state. So instead they were sending the hands and feet of Fia Sri, which the King knew very well and could recognize easily. The King might therefore send them the stool to have a worthier person enstooled as their chief.
The messengers reached Notsie and delivered their message and parcel. On beholding the hands and feet, the King exclaimed that he could recognize them as the very hands and feet of Fia Sri, as he knew them to be. He was glad that his order was duly executed against Fia Sri.
He commanded that the stool be brought out from its resting place. After the customary formalities, he handed over to the messengers the stool to carry back to the elders of the Dogbo with compliments. He however dispatched his own messengers with gifts to accompany the young men back to Anloga. His intention was to do some secret investigation.
The Anloga emissaries returned. On the journey back, they managed to send a message ahead to Anloga through one of the hunters who was guarding them and providing them with vision, presuming he was lost.
After a fruitless search for him together with King Agokoli’s men they resumed their journey and arrived at Anloga. There were wild jubilations and congratulations. The elders on receiving the advanced message had managed to let Fia Sri hide with his uncle Setsi, the State Linguist. Strict injunction was placed on everybody in the town not to say that Fia Sri was alive.
Everybody praised the young men, Adeladza and Torgolo, for their dexterity and valour. The worth of the nephew to the uncle was extolled. The Notsie emissaries lived at Anloga for some time and not hearing of the whereabouts of Fia Sri, they presumed that he had died and went back to report to King Agokoli.
For fear that the Notsie people might return without notice, Fia Sri lived in seclusion (Awoame) for the rest of his life. He would only come out for fresh air in the night. Even then, there would be guards ahead of him shouting “Helu lo! Ne kpoe, aku; Helu lo! If you see him, you would die. People would desert the lanes when such a cry was heard. Only his councilors and age group would stop, turned their faces to the wall until he passed.
The Council of Elders continued to rule the Kingdom and administer justice to the people. After they had sat on a case, they would repair by different routes to reassemble at where Fia Sri was living in order to relate all the matter to Torgbi for his verdict before returning to give judgment in the open. Hence the saying when the court was repairing to consider the matter, “Mieyi miakpo amega kpuia.” We go to consult the short old man.
Later a special hut was built with a parlour as the court house so that when cases were being heard, Fia Sri could overhear what was going on while resting in his root. This hut was called Nyaxoenu or palaver hall. Thus the title AWOAMEFIA got stuck for the “Chief in Seclusion” and became his new title.
Life resumed its normal course among people. People seemed to have forgotten all that happened but the oldman Awoamefia Sri did not forget what his sisters’ sons did for him. When he was about to die, he asked that the elders of the tribe be assembled. He recalled before the people what his two nephews did for him and the tribe.
He then made the testament that as his sons who had to succeed him were not allowed by their mothers to fetch the stool from Notsie, his immediate successor when he died, should be the elder nephew who risked his life to fetch the stool.
The younger nephew, Torgolo, because he had shed blood should be compensated with property. The succession should become alternative between his descendants and the descendants of Adeladza, his nephew.
So when Fia Sri I died, Adeladza, the elder nephew, was enstooled in succession. After him came a grandson of Fia Sri I. He was followed by a person from Adeladza’s family. And so it continued till today. Because Fia Sri I was of the Adzovia clan and Torgbi Adeladza I was of the Bate Clan, the succession to the Awoame stool of Anlo was between the Adzovia Clan and the Bate Clan.