BY EMEM IDIO

IMMIRINGI—NOT many villagers at Immiringi, an oil-rich community in Ogbia Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, could explain the air of mystery, but all they know is that it is a taboo to carry a corpse across the revered Iye Creek in the town and those, who disobeyed the command in the past had themselves to blame. Set in a thick mangrove environment, the Iye creek is not appalled at the living swimming and doing any other thing in it, but for the dead, it is off limits except under certain conditions.

An Immiringi community elder in his 60s, Mr Anthony Azibanua, who spoke to Niger Delta Voice, said that anyone who wants to carry a corpse across the creek could do so after performing some traditional rites to appease the deities of the creek. Azibanua, who took time to explain the strangeness of the creek, asserted that the superstition surrounding Iye creek was as old as the community was. Asked what were the consequences of defying the order, he related a story of how a Christian clergy in the community challenged the age- long belief and the plague that befell his household.

He narrated: “The belief surrounding this creek is as old as this community. Since the days of our ancestors, this tradition has been in existence and we do not joke with it. In my over 60 years on earth, it is only one man that dared to challenge the belief by carrying a corpse across the creek. “As a pastor, he claimed he was immune to our tradition and took a corpse across. Few days later, he came to the community leaders to beg and solicit for intervention. One of his daughter’s tongues was coming out, I saw it with my eyes and it was terrible. The teenager’s tongue came out up to her belly.

“Community elders had to perform some traditional rites before the tongue was restored almost immediately. Since then, no one has dared cross  the creek before performing the rites. Nevertheless, once you perform the rites, one can safely carry a corpse across the ‘great’ Iye creek.”