The following day, as soon as it was light, Oga started off again for the grave, and cried more, and by sundown her mother’s head and shoulders had appeared.
The day after, by constant crying, she induced her mother to come out as far as her waist, and, after a few more days of persistent weeping, she got her mother out altogether.
As it was dusk at the time, Oga led her mother to the back of the house, and hid her in a small room which was used only for storing yams and baskets. There she remained undiscovered for three days, and then Oga went to her father and said, “If you will give me a good present, I will show you my mother alive.”
Her father then gave her a piece of cloth, and Oga took him to the room where Elili was hiding, and said, “Here is my mother, who I have got alive again out of the grave.”
Chief Nyip was delighted to get his favourite wife back again, and they lived together as they had done before.
Very soon after the return of Elili from the grave, Aikor died, leaving her daughter Nagor in the charge of Elili and Oga. Elili then began to revenge herself upon Nagor for the way Oga had been treated. Nagor was made to do all the hard work of the house, and was also half starved.
This caused Nagor to go and cry on her mother’s grave. After crying bitterly for three days, her mother began to come out of the grave, and on the fourth day, when Aikor’s head and shoulders were showing above the ground, Nagor was so anxious to get her mother out altogether that she caught hold of her head and pulled with all her might, with the result that she pulled her mother’s head off her shoulders. Nagor then took the head and placed it in the same room where Oga had put her mother Elili.
She then called her father to come, but when he saw his dead wife’s head, he was very angry with Nagor, and told her to go and bury it again in the grave. Instead of doing as she was told, Nagor threw her mother’s head amongst the young palm oil trees. This caused them to bear fruit which resembled a woman’s head in shape and size, and even at the present time the young palm trees have bunches of fruit which look like a woman’s head with the plaits of hair all round.
Told by Abassi of Inkum.—[E.D., 27.5.10.]