He then asked Achi what she would give him as a reward for the trouble he had taken. But Achi said “I have nothing to give you. Wait until my husband returns.” But the ju-ju man said, “I know what you are thinking of, you want to put me off with a present of some fish, but I do not intend to accept anything of the sort. Nothing will content me but the head of your baby, which I intend to give to my Ekpinon ju-ju.” When Achi heard this she began to cry, and while she was crying her husband came in, but no sooner did he see the ju-ju man than he threw his load of fish on the ground and ran off to the nearest farm as fast as he could go.
Shortly after this the tortoise came down to see what was the matter, and he found the ju-ju man preparing to cut the baby’s head off, and Achi weeping and imploring him to spare her new-born baby. The tortoise then asked the ju-ju man some questions, and at last agreed that he should take the baby’s head, but that he should leave the body. He then reminded the ju-ju man that, when anyone was going to be killed, it was the custom to beat the drum and march the victim to the slaughter place. The ju-ju man agreed that there was such a custom, so the tortoise went off and fetched his drum.
Very soon afterwards he returned, and commenced to play and sing, and he played so well that the ju-ju man felt compelled to dance. The tortoise then beat his drum louder and louder, and faster and faster, telling the ju-ju man to dance further off, as he would hear the drum better. He did so, but very soon returned to see that Achi and her child was safe. He continued to dance a little way off, and then returned two or three times, until the tortoise told him that he could dance as far off as he liked, as he was there to look after Achi. He then went further away each time until the sixth time, coming back always to look at the child.
The tortoise told Achi that, the next time the ju-ju man danced away, she was to pick up her baby and cover it with her cloth, and then run by the nearest path, which he pointed out to her, to a farm which was not far off, and where he thought her husband had gone to.
When the ju-ju man had gone some little distance, Achi picked up her baby, and ran off as fast as she could go. The ju-ju man then returned, and the tortoise drew in his head and legs into his shell, but the ju-ju man was so angry at losing the baby that he picked up the tortoise and carried it home. He then placed the tortoise on the ground in front of his ju-ju, and drove a stake through his body, and said to the ju-ju, “This is the man who stole Achi’s baby from me, and prevented me from making a human sacrifice for you, so you must take him instead.”
Achi reached the farm safely, and found her husband, who took her away at once to Abijon, a town about five miles inland from Okuni. He then consulted a lot-caster called Aja as to the baby’s future, and asked him whether the child would live or die as the ju-ju man had seen him.
Aja placed his mats on the ground, and having sat down with his legs crossed, he cast lots. He soon discovered that the tortoise had sacrificed himself for the child, and that the child would therefore live, but he warned the chief that the Ekpinon ju-ju walked about when the sun was high up in the sky, and that he must never allow the child to go out in the middle of the day, as the ju-ju would kill him. The chief, with his wife and child, stayed three months at Abijon, and then returned to Okuni.
Since that time tortoises have always been sacrificed to the Ekpinon ju-ju, and the Okuni people always warn their children never to go out in the middle of the day, when the sun is high up, as they might meet the Ekpinon ju-ju without knowing it, and when they returned home they would get sick and die.
Told by Ennenni, an Okuni woman dancer.—[E.D., 17.6.10.]