Palm oil daughter

Palm oil daughter

A long time ago in never, never land there lived a woman called Olurombi. Olurombi loves her husband very much and he also loves her as well but Olurombi was barren. She did not have a child.
Olurombi husband was a very wealthy farmer. So naturally, her husband’s relatives and the villagers advise the man to marry another wife since polygamy- the marrying of more than a wife at the same time is allowed at that time. This went on and on. One day, Olurombi husband told her that he thinks he would take the advice of the town people because he needs an heir who would inherit his property and carry on his lineage. Olurombi became very sad because she did not want her husband to marry another wife.
The woman is now desperate for a child. So that she could save her marriage and prevent her husband from marrying another wife went to the Iroko tree to request for a child. In those days Iroko trees process great magical powers. She asked Iroko tree for a child and promised to sacrifice the child to Iroko tree when the child grows to eighteen years of age. Iroko tree obliged her and she gave birth to a very beautiful girl after nine months.
The girl grew to become eighteen years old. The woman had already forgotten her promise. The Iroko tree sent its priest to the woman to remind her of her promise. The priest told her, “Oh, hard working good woman, Servant of the great Iroko tree. Iroko sends his blessing, he also tells me to remind you of your vow eighteen years ago.
Olurombi feigned ignorance; she claimed that she doesn’t know Iroko and she have nothing to do with him. She also called the priest an impostor. The woman had the priest disgraced and beaten up.
The priest before he went away sang a chorus. It went thus:
♪♪ Onikaluku jeje ewure, ewure, ewure
Onikaluku jeje agutan, agutan bolojo
Olurombi jeje omore amore apon bi epo
Olurombi, o jon jon Iroko jon jon
Eni to fo mo re rubo
Jon jon Iroko jon jon ♪♪

♪♪ Everyone pledged goat, goat, goat
Everyone pledged ram, a big fat ram
Olurombi pledged her child, fair as oil
Olurombi, the Iroko is expecting you
Ye that pledged a your child
Iroko is waiting, Iroko is waiting, and Iroko is waiting ♪♪

This drama kept on repeating year after year.
When the girl turns twenty one, Olurombi went to the market on one sunny afternoon. After warming her child not to touch the jars of palm oil she left in the store. While the young girl as finding some items in the store, she mistakenly broke a jar containing palm oil. She tried to salvage some of the palm oil. In the process, the oil spilled on her feet and she slowly began to melt.
By the time Olurombi returned from the market in the early evening only the girl’s head and upper body remained. After searching all through the house, Olurombi rushed to the store where she kept her jars of palm oil. Just as she entered the room and rushed to grab her daughter the girl dissolve into a puddle of oil at her feet.
Devastated, Olurombi knelt down in the room weeping loudly not caring that she is staining her clothes. She cried and cried, saying, “I am finished. I am finished. I have destroyed myself.”
So Olurombi lost a child which she might have redeemed with a goat or ram.