A gift to a troubled tribe.

Chapter One

Chapter One
Far away in Amaze kingdom lived a man called Ewuare, Ewuare’s life story is nothing short of hard work. His father, Uba, from whom Ewuare inherited half his present wealth, was himself a successful yam farmer and had from youth, instilled in Ewuare the virtues of hard work. Hard work makes a man, he had persistently told him because only the strong and courageous survive and prosper.
Uba, an early riser, instilled in young Ewuare the sense of hard work, by taking him to the farm early in the morning, and by getting him as busy as everyone else working on the farm. Fortunately for him, Ewuare turned out to be a very obedient and hardworking young man who was eager to learn. By the age of fourteen, young Ewuare knew everything there was to know about yam farming, including planting and harvesting, and could deal with the market women just as his father dealt with them. His father loved him dearly for his achievement at such a tender age. Later, in the years that followed, his father left him completely in charge of his farms while he retired.
Upon the death of his father, Ewuare inherited his father’s eight huge farms. By that time, not many people remembered the yam farms originally belonged to his father. So, though born with a silver spoon, Ewuare through sheer hard work, respect for others especially his elders and cool- headedness, carved out a position of wealth and respect for himself among his people.
By the time he was thirty years old and took his first wife, Ewuare had already been made an honorary chief. Soon, he became a confidant of the king, who was impressed with his good suggestions and advice on occasional meetings with the traditional chiefs and elders of the kingdom.
But, Ewuare had no cause to be joyous because of the depressing events in his personal life. Men of his tribe cherished male children. A male child, if well brought up, they reasoned, would eventually become an achiever in life and would carry on with the responsibilities and good name of his father. A household without a male child, they believed, would scatter, therefore putting an end to the lineage.
Ewuare’s wife, Abeo, for many years after marriage, bore no child. Her failure to give birth to a child was greatly responsible for Ewuare’s state of depression, despite his achievements. He consulted with medicine men both far and near, but none could cure his wife of the illness that prevented her from having a child. The medicine men believed that since they could cure her of the illness, the young Abeo was possessed by evil spirits. Therefore, they advised Ewuare to send her away and take another wife. They reasoned that as long as she stayed with him, his wish for a child, especially a male child, would never happen.
However, because Ewuare loved her, he kept Abeo in his household against the advice of the medicine men and married another wife. After four years of marriage, the second wife bore him three female children. Not happy with the string of girls from the second wife, Ewuare consulted once more, the medicine men, who informed him that the first wife he married, and was still living with him should be ejected before a son could come his way.
Desperate, but still very much against sending Abeo away, Ewuare took a third wife, hoping that the gods would smile on him this time and give him a male child to succeed him. In three years he gave birth to twin girls. Devastated, he then decided to yield the advice of the medicine men to send Abeo away.
It was while he was considering the right approach to take towards ejecting her, that Abeo informed him that she has conceived and was expecting a baby. Miraculously, so it seemed, she gave birth to a boy. Ewuare was ecstatic with joy, that he killed the fattest cow in the village and called all his friends to come rejoice and celebrate with him.

The Amada tribe, to which Ewuare belonged, had lived for centuries in harmony with other tribes in the northern part of the African continent.  The other tribes were the kukulu kingdom in the south, Osade kingdom in the east and Kasa kingdom in the west. Kukulu kingdom had become very powerful; the kingdom had been in existence for about hundred years.
However, as the years went by, the kukulu tribe had a king called Ikoko who was both adventurous and aggressive in nature. He laid claim to the whole piece of land as belonging to his kingdom, since it was his tribe that first settled on it. He threatened war, knowing full well that both Osade and Kasa Kingdoms put together would be overrun by his warriors. He demanded that royalties be paid in forms of food stuffs and live stocks, every six months to Kukulu kingdom; otherwise, his warriors would exterminate the two tribes.
The two tribes, realizing that they were completely out-numbered by the Kukulu warriors who were better trained and armed, had no choice but to give in to the demands of King Ikoko. So they started paying royalties as demanded of them. This arrangement notwithstanding, the Osade and Kasa tribes prospered as the land on which they settled was a land of honey.
The amada tribe was the most skillful of the four tribes that inhabited the land then. The tribe was highly skilled in the art of fishing, farming and trading. Farming had been their mainstay, so they set out immediately to cultivate the land on which they used to live.  The land being flat and open with a lot of green grass, they found it easier to rear their animals which provided them with meat and milk. They also fished, and stored their fish by salting and drying them on the rocks. They had inhabited the land for only three months when, unannounced, the warriors of kukulu kingdom took Amada tribe by surprise, for the tribe did not realize the presence of other tribes so close to them. They had been too preoccupied with settling down to explore their surroundings. The kukulu warriors left only after the Amada tribe agreed to pay royalty for their occupation of the land as the two other tribes did. The Amada tribe being highly skillful and enterprising soon became the envy of the other three tribes. The tribe established trade links with other kingdoms and traded by barter such products as yam, grains, cattle and fish. The tribe rapidly multiplied and prospered. For a couple of centuries, the kings continued the good work of their forefathers and took the kingdom to great heights. By that time, the kingdom had become a trading giant.