The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories by Amos Tutuola Page A

Our father died over a year ago,’ Dele and Deji exclaimed at the same time with sorrow.
    ‘Is it true that my father, or our father of the whole family, has died? Please tell me the truth!’ Totofioko said, pretending to care.
    ‘Certainly, our father died long ago.’ Dele and Deji, who were still greenhorns, confirmed the death of their father loudly.
    ‘My father is dead?’ Totofioko raised his head up and hesitated for a few seconds and then dropped his head down. ‘Could the two of you remember that our father used to warn you always before he died that you must not forget – “Remember the day after tomorrow”?’ Totofioko asked the boys with a deceitful grief.
    ‘Oh, yes, you are right. Our father used to warn us always before his death that we must remember “ Remember the day after tomorrow”, and he told us also that “Remember the day after tomorrow” would come home soon,’ Dele explained hastily.
    ‘Was that so? Good!’ Totofioko paused for a few seconds as he started to raise his head up and down in a slow motion as if he was thinking seriously about the boys’ father’s death.
    ‘Now, I confess to both of you that I am your eldest brother, whose name your father, before his death, had been mentioning to you often. And my name is “ Remember the day after tomorrow,” and I am thus before youtoday,’ Totofioko said, and then he stood up. He posed himself before them for a few seconds and then sat back down. ‘I was born and went to a big town before both of you were born. So, both of you are my junior brothers because your father was my father as well. And I am coming to stay with you as from today, and I shall be taking great care of you as well as our father did before he died. Now, to be sure that I am your eldest brother, the firstborn of our father, look at my hunchback, and how it resembles those of your own. But of course it is bigger than your own, and that must be so, because I am older than you!’ Totofioko stood up; he showed the boys his false hunchback, and then he sat down again. Thus he, with his trick, persuaded the two boys in such a cunning way that they accepted at once that he was their eldest brother.
    Saying, ‘Hah, this is our eldest brother whose name is “Remember the day after tomorrow”,’ Dele and Deji embraced Totofioko with gladness.
    ‘By the way, where is your mother, who is my mother as well?’ Totofioko, now their deceptive brother, asked loudly with his usual trick.
    ‘Oh, she died just a few months after our father died,’ the two boys replied with sorrow.
    ‘Hoo-hoo-hoo!’ Totofioko, having heard this, covered his head with both palms and wept for some minutes just to deceive the boys.
    ‘Hah! Stop weeping, brother. What are you doing that for? Stop it, sir!’ Dele and Deji stood up and caressed Totofioko until he stopped his false weeping. Then hardly had he stopped weeping when he stood up. He walked up and down in the house. He peeped into every room just to know the kind of property that was inside it.
    ‘I am glad. All the property in the rooms is precious enough and I will carry it back to my village,’ Totofioko thought in his mind before he came back to the sittingroom while Dele and Deji were busy cooking food. And he and the boys ate together.
    Some days after Totofioko had begun living with Dele and Deji, he told them one morning. ‘Yes, now, both of you are aware already that only the eldest person in the family has the right to be in charge of all the property of his deceased father or mother. Therefore, I wish you to gather all of our father’s and mother’s property together and bring it all to me. But instead of sharing these things now, I shall put all inside one of the rooms. Then I shall lock up the room and keep the key for myself.’
    ‘Indeed, you are the right person to do so, sir!’ Dele and Deji exclaimed with gladness. For, in fact, it is the eldest person in the family who has the right to be in charge of