NNEOHA by Linda Somiari-Stewart

 

Long ago, in the ancient village of Ugwu Amara,
Where the hills whispered,
And the earth still spoke the language of ancestors,
A child was born beneath a sky heavy with silence.

The rain did not fall that night.
The dogs did not bark.
 Even the moon dimmed its gaze.

They named her Mgbeke.

But as the years rolled into more years,
And her hair whitened with the dust of wisdom,
The people renamed her Nneoha — Mother of the Town.

She was no priestess.
She was no queen.
No spirit masquerader.
And yet… she was all of them.

By the time age bent her back like the arc of the rainbow,
And her hands trembled like banana leaves in harmattan,
She had become something else
Something the villagers could not name.

At every gathering, be it a naming, a funeral, a dispute, or a coronation
Nneoha would arrive without fanfare or announcement.
She would lower herself into a waiting stool,
Always placed in a conspicuous corner of the village square.
And a hush would fall… like dusk.

Nobody told her when to come.
Nobody invited her.
But every child knew to sweep her corner.
And every elder bowed without being told.

Those who stood to speak did not ask her for permission.
But they paused.
They looked in her direction.

They paused
Out of awe.
Out of reverence.
Out of instinct.

And whenever their tongues stumbled, they would pause again—
Not because she nodded or frowned,
But because her eyes, milky and still, seemed to reach into their souls.

She never clapped.
She never laughed aloud.
She never interrupted.
Yet every voice echoed from the bottom of her silence.

And when she eventually stood to talk,
Everyone listened. Timekeepers lost their sense of time...

For neither the living nor the gods would time her speech
Because she could stop time in its tracks.

Her voice was cracked like old pottery,
But her words were fire.
She spoke in parables that carried the weight of ancient wisdom.
She could end quarrels with a whisper.
She could remind a proud man of his mother’s womb with a single proverb.

Once, when two clans drew machetes over farmland,
It was Nneoha who walked between them without fear.
She raised her hand and said:

“The earth is patient,
But it forgets no blood.
Choose peace
Before the soil remembers your names.”

And they dropped their blades.

When the sun was too hot,
The children sat at her feet for shade—
Not from trees,
But from her shadow.

And when the rains were delayed,
Her voice could call down the first drops.

In time, the villagers stopped calling her “Nneoha.”
They stopped calling her anything at all.
She had become the shrine that talks and walks.

They said she no longer aged.
They said she no longer slept.
They said her footprints could not be washed away by rain.

And when she finally passed,
The moon turned red and stayed so for seven nights.
The talking hills of Ngwu went silent.
And no gathering has ever felt whole since.

Every village needs a Nneoha.
Not a queen.
Not a title-holder.
But a spirit in flesh

One who speaks when the gods are too busy,
One who sits where time holds its breath,
A woman who is no longer a woman,
But memory, presence, and power.

If you ever meet such a one
Don’t ask her name.
Just bow.
Because you are standing before a still, breathing altar.