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relatives. She was about sixteen and just ripe for marriage. Her suitor and his relatives surveyed her young body with expert eyes as if to assure themselves that she was beautiful and ripe.
    She wore a coiffure which was done up into a crest in the middle of the head. Cam wood was rubbed lightly into her skin, and all over her body were black patterns drawn with
uli.
She wore a black necklace which hung down in three coils just above her full, succulent breasts. On her arms were red and yellow bangles, and on her waist four or five rows of
jigida
, or waist beads.
    When she had shaken hands, or rather held out her hand to be shaken, she returned to her mother’s hut to help with the cooking.
    “Remove your
jigida
first,” her mother warned as she moved near the fireplace to bring the pestle resting against the wall. “Every day I tell you that
jigida
and fire are not friends. But you will never hear. You grew your ears for decoration, not for hearing. One of these days your
jigida
will catch fire on your waist, and then you will know.”
    Akueke moved to the other end of the hut and began to remove the waist-beads. It had to be done slowly and carefully, taking each string separately, else it would break and thethousand tiny rings would have to be strung together again. She rubbed each string downwards with her palms until it passed the buttocks and slipped down to the floor around her feet.
    The men in the
obi
had already begun to drink the palm-wine which Akueke’s suitor had brought. It was a very good wine and powerful, for in spite of the palm fruit hung across the mouth of the pot to restrain the lively liquor, white foam rose and spilled over.
    “That wine is the work of a good tapper,” said Okonkwo.
    The young suitor, whose name was Ibe, smiled broadly and said to his father: “Do you hear that?” He then said to the others: “He will never admit that I am a good tapper.”
    “He tapped three of my best palm trees to death,” said his father, Ukegbu.
    “That was about five years ago,” said Ibe, who had begun to pour out the wine, “before I learned how to tap.” He filled the first horn and gave to his father. Then he poured out for the others. Okonkwo brought out his big horn from the goatskin bag, blew into it to remove any dust that might be there, and gave it to Ibe to fill.
    As the men drank, they talked about everything except the thing for which they had gathered. It was only after the pot had been emptied that the suitor’s father cleared his voice and announced the object of their visit.
    Obierika then presented to him a small bundle of short broomsticks. Ukegbu counted them.
    “They are thirty?” he asked.
    Obierika nodded in agreement.
    “We are at last getting somewhere,” Ukegbu said, and then turning to his brother and his son he said: “Let us go out and whisper together.” The three rose and went outside. When they returned Ukegbu handed the bundle of sticks back to Obierika. He counted them; instead of thirty there were now only fifteen. He passed them over to his eldest brother, Machi, who also counted them and said:
    “We had not thought to go below thirty. But as the dog said, ‘If I fall down for you and you fall down for me, it is play’. Marriage should be a play and not a fight; so we are falling down again.” He then added ten sticks to the fifteen and gave the bundle to Ukegbu.
    In this way Akuke’s bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries. It was already dusk when the two parties came to this agreement.
    “Go and tell Akueke’s mother that we have finished,” Obierika said to his son, Maduka. Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo. Obierika’s second wife followed with a pot of soup, and Maduka brought in a pot of palm-wine.
    As the men ate and drank palm-wine they talked about the customs of their neighbors.
    “It was only this morning,” said Obierika, “that Okonkwo and I were talking about Abame and Aninta,