Creek World · the country

The Nation

One country in the creeks of the Niger Delta, eight villages, one for each of the Eight. Each village is a person: its people come from its first element, its pact from its second. In the drift, every village lost its second element, and with it a virtue. The Called are coming home to carry it back.

Colours

The painter’s wheel

The elders, there from the start, are the primaries. The young ones, made by mixing, sit between them. Spirit and Sound, the first pair, hold the centre.

Spirit and Sound: chalk white and black

Elders: Water blue, Light yellow, Time dawn red

The young: Fire orange, Iron verdigris, Blood deep-vein violet

Light’s presence is Sun and Moon, so it carries two tones: sun gold and moon silver.

Across the wheel

Four axes

Partners are one kind of bond. Opposites on the wheel are another. Each axis has a direction, giving out from me or taking from you, and an object, a person or a thing.

	A person	A thing
Give from me	Spirit and Sound: self-recognition. Saying who I am; giving myself.	Water and Fire: creation. Making is giving from me.
Take from you	Blood and Light: recognition. Seeing takes your identity, your privacy.	Time and Iron: staying. Keeping, holding a thing; it stops you.

More in the museum: Across the wheel · Spirit and flesh, give and take · The cycle of force

Beside each young one sit two elders that are its kin: Fire between Light and Time, Iron between Water and Light, Blood between Water and Time. proposal

How the elements show in a country

The presences

Each element takes a form in a country, and that presence hosts a village’s Lord. See who keeps a village. Every presence carries a little of its partner.

Element	Presence	Carries	What it can do
Spirit	Spirit	Sound	Longing: the sound calling your soul
Sound	Storm	Spirit	Summons other spirits: lightning, fire, thunder
Blood	Grove	Water	Holds water
Water	River	Blood	Summons canoes for your journey: hospitality
Light	Sun and Moon	Time	Can make an hour
Time	Sand	Light	Never forgets: the right hour brings light
Fire	Flame	Iron	Can bend metal
Iron	Stone	Fire	Holds great heat

The country as a journey

The route inland

Welcomed at Temeama
Learn to move at the water village
Asked your business at the hub
Judged at the court island
Entered into the record draft
Shaped draft
Learn the why draft

The Spirit village carries you between every step, and at the end brings you back to Temeama’s shore, the threshold of Woyengi’s country. Walk it in the museum: The route inland, Seven villages, one Spirit.

Village	On the route	People	Pact	What was lost	Brought back by
Temeama	The gate. First land from the sea; marks Woyengi’s territory. Welcomes, warmly.	Grove: houses, healers	The Praise Contract	Storm: warmth, outreach. Names unsaid for a century.	Sound: Tari
The water village	Into the deeper country: agile, ready to adapt. The canoe carries the Called.	River: ferrymen, merchants	The Engine	Flame: creativity, agility, sharing. The rite drifted; the forge went cold.	Fire: Pere
The hub	Who are you? What’s your business? Where the big creeks meet.	Storm: heralds, advocates	The Open Court	Light: integrity. Rumour, a century of loud wrong.	Light: open
The court island	Divine justice carried out, apart in the wide reach.	Light: judges, diviners	The Court in the Fortress	Iron: respect. Truths judged, none made to stand.	Iron: open
Sand draft	Entered into the record. Who do you belong to? What’s owed?	Sand: granary-keepers, record-keepers	The Inheritance Bank	Blood: belonging. Graves with no names.	Blood: open
Flame draft	Where you’re shaped, by the season.	Flame: potters, dyers, reformers	The Slow Reform	Time: patience. Reform promised, never come.	Time: open
Stone draft	The foundation, deepest inland. Learn why you were called.	Stone: builders, smiths	The Shrine Guard	Spirit: purpose. A Lord nobody remembers to pay.	Spirit: open
Spirit draft	The thread through all of it. On boats in every village; tends Woyengi.	Spirit: keepers of every shrine	The Pilgrim Ferry	Water: connection. Blessings sold instead of carried.	Water: open

Before the present drift

An older age: The Ferry Song

The Ferry Song is set long before the present stories, at the hub. It shows drift up close: the song goes out of the rowers overnight, the canoes turn in circles, and the Hollow eats the paths. Oar carries it back with Water, Sound and the lamp that shows what is, not what seems, and sings it at first light. Drift has happened before. In the museum: An older age.

The old drift was fast and loud, a song gone overnight that everyone fought. The present drift is slow and quiet, three jars to one over a hundred years, and nobody noticed. proposal

Where it sits

On the Niger Delta

The eight villages drawn over the real Niger Delta: Temeama on the outer island between the Nun and Brass mouths, the water village up a creek behind it, the old woman's landing above the salt line, the hub at the Niger fork, the court island on Oguta Lake, Sand on the Asaba bluff, Flame and Stone on the Awka ridge country. — Real geography, invented country.

Go further

Elsewhere in Creek World

The museumEvery element, village and person, room by room
The EightThe elements, elders and young ones
Which of the EightFind your element
Tari Learns to ListenTemeama, and Sound brought home
The Ferry SongThe older drift, at the hub
GamesEverything playable, in one place