Blood Oath: What Young Couples in Love Need to Know

I was surprised when my colleague, Brandon looked at my computer screen and said blood oaths no longer exist. Perhaps what Brandon was actually trying to say was that he wished it no longer exists. Fat chance! As long as people continue to fall in love and do it passionately, blood oath would never die out. What would people not do in the throes of first love and passion, in the heat of reckless abandon to prove something? Most of such oath stems from insecurity complex, not that it has served any good. When you love someone badly that it hurts, the best you can do to avoid ending up with a high blood pressure is to give the person the benefit of the doubt at all times. Making him or her to take an oath that they wouldn’t bang another person in the near future or jilt you is utter rubbish! Love is a gamble. Sometimes it works out, many a time, it does not. Whichever way yours comes, bear it with a grin and a chin held high. Yea, I’ve done it. With me, I’ve come to the conclusion, that I am jinxed where love is concerned and have learnt to keep to myself. Love has been a little bit hard on me. Please don’t ask, I don’t know why.

A couple in love don’t just come out to shout, ” Hey fellas, come and watch, Monique and I are gonna take a blood oath to affirm our loveâÂ?¦” Nay, of course not! They discussed it and do it secretly, knowing their parents might object to it. Funny enough, I’ve asked several times if such licking or exchange of blood actually works. I really can’t answer the question, what I do know is that the devil is powerful. Give the son of a bitch an inch, he would want to take a mile. People claimed that if a couple reneges on their promise to each other and breaks the oath, heads would roll. Blood oath to me is a glorification of Satan. When your siblings or children start engaging in a sort of consuming relationship, be watchful so that they don’t get it into their silly heads to drinking blood or take life threatenning oaths. I was on the rough side of 21, when I fell madly in love. It was first love. HumâÂ?¦the pang of it. I can still remember the quarrels and oh gosh! the making up. If my guy and I drank oats with groundnut, I would grin like an idiot because it tasted like ambrosia. Even water, tasted like juice as long as we both shared it together.

The fact that father didn’t like him didn’t bug me. Several times, I would go to bed hungry, because my family wanted me to come to my senses. At a point, I became a guru in telling all sorts of lies just to avoid detection that I was with him. One day, at about 12.p.m, I had a horrible fight with father. Said he wouldn’t live to see me marry the guy. And the poor guy had not even said anything to me. I just had to make father understand that it was my life. We went into a shouting match. We both went to bed miserable that night. Father and I are too alike in character. We are also nuts over each other. For days, father gave me the cold treatment. An emergency family meeting was held. The discussion was that Rose took a blood oath with the guy or why had she gone out of control? Nonsense! True, there was a time the guy brought up the idea of a blood oath. Said he was scared I might one day walk out on him. I refused. He said it meant I didn’t really love him. If that was the way to measure love, then I guessed I had rather not declare my love. Even as he described the process of us piercing our fingers with needle and sucking each other’s blood, I felt my blood congealed in my veins and I grew cold all over. Goose pimples covered my body. I shivered. Never, not me! Don’t you guys think there’s a little bit of voodoo in this blood oath stuff?

There’s no way either of the lovers would know whether the love would last for years to come or not. This is the risk involved in a relationship. One, we all have to take. So when you decided to take blood oath to declare your fidelity and love for someone, don’t forget that one day, both of you might go your separate ways. The oath can’t stop love from dying. The repercussions in taking blood oath could be fatal sometimes, so do please avoid it. When you take the oath, you’re not doing it with the believe that there could be crossroads some day soon. Crossroads, that would have both of you, taking different pathways to start a new life. Yes, it is when you start the new life that the past would come haunting and hunting you. Love is not a right, it is a privilege. If not handled well, it burns, hurts and fizzles out.

A couple fell in love right from high school. I heard they never actually wooed each other but the relationship sort of fell into place because they were always together. By the time they got into the University, both families accepted the silent rule that they were illegally married. The guy got a scholarship to study in South Africa. The lady couldn’t stomach, not just the separation but the not knowing whether he wasâÂ?¦. With another babeâÂ?¦Hope you understand me. She was sure he would take a hike when he sees those black ladies. To reassure her, the guy suggested blood oath. They visited a native doctor. The guy left America. After his studies, he got a job there. Sent for the lady but she refused to fly over. Said she too had a job she loved. Stalemate. Who would give in? And please don’t tell me because she’s woman, she had to go. After waiting for a while, the guy in a huff, got married to another there. The bride died during childbirth. He married another; she died after a brief illness and the thirdâÂ?¦hum, also died. The lady was on the verge of marrying another guy she had finally come to love when the new lover fell ill. No doctor could diagnose the cause of his illness. The smart lady started suspecting that the blood oath, done in the heat of a passionate love, might be at the bottom of the man’s mysterious illness. She soft pedalled on the wedding plans.

A search here and there, confirmed the fears. Yes, the blood oath is on the loose. The Overseas guy pronto rushed back. The news of the oath travelled like a wild fire round the neighbourhood. The old lovers agreed and severed it, but the new lover who had just recovered from his mysterious illness refused to take her back for fear, he might have a relapseâÂ?¦who knows how many more ladies would have died because two young people in love decided to play God and monitor the future. I was discussing this same issue with my friend, Eugene Agha, who with a dismissive wave of the hands called it, “a rubbish practice!” He said a couple did it in his area and died when they broke the law guiding it. You don’t believe him? I do! In this world, anything is possible.

A pal told me that blood oath to seal love could take various forms. Sucking of blood, exchange of blood, mixing of blood and tying of red clothe stained with the lovers’ blood and thrown into a flowing stream. Others could be broken if the native doctor is still alive but a couple may not be able to break the charm thrown into the flowing stream. How would you get the cloth that has been carried away by tide for years? Where would you start looking? It is good to love but don’t be foolish. Don’t allow anybody sweet talk you into taking a blood oath. I heard it affects some people in ways that makes them appear deranged. Recently I heard that my cousin, Charles, has not gotten married despite many ladies in his life because of the oath he went to do with his then heartthrob. Can you dig that? The guy woke up and with his babe travelled all the way from New York to Los Angeles to swear an oath of everlasting love. Charles is not getting any younger. He talks of marriage with all seriousness, but somehow, somewhere, something keeps going wrong to keep him from saying, ” I do”.

Today, Charles is no longer dating the babe but he finds it pretty difficult to keep a steady and stable relationship. They’ve parted for years now, but still Ify and the lady are wandering, searching for their missing bones. I heard that some couple go to church to severe it. And at times, many couples forgot they did such a thing when they were young and very much in love. When problems start blowing like hurricane, they start running from pillar to post, seeking solutions to problems created by them. At Bronx, two lovers took an oath. They later parted ways. Both indeed got married to different spouses, but never had children. Soothsayers told them their problems at different times and places. Both marriages later packed up. They bumped into each other one day and one thing led to another and they resurrected the long dead relationship. Fortunately, they must have done something right, for they soon got married. And guess whatâÂ?¦children were coming like brood of chickens! Let say they didn’t see each other as fate made it, what then? Both would have remained in a world void of knowing the joy of being called, “Daddy or Mummy.” A friend told me that some blood oath is so strong, that only the death of one of the couple could destroy the potency. Such charms are another form of imprisonment, except this time, it would have a spiritual undertone. As you love with your heart, don’t allow your senses get carried away. Don’t sow a seed that would germinate to problem for you tomorrow. Whatever life or love dishes out to you, accept it with a smile or at worse a grin.