Heritage: Hands of fire

Every family on earth has a special trait that differentiates them from other families. Some families are able to notice this trait and build on it, while others don’t even know and it just dies within their genes. There are different things one inherits from their parents, and if they don’t ask questions, they won’t know about them. Some can have special traits that others consider special abilities.

I do believe this because my grandma told me a story about our family before she passed on to the other side of the world.

I was told in our family that we are blessed with the hands of fire. I asked her what she meant, and she told me a detailed history of our family tree, which I will be sharing with you all.

Image is mine.

I was told in our family that we are blessed with the hands of fire. I didn’t really understand until she asked me what the meaning of my surname was. I really don’t know, but she said our surname was changed from “Ifashe-anu” to "Fashanu,” so it would be easy to pronounce, but it has the same meaning. In our tribe, the “Ifa” is a deity, and we are the priests of the land that connect and commune with the deity on the behaviour of the people, and in return, we are blessed with fire hands.

There is a tradition whereby, when the next priest is chosen from the family, he is asked to pick up a hot coal with his bare hands, and if it doesn’t hurt him, it will be announced as the priest. All the priests that have been chosen from our family have never failed this test before, but due to modernization and education, the ways of the priest have been forgotten and the tradition hasn't been kept. But one thing remains practical in the family: fire doesn’t burn our hands so easily.

We don’t need gloves to put down a hot pot from the fire or pick something out of the oven. We eat our hot food with our bare hands, and while others complain of it being too hot, we laugh out the heat from our mouths.

This is one of the things I’ve gotten from my family.

Thanks for reading.

I’m sure you have something you inherited from your family, and you would love to talk about it. Well, you can still do that by joining the Inleo daily writing prompt. This is just the topic for today, and there are many more topics to write about.

To know more, you can check out the @leo.tasks post or click on the link here to take you directly to the April prompt post. Post link

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