Image credit: Teakisi First published in 2014 on ElleAfrique and later Teakisi . (This piece was written in reflection and during the days of Prof. Catherine Acholonu's illness, following which she passed away, bequeathing her wealth of knowledge to the world..). There lies my purse of cowries, shells and beads, strung and unstrung, my hero of a thousand years. Is this the future I so looked forward to seeing? My hopes, imaginations, aspirations dashed. In the beginning: Sitting on a cane chair amidst an array of exotic flowers with leaves broad and small, in the courtyard, by the woman who bore me, witnesses all three – me, my mother, and the moonlight, she would tell me the story of the woman. For my mother every woman was one woman manifesting herself in different beings. She would tell me the story of the woman as goddess, warrior, wife, mother, friend, femme fatale, nurturer and bearer of an entire civilization. She would tell me of her grand mother who wielded a gun and fou