I is for Irenic

For this year's A-Z Challenge I have selected a word from the dictionary for each day and written a story around it with a 100 word limit. For extra interest I have chosen words that are unknown or unfamiliar to me. All definitions are from the Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus 2007 Edition. Today's word is Irenic.

Irenic: Intended or intending to maintain or bring about peace.

Vantu’s irenic mission was to bring peace to warring tribes throughout Africa, a mission he believed ordained by the gods. But he had never seen anything like this.

The Tokono tribe were split by their dispute over the origin of rice. One side believed it originated from the toenail clippings of the great God Onardor. The other side held that it embodied the souls of maggots which had died before becoming flies.

Vantu resolved the issue by telling all parties they were lucky to have rice to eat, but if they kept killing each other, rival tribes would steal it.