Читать книгу Eve's Daughters - Ellen Saxby - Страница 7

PapuTlonga laid the sharp, dried bones of the jackal in a precise pattern.

A long bone pointing toward the rising sun and one toward the setting sun. One toward the cold and one toward the hot ends of the earth. In the center he pounded a long pole deep into the soft earth. Sweat poured down his neck and made his shoulders sleek as he set out wood for the fire in a similar pattern. The afternoon wind blew hot on his back and it swirled around the edges of the Jackalberry bushes and the Moringa trees, sending their leaves to whispering in the hot sun.

The Kaya was situated a near the peak of a small mountain, a cluster of small huts near enough to the river for the fields to be well watered even in dry times. Situated for easy defense it was protected by the inhabitants’ deep connection with the earth and with the Ancestors.

PapuTlonga knew that the moon was not yet showing her most full face but there was no time to wait. He needed to call in the Ancestors, feeling the anxiety of the responsibility that was his. The slavers had ravaged other tribes in their vicious quest for human bounty to satisfy the greed of their masters. He knew they were close. How close he did not know. Fear careened over the villagers and dug into their hearts like an eagle’s claw and they turned to him for their decision. Whether his village could fight them off or whether they needed to ‘disappear’ was the sum of his quest. Other villages did not have the same access to the Ancestors that he had.

He watched the direction of the wind as the tall grasses shimmered in the afternoon sun and whispered to him in their secret tongue. He had three men assisting him in the deliberate and careful preparations. They represented the three kinds of people in the village, the ones who loved and revered him for his gifts, the ones who feared him because of what he knew and the ones who envied him. The last were the most dangerous. PapuTlonga likened them to the hand of death that wore away the life and laid bare the bones of dessication that led to hatred.

He needed to keep them all where he could see them. He knew from the Ancestors that they also represented parts of himself. The ones who loved and revered him were also dangerous. If he kept those parts where he could see them he also was safer. If a Nganga went to the dark arts through thirst for power, the end was a terrible destruction. The Ancestors’ gifts were not without cost.

The three men laid out huge baskets made of thick leaves. They carried fruit and maize and yams and the thick, sweet smelling rice bread that the women had baked in the small ovens at the edge of the clearing. PapuTlonga spoke quietly to one of the men, the one who carried the searing heat of secret envy of the gift that had passed him by.

“Well done, my son. The Ancestors will be pleased.” He smiled and held the man’s shoulder.

The younger man stiffened. “What if the spirits do not come? What will we do then? We should prepare to fight, not dance and drum in the darkness.” He scowled as he looked at the edge of the village where the scout held vigil on a tall tree.

“They will come, my son. The Ancestors will come,” he said gently. ”If they say to fight then we will prepare to fight.”

The younger man looked away. He was well built and tall. His eyes gave away his inner sense of his shame. He had not inherited his father’s gift and he felt daily the rebuke of the villagers. What secret sin had been his? He knew that he should have been a Nganga in training and instead he was demeaned by the tasks laid before him. Laying out leaves of food offerings.

His father could never look at him without remembering the moment when as a lad he had cornered a wild baby mongoose in a hollowed out tree and killed the poor beast in a slow and painful manner. PapuTlonga knew at that moment that the Ancestors would never use his son’s voice and his body for their messages. Their gifts were earned, not given freely.

“Where are the children?” PapuTlonga asked his son. “Have they been taken down stream?”

“Of course. The women will take care of them. Have no fear.”

The ritual of the Ancestors was considered to intense for the young children. The Nganga needed complete concentration and focus. Crying children were considered a danger to the delicate process of crossing the boundary of the worlds. All the children under thirteen years were separated from the tribe for the night ritual. They were brought to a hut down by the stream and given poipaw juice to help them drift into a deep sleep so they would not be disturbed by the sounds and they would not disturb the ceremony.

“They are the life of our tribe,” the older man reminded his son.

The younger man did not speak but looked away. He was aware daily of the gulf between himself and his father that cut into both of their hearts but was never spoken about. They watched as the wind increased and blew in stronger swirls, exciting the low lying bushes and sending moaning sounds through the heavily leafed mango groves.

“Good,” said PapuTlanga, eyeing the swirling pattern of the winds. “They are already gathering . Come we must hurry.” He was relieved that the ritual would soon begin. He had been fasting for three days and his strength was beginning to ebb. He knew that once he drank the juice of the Igolo plant he would have all the energy he needed and more beyond. He just needed to make it to that moment without fainting from hunger.

By the time the moon was edging over the trees, the fires were lit and the chant had begun. The smoke rose into the night air carrying the scent of Juniper and Cardamom. The drummers held back the pace at first. They were well trained in their craft of building the bridge. Slowly the pace increased and the chant swelled. The drums made of antelope hides, stained with the dark resin of beetle nuts sang their charged hymn to the Mothers and Fathers who had gone into the upper worlds. Bodies moved in rhythm to the sounds and PapuTlonga came out of his hut and began to move in the ceremonial ritual gestures that he had learned from his father. His bare feet beat a sacred rhythm in the dust as he moved toward the center of the clearing. His face was painted, and it was clear that he was already in a deep altered state.

His voice had depth, authority to it as he moved into the fullness of his calling. He was the intermediary and the emissary between all those who had gone into the heaven worlds and those who still walked the earth. The sounds that he made grew louder and more unearthly as he moved in rhythm with the drums.

He voiced the ancient words of summons. His cry, the expression of the desires of all the gathered village. Their need was measured in their faces. All eyes fixed on the one man who could reach into the deep abyss of hidden knowledge. The chant rose and fell. The drums drove the passion of a people.

Finally at the peak of the intensity the drums stopped as PapuTlonga fell to the ground his body quivering, his eyes rolled back in his head, then silence. The three men who had been his helpers gently covered him with a thin gauze like cloth, to give him privacy to speak with the spirits.

No one moved. The silence held their shared belief and hope that the Ancestors cared for them and protected them as they walked the earth. The fire crackled. From far away, they all heard the cry of an owl, the ancient symbol of the tribal spirits. No one spoke.

Finally, PapuTlonga moaned and began to move, slowly at first, then he removed the white gauze from his face. The three men lifted him to his feet and helped him walk to the seat that was prepared beside the chief of the tribe.

“They are coming,” he said slowly. “Too many…. We cannot overcome them. ….They are too strong for us…… They have weapons….. We must disappear.”

A low moan touched the night air as the horror of the slavers’ approach intensified the fear that had drawn the camp into its poisonous innards. The people knew how to disappear, but the thought of having to do so again, lay heavily on them.

The chief stood, impressive as he was with the full regalia of his office, the beaded headdress, his arms bound with leather and feathers . He stamped his magnificent carved staff on the ground three times. “The Ancestors have spoken. They have always protected us. We will obey their word.”

He turned to PapuTlonga and asked, “How long do we have?”

PapuTlonga’s heart stopped in his chest and he held his breath as he realized he had forgotten to ask the most critical question of all.

The Chief asked again, ”How long do we have?”

The people waited for the reply but none came. A horrified silence filled the air and fear returned as if by storm. The timing was all. They needed to know how long. If they delayed the timing all might be lost. Suddenly a small voice from the edge of the circle called out. It was Mekutei, PapuTlonga’s twelve year old grandson. “Three days, Grandfather. They said we have three days.”

The stunned silence lasted for the briefest moment before someone shouted out, “Nganga. He is Naganga.”

The whole circle of faces took up the cry. They hoisted the boy on their shoulders and carried him past the blazing fire and set him down before the Chief. The fire hissed and crackled and made dancing patterns on the Chief’s face.

Mekutei was frightened. He had never been this close to the Chief and he had disobeyed his Grandfather. The children were told to drink the juice and go to sleep. But Mekutei had pretended to drink and pretended to sleep. His urge to attend the ceremony was stronger than his fear of punishment. He had crawled out past the slumbering grandmothers and crept silently up the hill to watch from behind a tree.

He bowed low. “I beg forgiveness, Grandfather.”

PapuTlonga was still dazed partly from the drug, partly from the meeting with the powerful beings who had spoken with him and partly from the awareness that those abilities that had taken him years of painful training to hone, were given full blown to a twelve year old boy. Actually the boy’s abilities seemed beyond his. For the first time he understood his son’s envy. A brief moment of dark resentment curled from down in his belly and knew that if he did not fight this feeling with every ounce of his soul, he would slowly become more and more like his son, dessicated and filled with envy which would gradually become hate.

“You were called by the Ancestors, Mekutei. You did well.”

Relieved, Mekutei spoke with excitement. “I saw the tall one with the red feathers. He was the one who told me.”

A great shout went up from all of the gathered villagers, all save one, whose heart had been bruised even more deeply. They sat Mekutei on a chair carved from a large root. They feasted on the foods that had been blessed, they drank the mulled banberry juice and would have reveled all night if the Chief had allowed it. He held up his hand and the chanting stopped.

“There is much to do. Sleep now. Tomorrow we will work.” He turned and went with ceremony into his own hut.

The next day dawned clear with the sun rising orange over the purple hills. It would be hot they knew and the tribal leaders began to organize them into groups. Without complaint they began to do the heavy work that would save them. They picked all the maize that was even close to being ready, then ran the water buffalo through the field, destroying what was left. They wrapped all the dried meat into the huge banana fronds and tied the bundles with vines. They dug up the field of yams. They filled all the bladders with water from the river and tied them onto the small carts. They dismantled the huts packing the straw and wood into bundles and carried them across the stream and into the dense forest.

They left three huts in places and they burned those. They killed one of the small animals and poured its blood throughout the encampment. They broke a few of the pottery vessels and scattered the pieces about.

By the end of the second day the Chief gathered them at the center of their now destroyed village. He held out his arms.

“All of this we can rebuild. Not one of our women or children or men shall be sacrificed to the evil of the slavers. You have done well. Now, let us disappear.”

They sang quietly and mournfully as they walked into the thickness of the surrounding green, removing the trail behind them with branches and water. They walked upstream a day’s journey and waited in the damp darkness of the jungle. The women nursed the babies with care lest their cry alert the enemy to their presence. They waited somberly warding off their fear by telling stories in whispered voices. After a day the Chief sent Mekutei’s father to the edge of the village to see what he could of the intruders. “Because you are brave,” he said.

Mekutei’s father felt proud that he had been chosen. The Chief knew that there were other ways to serve the people. Mekutei’s father crossed the stream and walked with panther like steps to the edge of the village and shimmied up the tallest tree from where he could command a full view of the clearing and most of the roads into the area.

He held his breath as he saw in the distance, the men smashing the already broken pottery in their shuddering rage that their long journey into the interior had produced no hostages. They yelled curses and shot their rifles into the air to express their hatred. Mekutei’s father felt the bile rise in his throat as he recognized men without heart, men caught up in the very soul of cruelty. He watched them for a moment then felt his fear rise up again. He knew that if they were as well trained as he was, they would feel him even if they did not see him. He allowed his breath to soften and he joined his heart with the tree and he disappeared into it.

Only when he heard their dissonant voices recede into the jungle did he reappear and climb down noiselessly, dropping to the ground in a crouch ready for quick movement. As he ran stealthily back to report to his Chief, he felt a momentary gratitude for the skill of his father, the Nganga, even for the ability of his own son. A brief window of salvation opened for his soul, but as he approached the group he saw his father sitting next to the Chith Mekutei at his side and the window closed. He had for too long held the resentment that had carved a deep wormhole in his heart.

The people wanted to return to their village that day but the Chief ordered them to remain one more day to be sure that they were safe from the marauders. One more day he said, and they could begin the business of restoring the village. But even at that point, Mekutei’s father was beyond restoring and PapuTlonga knew it. PapuTlonga knew then that the boy would have to be protected. His father had slipped too far into the place of dark hatred.