The greatest lesson life has taught me is that love betrays because it is often misplaced. I’m happy I know what to love, though this knowledge comes too late to do me any good. We often learn life’s lessons with empty hands. Perhaps the youths who understand the pangs of unrequited love most fully may profit by it: I’ve learned to love the solace and balm of the clean refreshing air of dark evergreen forests riddled with grunting animals and birds singing sweet melodies in flight and on treetops. I love clear brooks, creeks, and rivers teeming with carps rolling down granite slopes at noonday in woody mountains. I love the fallow soil and silver rain that make crops grow, and the heavy downpours of rain-times which quench the earth’s thirst after the telling heat of the year. I love the radiant blue of the dry-time sky. I love God the most!
You may think I’ve turned my love to nature and to God because they’ll soon claim my life, or what remains of it. No. I still believe in family relations but no more in Keny’s jinjan to Leopard that we’ve made a tradition in Kpelleland. Keny was brazen enough, as you will recall, to borrow a large sum of money from Leopard. He promised to pay it back when he grew up. Not knowing that Keny was already grown despite his puny size, Leopard lent him the money but never got it back because Keny always looked pitifully small. Each time Leopard asked him for his money, he would say, “I haven’t grown up yet, Mr. Leopard. Don’t you see how tiny I am! I will pay you when I grow up!”
I must say in all fairness that siring or adopting many children is an advantage; children care for their aged parents, except those who lack the skills to eke out a living in the rain forest, or are plagued by some unexplained sickness, or have partners that resent their in-laws. Of course some children often flee to other lands to escape the crippling demands of their extended families, which is quite understandable. True, some care less what becomes of their parents; they only wish to see them in their graves to inherit their properties.
Despite its many faults, the extended family is redemptive: the flattery, the fawning, the enticing company, the engrossing tales and songs of the folklorist, the obsequious service, the empathy—all for your comfort and well-being. There’s nothing like knowing that your neighbors, friends, and relatives are always there for you; that you’re always there for them; that what they own is yours and what you own is theirs.
Ever heard of murder or suicide in the tribe? Even in death you are not alone. Most important perhaps, competing interests seldom lead to war. Should they do, the war doesn’t last. Nothing more than a small admonition, a white chicken, a kola nut, or a coin can end a tribal war. Why then my protest against extended family relations? Well, I don’t believe that they’re a source of wealth, success, power, and greatness as we suppose.
These words may sound harsh and unusual, but they are true! People of my experience will admit that the royal treatment of THE FAMILY is yours only if you’re prosperous and let family members siphon away all your assets, only to abandon you when you are poor and old. This tradition is responsible for countless heartbreaks, untimely deaths, and the sorry cry of many an innocent fool at the end of life’s long and difficult journey, “Had I known!” Yet, we repeat the mistake over and over because we are tradition-bound. If I have to do it again, however, I’d still raise a large family, but I would engage them in some profitable business for each member to stand on their own feet.
The Kpelle name Danuweli means “When you are loved—” Well, end the sentence as you will, but it’s usual ending is “ . . . you have a problem.” Yes, love is more than a problem. It’s a poisoned arrow that has sent many a great king, queen, strong man and woman, to their early graves. Yet, we indulge it without compromise as we indulge hopes for everlasting life while life slips out of our hands. Indeed, human beings can’t live without harboring in their hearts some seed of destruction. The point I’m trying to make is, use your head and hands to think and do things for yourself. Let others take care of their own problems. Strange idea, isn’t it? Especially coming from a full-fledged tribesman, a seasoned kenamu! But it’s no idle dream of yet another old man defending a wasted life.
I grew up fully committed to the best of our traditions. I joined the Poro, Snake, Leopard, Spirit, Sheep, and Water Societies at an early age and learned how to survive in the forbidding jungle (I don’t normally beat my own drum and dance it, but I’m proud of my record as a farmer, fisherman, and hunter). When I came of age I knew nearly all the major animal spoors and lairs in Dobange and Bodua Forests, and every channel of the Deyn and the Waydea where fishes hide. I took the cutlass, hook, and musket from my father’s hand. Our dryer always had more than enough meat and fish all year round. I never employed kuu to make my first farm, and almost all the women of Haindi joined in the harvest. Never did we ever run out of rice, cassava, or palm oil.
As you would expect, enemies of mine rumored that bush cow was my kaaseng. My “extraordinary strength” earned me much food, but sooner or later my kaaseng would be trapped or shot and that would be the end of my life. Despite my repeated denials of the wicked charge, my parents went out of their way to pay Poro Master Zoe Kolleh a large sum of money—ten whole pounds!—to ban the killing of bush cows in Zieyea Clan. You don’t debate matters of life and death, they said; it was better to give rumormongers the benefit of the doubt.
Everybody knew, however, that my success was due to hard work and self-control. I never weakened myself with tobacco, wine, or women. While my peers enjoyed their dreamless morning sleep, I hurried to my farm before dawn and worked without a pause until noon, at which time they would be coming from their traps and wine trees. Should they get plenty of spoils and wine, they’d defer the work for the day and hold a feast. But let me not distract you further for gossip doesn’t pay.
My hard work paid off, but wealth is a curse in a poor community. I became responsible for my family which comprised my parents, two younger sisters, and three married older brothers and their families. Caring for my little sisters and aged parents was a moral duty I welcomed. The debts children owe their parents are beyond reckoning, and girls need plenty of care for them to marry men of their choice when they grow up. I don’t know why none of these concepts motivated my brothers to help me care for our parents and sisters. They’d rather add their burdens to mine. Daily, they roved the forest and the river for what purpose only the ancestors knew. Occasionally they stayed away for weeks and returned home with nothing.
I had no quarrels with the women and children. My sisters did my cooking, prepared my bath, washed my clothes, swept the house, and nursed me in illness. That was good. Apart from a woman who bears you a child—a wife in the true sense—only your mother or sister you may trust with your life. My brothers’ wives, especially Kpenkeh, were true heroines of the hoe and the knife. They completed planting and harvesting any farm I made when other women were only halfway through with theirs. They wielded fishing nets and set fish baskets with remarkable skill. The children made me proud with their innocent embraces whenever I returned from the bush. They fussed over me with their hair and back-scratching. They invented countless errands for my pleasure. Little Seetorgn, Kpanah’s five-year-old daughter, insisted on sleeping with me every night. She cried whenever I left for the bush. Many times I had to hide from her before going to work. I wished she were a boy. But these brothers of mine! They annoyed me with their carefree life and laziness.
“Rejoice and celebrate!” Father told me one evening when I complained to him about their unbecoming attitude. “You have become a chieftain at an early age! Don’t be surprised if the town asks you to be the next Chief. Gray hair alone doesn’t make a leader; strength and common sense can make you a chief. You have both qualities.” Giving me an approving smile, he looked into the distance, perhaps imagining my moment of triumph.
“I don’t want to be a Chief,” I told him firmly.
“That’s surprising,” he said. “Many people like to be in positions of authority. Don’t you want people to serve you—give you whatever you want for the asking?”
“I want to be only a hardworking family man, like you.”
“Fine idea, but remember you belong to your family, my son.”
“Beginning life with such a great responsibility is unfair. You’ll never own a thing, and what you leave behind is for other people.”
“Your brothers’ children will pay you when they grow up,” Father said with reassurance. “The good you do always comes back to you a thousand times. Probably your brothers are making a cane farm in the rich alluvial soil across the river but don’t want to talk about it. Remember the Poro’s greatest lesson: Men should never talk about their struggles but their successes. Some day this family will become rich!”
“At least they could help with the felling, Father. Sometimes it takes me a whole day to knock down a single belleh tree.”
“Youth is reckless,” Father remarked with a smirk. “Of course you must tackle fallow forestlands since you have many mouths to feed, but swampland farming is easier and better. Swamps tolerate rice plants in all seasons.”
“I want my brothers to assume responsibility for their families.”
“They are your families, too, my son. How many times must I tell you this? The day is almost here when you’ll need strong hands to hold you up. Are you not glad that your brothers’ wives and children are yours to inherit?”
“No, I’m disappointed. Remember the story you used to tell me when I was a child? How you always stressed its moral, ‘The son of your uncle is not your son’? I want to raise my own family.”
“It doesn’t mean turning your back on your own people but to be wise and strong! God will confer many blessings on you in this world and the next if you serve your people well. People may think you’re wasting your time, but don’t mind the noise of the market.” I didn’t know what to say to that.
It wasn’t long when trusted friends began inviting me to hunt with them but really to warn me of the “disaster” I was heading to.
“People think you are putting yourself in grave danger,” Kpenkpa Kollie, a hunting mate once told me on an excursion.
“Why?” I inquired.
“Get a wife of your own! Don’t be afraid of women. Make haste, my friend, for death and old age spare no one!”
“Me, afraid of women? I’m a full-fledged kenamu! I fear nothing but God.”
“It’s not Poro that makes a man but the heart,” Kpenkpa said bluntly. “You aren’t maimed or crippled but handsome and good-natured. Women need you. Do you know that you’re breaking their hearts? Or you’re married to a water woman? Master Zoe Kolleh can take her from your back in the winking of an eye.”
“Why, do you think I have a water woman?”
“I’m only a messenger, my friend. Even the Elders are beginning to believe that you have a water woman. How else could you have become wealthy so soon? Your traps and hooks never fail. Your musket shot always downs an elephant, leopard, or elk. The price your water woman will exact of you is your life! Do you understand me? Nothing less than your life! Why are you throwing away that priceless gift from God?”
Once the Elders were involved in the accusation, nothing I said would absolve me. To end the harassment, I promised the fellow I’d see the Zoe, though I had no intention of doing so. But the rumors later took a devious turn.
“Women are saying that you are impotent,” Puruadoo, another childhood friend, blurted to me on another excursion. “There’s a simple cure to the malady. Chew plenty seeri leaves and kola nut. You’ll regain your manhood instantly. Do you want to continue being women’s laughingstock? They say your brothers’ wives often expose themselves to you in your bedroom but you wouldn’t have anything to do with them! Is that correct? You’re bringing shame and disgrace on men if it is true.”
Another: “People say you sleep with your brothers’ wives to escape responsibility. My friend, borrowed clothes are nothing but borrowed clothes! If you have children by those women, they’ll be for your brothers, not you! All this talk of common family possession means nothing. What you own is what you earn with your sweat.”
The rumors didn’t bother my father who said that God and the ancestors ordain the course a person’s life takes, and whatever course they decide is always the best. But Mother found the rumors disturbingly dangerous. She went to Wiefebei across the river to find me a wife. She said once I married, my brothers would see after their families. Their wives were not to know about her mission.
The day after her departure, one of my traps caught a deer, which the women cooked in abundance and urged me to eat from each of them. They forbade me to eat any of my sisters’ food.
“A man’s sister’s cooking is never as delicious as that of his spouse,” they said, dying of laughter. “As of now we’ll cook for our husband.” My sisters relished the sentiment and accepted it without a second thought.
“Fresh meat is good with fresh wine,” Kpenkeh told me, having engaged a large gourd of strong piassava wine from Tauma, the most experienced wine tapper of the town. She was already acting like a headwife. I hoped she wouldn’t endanger her life or reputation with her affection for me.
I ate and drank to my fill, but that was my undoing.
It happened like the dream I usually had: A naked maiden of tantalizing beauty appeared within my reach but retreated as I approached her, except that this time she yielded to my advances. Hooking together with a fiery impulse, we fell on a feathery bed. After a brief struggle she gave a prolonged moan of elation, then we both sighed deeply, then the sobering awareness dawned on me that I had gone through my last initiation!
Oh how I gloried in the exultation! I wished it would last forever, but the sun and pepper birds were bidding me to rouse and hasten to the farm without delay. No. Let birds and animals eat all the rice they liked; I wouldn’t spoil the memorable day with drudgery. A major stage in my life had ended! I would celebrate the transition with a feast and plenty of rest. I would reflect on the past and plan the future better.
Kpenkeh told me afterwards that all three of them had conspired to taste the first fruit of my life and disprove rumors about my impotence. Why should some other woman enjoy what they had nurtured so long with their sweat? The rumors had to stop, or they would come true, for the mouth of human beings were poisonous.
“What are you talking about?” I asked her as she opened the bamboo window for fresh air. Her dimpled cheeks puffed with suppressed ecstasy in the morning sunlight that poured into the room.
“Your brothers have deserted us,” she said, sitting in my lap. “Perhaps they’re raising other families beyond the river. Well, when belleh falls corkwood takes its place. We must have our children!”
Kpanah, who had prepared the morning bath, stood akimbo at the room door and said, “Come bathe. You shed much sweat all night. See how you’re panting!”
“He doesn’t know what happened,” Kpenkeh told her. “He thinks it was a dream! Hi! Hi! Hi!”
“A Zoe doesn’t converse overmuch,” Kpanah warned her mate. “Don’t behave like those who remained behind. Let the man bathe and eat something. He needs energy. Korzea is almost through with the cooking.”
“So it wasn’t a dream,” I sighed and rose up, gently pushing Kpenkeh to her feet.
“Are you afraid your brothers will kill you?” she said, hugging my head against her warm, springy breasts. “Nothing can they do about it. They had no right leaving us here and go looking for women.” Apparently Kpanah’s advice had had no effect on her.
That evening Mother brought a beautiful Gola girl she had engaged for me. Now I’d have children to inherit my property! My brothers’ wives objected to the marriage. Were they not women? Had my brothers not turned them over to me of their own will? And what was a Gola girl doing in a Kpelle man’s house? I, too, had no delight in the arranged marriage, but what could I do? Mother had put her honor and my filial loyalty at stake. Besides, Father who had been so insistent that I be responsible for my brothers’ families raised no objection to the new alliance. He personally conducted the wedding, held a lavish feast, and took white kola to Somo’s parents to seal it.
“God and the ancestors have ordained that the House of Kortuma prosper,” he said shortly before Somo and I ate the kola nut. My brothers’ wives looked on with scowls and frowns.
“Who are we to stop it?” Father declared. Then he blessed the union, hoping we’d have many children, most of them boys.
Shortly after I married Somo, I decided to find my brothers to know where they stood regarding their families. True, what belonged to them belonged to me, but the hen you own also owns her eggs. If I must take over their families, they should turn them over to me in the presence of Elders. Family hatred was real and dangerous! A younger brother may have an occasional affair with his older brother’s wife to strengthen their family tie. The same applied to sisters. But this custom did not mean that you abandon your wife to your younger brother, or that an older sister abandons her husband to her younger sister.
I disguised my mission by telling the family I was going elephant hunting in Bodua Forest and I might be away for a week or two. I surveyed the Waydea and Deyn basins, inquiring for my brothers. I found their retreat across the Deyn on Gbalala road late one afternoon after two days of searching. Sitting on the brow of a hill among giant trees, the breezy village had three houses and three rice kitchens. A lanky woman with sparse breasts of striking beauty was blowing on a fire under a rice pot in one of the kitchens. She watched me with recognition, a bright look that suddenly withered into a frown.
“Whose town is this?” I asked her although I knew the answer. Sitting on the wall log, I leaned against the shed’s pillar pole and laid my musket across my lap.
“It’s not mine to tell you,” she mumbled and began stirring the rice pot with a wooden spatula. Then she called my eldest brother Lengkey who was resting in a zorba by the kitchen.
Brother Lengkey simulated a smile and shamelessly embraced me. “Welcome to Kaalaah Wuruh!” he cried with gusto. I almost shrank from his embrace but had to accept it.
“This town is your town! Gonkpai and Leipaul are tracking down an elephant they shot two days ago in the forest. As you know, if they don’t get that wounded beast out of the bush, we’ll be responsible for anyone it kills. People nowadays demand nothing less than blood atonement for murder. Nenkpeh and I mind the town while Kulubah and Fitah tend their little swamp garden down the hill. Nenkpeh, call your mates. Tell them that your husband has come.” Glancing at me with worried eyes, he said amiably, “Spend the night with us. Your other brothers will be here tomorrow morning. I’m sure they’ve taken care of that obnoxious beast. I dreamed of them last night. Wait let’s butcher it for you to take some home. We’ll tell you why we treated you like that.”
Without waiting for my reply, he took a cutlass, hastened to a nearby swamp, and brought back a gourd of foaming palm wine, drank a cupful, and turned it over to me. “This is the cold water,” he said. I drank simply to be polite because I could not endure the sight of him. I felt betrayed but what could I do to my older brothers? They were within their rights, though the manner in which they exercised them was unusual.
Next morning Gonkpai, famished, battered, and in total disarray, emerged out of the tangled bushes and told us with distress that the elephant had gone berserk, knocking down whole rice kitchens and setting women and children running back to town for refuge. On one occasion it tore through a bramble and attacked a group of hunters who had to climb a huge sorn tree for safety. Leipaul was keeping an eye on it until he could rally the help of at least five more hunters.
Gonkpai and Lengkey, speaking with one voice, implored me to help them finish up the quarry. Before I could say a word, a messenger from Gbekei, walking with long strides and breathless, dropped on the wall log beside us, and said that the Land had learned with concern about the wounded elephant. People no longer tended their farms for fear of their lives, so hunger was raging everywhere. We had four days to kill the elephant or else the Devil would do it at our expense. Should it shed a drop of human blood on the Land, we’d have to expiate the crime with our blood.
Father surprisingly joined us. The journey wasn’t far but it had been too much for his weary legs. Panting, he sat in the only available chair and pleaded that I help my brothers finish up the beast.
“We are lucky!” he said, nodding his head as he spoke. “Had it been a leopard or koligbahgu, it would have killed a human being since; as God would have it, you came to your brothers’ aid in time.”
It took us four days and ten men to kill the elephant, a wounded beast being more dangerous and difficult to tackle than one that is well. People from all over the clan took part in the butchering, singing our praises.
“So you see,” Father concluded the family meeting, after we had a delicious dinner of elephant meat and plenty of palm wine, “you’re a born leader. Had you not been endowed with a big heart, we could have had plenty of troubles on our hand. I’m told it was a well-placed shot from your musket that finished up the elephant. Well, you’ve proved by deed that you’re a seasoned kenamu. Now I must tell you the truth. Your brothers had my consent to impose marriage on you in fulfillment of a dream I had. In the dream, I saw myself poised in midair in a great light as an evil wind blew over Fuama, tearing roofs from houses, uprooting giant trees and bringing rivers to towns. But nothing happened to Haindi. Then a loud voice declared in the light, ‘Hear me, Kortuma! Danuweli will be your heir and father of many children! Since he refuses to marry, let his brothers take wives, have children by them, and turn their families over to him! One day Danuweli will lead the tribe. As such he must have a houseful of offspring.’ May you prosper and be blessed with many children who will pay you when they grow up,” Father finally ended his long speech.
And so I became the husband of four wives and the father of seven children before my life began. Believe it or not, each woman bore me exactly four children as if they were competing with one another. The mystery did not only make peace and goodwill prevail in my household, it assured me that I had God’s blessings and that I would lead a happy, prosperous, and secure life. My large family reinforced that assurance by tending to my every whim and caprice with the utmost care. In consequence, I worked without respite to support them. My farm was always the largest in the clan, and the harvest never gave less than four kitchenfuls of rice. Elephants, lions, leopards, elks, and hippopotami were common prey to my musket and traps. My hook, net, and gbang caught many kenja of fish, turtles, and crocodiles. I initiated all my children into the Poro and Sande, respectively, at great expense, and gave my sisters in marriage to brave men. What more could I desire of God and the ancestors?
Then early one Christmas morning a crowd of players danced around my house. This was not the usual call players made to confer honor on an Elder. It was strange the players consisted of the whole town and people from all over the clan. I gave them the traditional thanks and white kola for their honor, wished them peace and happiness, but they never went away. By noon Gbetu and Nafa from Gargbelei joined the jubilation, sending billowing clouds of dust into the sky with their raffia costumes. Then Master Zoe Kolleh and two bare-breasted maidens, a gown in their outspread arms, climbed onto my porch slowly and gowned me. The Land slaughtered ten cows for the occasion. What a great surprise! That night the Big Thing announced in its solemn esoteric voice the death of old Chief Zolu and declared me his successor.
I am grateful to God and the ancestors that my reign was peaceful and prosperous. I gave my parents a decent burial and made the Kortuma household respectable, proud, and popular. But it was hardly dawn when the sun began to set for me. The many years of hard work started taking their toll. Once I almost drowned as I collected crawfish from a gbang in Waydea’s strong currents. One morning a leopard broke a trap I had set loosely and attacked me. It was a grim melee; only God knows how I managed to pierce the beast’s heart with my dagger and escape its claws.
One morning I could not leave my bed. They said it was witches’ doing, but I knew it was due to old age. Witches usually strike people down in their prime. Being innocent of witchcraft and malice, I recovered satisfactorily but couldn’t handle the cutlass and the ax anymore, nor shoot a musket or tamper with a river. Not even a chief can get anything much out of people once he isn’t with them at work. Before I knew, all the women except Somo were gone, taking their children with them. I couldn’t blame them because we usually marry girls in their teens. They have to have their men when all our energy is spent! Their great excuse for leaving me in decline was that I needed rest from the heavy burden of supporting “my clan.” I should be permitted to die in peace.
I wished them well; at least my children would enjoy one of their parents for many years so that they may not grow up bitter or sad. My greatest surprise, however, was being abandoned by my own brothers. Well, they won’t have anything to inherit when I died, so I understood why they turned their back on me. I wished them well, too. It dawned on me that God wants us to go, as we come into this world, alone. He’ll have plenty explaining to do when I meet him. Why, for instance, he makes our brief life a mountain climbing project! You strain and sweat and bleed and groan and weep until you reach the summit, but you can’t stay there. You must come down, often with grievous pains, not to the familiar terrain you had left but to the dark and fearsome bowels of the earth.
Somo and her children vowed to stay with me until the end. “We’ll bury you before leaving this town,” they assured me.
The one that loved me the most was Yeye, named for her striking resemblance to my mother. Even when she was old enough to marry she wouldn’t leave my side. She fetched drinking and bath water for me, washed my clothes, cooked for me, swept the house and the yard, and kept my company each night until I slept. Indeed, she was a mother to me. But, as fortune would have it, death cut her down when she brought forth her first child, all because of a heart problem she had had from childhood.
Yeye used to complain about heartache when playing in the square. All of a sudden she’d place her hand on her breast and cry out, “My heart has stopped beating.” Her playmates would laugh and say, “Had it stopped beating, you’d be dead.”
We thought she’d outgrow her fear of death because it struck her only once or twice a month and lasted only a moment. Yeye grew up as a fine lovely girl. She had a beautiful voice, which people believed was a gift from some spirit or waterman, but it wasn’t. She became Haindi’s most famous singer. Fuama Bird was her nickname. Everyone joined the play once her golden voice led the singing. Whatever tribute she earned from singing she faithfully turned over to me. Had she lived, I wouldn’t have been this distressed.
Somo’s second child whom I named Liilaa also loved me without reserve. She was always at my side comforting me with words of courage. Truly love can cure malady and prolong life. If I’ve lived this long in the grip of doddering old age, I owe it to Liilaa. Much to my dismay, a Lorma man married and carried her upriver to meet his people. He promised to bring her back in a month, but they’ve been gone for four years! I hope nothing bad has happened to my child. I see her in many awkward situations in my dreams. I have vowed not to die until I see her again.
The boys were thoroughly a disappointment. I named the elder one Leeworli because he was fond of his mother rather than me. Well, it’s natural for boys to be fond of their mothers, but Leeworli became too effeminate and with too morbid a sense of his own importance! The slightest provocation sent him soaring into the sky. Nothing should ever go wrong in his life. Leeworli could not stand joke. He always beat his wife for challenging him to be a man. I investigated several of their quarrels and, noting that he had no case each time, advised him not to touch the people’s child again.
“You had no business marrying your cousin,” I often reminded him. “The girl does not consider you a husband but a playmate, that little boy she used to fool with in the sand.”
Leeworli didn’t listen. Many times the Bush Thing came to town on his account and made him pay heavy fines for the offense. He took after me when it came to hard work, and so he had much money, but all went to the Poro Master because he wouldn’t stop beating his wife. Ordinarily the Poro would have taken care of him so that he may never be a threat to the poor child or to anyone else, but our corrupt initiators love money. They played their greedy game with Leeworli until the girl became pregnant. Of course, he was sensible enough not to beat her in that condition. She herself was so concerned about her life that she had no time for joke. God blessed her with a safe delivery and a boy child. Her next two children were girls.
Early one morning as he drank with friends under a wine tree, one of them called Guladia teasingly told Leeworli, “I had intercourse with your wife in my dream last night.”
Leeworli jumped on the fellow and slapped him all over with his rustic hands. Then he brought his complaint to me. After a brief investigation, I dismissed the case.
“Dream means nothing!” I told him. “The meaning it gets comes from our interpretation. And one interpretation is as good as another. Learn to take joke, for laughter is the best medicine. Don’t take yourself too seriously!”
“I don’t like joke,” he told me. “People tell you the truth in joke form.”
My advice meant nothing to Leeworli. Early one morning, I was wakened by frantic shouts, uproars, stampeding feet, and thuds of fisticuffs.
“What has come over Leeworli!” people were hollering.
“Leeworli will kill the people’s child!”
“The man has gone mad!”
“Doesn’t he care for his poor, helpless father who is on the point of death?”
“My people, let’s restrain the man!”
“He has gone to his house for weapon!”
Leeworli had engaged Guladia the dreamer in another brutal fight. This time the fellow said that what he had told him before wasn’t a dream but a fact. He was really having an affair with his wife. He even went to the extent of claiming that he was the father of the child Sereh had had for Leeworli. It was the last confession Guladia ever made. Leeworli, who was so calm and soft-spoken otherwise, was dangerous when fully roused. He beat Guladia so much that not an iota of life remained in him. Leeworli escaped death only because I was the Chief then. However, the Land was constrained to banish him from Fuama Chiefdom. I don’t know where he and his family live now.
Somo’s last child Taatee, the only hope I had now, also vowed never to leave me until I had gone to The Place of Truth.
“I won’t act like my brother Leeworli,” he promised me. “Depend on me, Father. You won’t die abandoned.”
Well, I had heard such a promise many times; I waited to see if this one would come true. Of course Taatee was manly, trustworthy; a nice promising young man. His only problem was his innocence. He believed in everything and everyone. If you told him the world will end tonight, he would lose his sleep over it. He built his house beside mine to consult me whenever he heard any strange news or opinion. Taatee married Yanka of Gbiritaa who bore him two lovely sons. She was an exquisite beauty, hardworking, polite, friendly, and kind.
Taatee decided to go to school even though he was too far gone in age and had a family. What caused him to make the decision was one arrogant soldier who came to town one day and demanded baskets of chickens, flocks of goats and sheep, kenja of rice, and tins of palm oil of Haindi. Of course nobody had such things to give him. I politely told the fellow that we could give him something to eat and drink, but we didn’t raise cattle, nor did we have all the foodstuffs he had requested. The fellow started shooting his gun at random round the town. Everybody fled but Taatee. Then the obnoxious soldier put a nasty slap in my ear. Taatee let him have it in the eye. It was a heavy blow that threw the army man off balance. He staggered and fell precipitously to the ground. Fighting a soldier meant instant death because it was the same as fighting the government. Taatee had clearly decided to give up his life for my sake. He did not wait for the soldier to get up and cock his gun when he sent another sharp fist into his mouth. He flung the gun away. See blood spouting from the soldier's mouth! When Taatee took the gun to finish him up, the Devil gave a solemn roar and took over the town.
Well, that’s all I can tell you. Strangely enough, nobody from Monrovia ever appeared in Haindi to inquire into the incident, news of which traveled far and wide in the Chiefdom. Any inquirer risked the vengeance of The Bush Thing. By joining forces with the kwii world, Taatee thought he would be in a better position to protect us from soldiers’ malice. I agreed with him, for fighting does not solve problems. He attended Kpolopele, the nearby mission school white people built behind Gargbelei. When he finished the five books the mission taught, the white people gave him a book containing God’s words for his outstanding achievement. He was the only one to get that prize. It’s sad to say that was the end of his life, for Taatee believed that witches would kill him for the distinction. Nothing we told him could convince him otherwise. The worry drained life out of him down to its last trace. When he died Somo decided to go home.
“I can’t remain here after losing all my children,” she told me in anger one night. “This town is a nest of witches. I should have done what the other women did long ago. Go home!”
She departed early one sunny morning with our grandchildren and a young man who came for her; doubtless, her home mate and lover. Now I live alone in a dilapidated house at the mercy of neighbors who grudgingly give me food, water, and firewood. They often say within earshot of me that death was punishing me because I allowed my own family to take advantage of me. Now they who were no beneficiaries of my generosity when all was well with me were condemned to care for “such a cadaver.”
Had I known that I would end up like this, I would have made a better plan for the future no matter what people said or felt about it.
GLOSSARY
Bush Thing: leader of the Poro Society who spirits uninitiated males into the sacred grove for initiation. He speaks in a terrifying esoteric voice. Upon his coming to a town or village, all women and uninitiated boys take refuge behind closed doors.
Devil: alternative name for the Master of the Poro Society.
“Don’t behave like those who remained behind”: the uninitiated.
Gbang: a cylindrical fish trap usually placed in a cataract.
Heroines of the hoe: farming, the mainstay of livelihood in rural communities, is done according to division of labor. The men prepare the land for planting rice, the staple food. The women plant and harvest it. Women who distinguish themselves in discharging this task are called heroines of the hoe, the planting tool, or the knife, the harvesting tool. Distinguished male farmers are called heroes of the cutlass.
Jinjan: foolish or deceiving talk.
Kaalaah Wuruh: family tree. Kpelle names often hint at a meaning. This particular name alludes to the enduring tie of family relation. The family tree bends but it doesn’t break, meaning family relation may be strained to a breaking point but doesn’t break. The Kpelle attach great importance to consanguinity.
Kaaseng: the Kpelle believe that each person has kinship to some other living thing, usually an animal. If your kaaseng (or double) is a lion, you literally live in the lion and it lives in you. You consequently display a lion’s attributes. If any harm befalls it, you are similarly affected.
Kenamu: member of the Poro, a society which prepares men to be brave, wise, industrious, loyal to the tribe, and responsible husbands.
Kenja: a cylindrical carrier plaited with palm or piassava thatch. It is hooked to the back like a backpack.
Kuu: work group. Also an initiation, marriage, funeral, Christmas, or New Year festival.
Leeworli: love for a mother.
Liilaa: peace.
“When belleh falls corkwood takes its place”: when a husband dies another man must take his place.
Yeye: a child’s word for ‘mother’.
Zorba: room attached to a house or rice kitchen (shed) built with thatch or wattle. It is sometimes daubed with mud.
