Behind the Eclipse

by Pramudith D. Rupasinghe

  11

  I got up all at once hearing a human voice. It was like an auditory delusion that I listened to the voices of people whom I thought to be chasing after me from Loma village. When I opened my eyes, I saw a bunch of people moving towards me with some long-handled tools on their shoulders. I quickly jumped into the muddy field with the intention of staying unnoticed. They came and stopped right next to me. There were a few women and three men; all of them were dirty with mud. They looked strange.

  One woman, in the group, came forward and started yelling in their language which I did not have any clue about. As I could not understand a thing, I kept looking at her till she stopped. The woman kept on talking just like Lofa river in rainy seasons. I was rather confused than scared as I was sure they were not Lomas. I tried my best to tell them nonverbally that I did not understand what they said. But the constant and loud talking of the woman suppressed my every single attempt of convincing them that I was unable to comprehend what she had been telling. Finally, a middle-aged man approached me. He got into the field and lent me his hand to come out. Then only, I realised that I was still in the mud sitting with my legs fully sunk. His gesture of support looked genuine, but I had already developed a trust issue within myself due to which my hands did not move towards his. With the help of another man, they pulled me out of the mud while I was shivering with weakness and hunger. When the fears thinned, physiological needs and physical pains started gaining control over me. I felt a terrible pain across my hips and along my spine besides the unbearable muscle pains and cramps in my calves. I could not but cry of pain even though it was not a man-thing as per the norms of my society.

  ‘The day the man moans, the woman will leave his mat.’ Oldman used to laugh at my uncle who got lost in the bush. He used to weep and moan whenever he got a negligible minor injury.

  They took me to their village which was not far from the fields. They were warm and welcoming: children came running and thronged around me as if I was a fresh hunt. Just like anywhere else, the tribal leader came to see me. He had a long walking stick like any other tribal leader did, but instead of the prestigious lion or the eagle head, there was a simple cross on the top of it. Instead of authority, he manifested respect, instead of rough voice, his words were kind, he touched my head and muttered something in his language. Kpelle, they were the largest tribe in Liberia, and they belonged to the same Mande group of people like Kissi or Loma. But the kindness of those people, especially the chief, persuaded me to think that the kindness of strangers was sometimes real.

  A woman young and stout brought food for me. That was the first day in my life I ate a kind of cooked white seeds served with pepper soup. I did not know it was rice which became Liberia`s staple food in less than two decades. When I saw the food, my tongue was already burnt by the fires in the tummy. I did not know what it tasted like. For more than five days, I had not eaten anything proper which was prepared at home. I was surviving on mangoes, some meat and the fruits I found on my way. Besides, the only hope of finding a civilisation where I could live, the fear of being caught by Lomas and being attacked by animals that remained constant supplemented the basic food I had been taking throughout the journey.

  In Kissi village, everyone was waiting in front of their huts in the morning till their time came to go to the bush or the river, but the Lomas used to go downhill every morning greeting every one whom they met. The men and women used to go to the rice fields and to their small vegetable field with their tools in hand. Some men went hunting but not often. Every tribe had a routine life that they practised daily. Every lifestyle had their own beauty just like men and women returning from the field full of mud on their limbs. Traces of lifestyle would never leave the human.

  After a few days, I joined the villagers to go to the field. The rain had already ceased, and the fields were full of birds. Men spent the night protecting the fields from night birds and mice. On and off, they used to make sounds, beating logs and chanting traditional songs. Sometimes, they set a fire in a barren piece of land near the fields. It was not uncommon to see men singing and dancing near the fire after having drunk some locally brewed wine called Cane-juice. I used to follow the men in the day time and tried to help them with whatever I could do. In return, I got my daily food and felt homely in Kpelle village.

  In the course of a couple of weeks, I caught a few words of Kpelle and started to use them instead of nonverbal gestures whenever suitable. People were happy to see either the absurd way a stranger tried to pronounce tongue-twisting Kpelle words or a stranger who tried his best to communicate in their own language. Sometimes, the children laughed aloud at me or mocked at me when I mispronounced some words, but I always tried to learn even by making mistakes.

  ‘If you do not fall, you will never have a chance to celebrate your rise,’ Oldman, my grandfather, came to my mind whenever I made a mistake. He had passed a long time ago but still was alive within me with his sage words.

  By the tenth full moon, I was able to manage Kpelle to the extent that what I said could be easily understood by the others and to understand many things they talked about even though I often had difficulties in following the conversations when they talked very fast. Not only in linguistic aspects, but also in social dimensions, it was easier for me to be integrated into Kpelle people. Unlike Lomas whose lifestyle was completely different even though every one of us belonged to the larger Mande ethnicity. I helped them in the field, cutting the harvest, cleaning them, storing them in barns and putting up huts. But either I avoided, or I was avoided in secret society rituals that often happened in the bush beyond the fields.

  ‘Secret should remain a secret: disclosure is a sin,’ the healer at Poro came to my mind. His words echoed in me whenever I encountered incidents related to secret societies from which I was excluded. That moment, I felt I was not a part of the community even though they fed me and allowed me to live with them and I did speak their language.

  ‘Alien is an alien so long as secrets remain secrets,’ I told the empty sky; an inexplicable heaviness that I had been having within me was released to the dumb air with a long sigh which I did not know whether in relief or through frustration. Nonetheless, I felt relatively safer than in Loma village or else I had unconsciously accepted that I was a refugee who was left with nothing but to seek shelter at the strangers.

  After a few more full moons, I started feeling nostalgic, whenever I reflected my childhood in Kissi village; listening to the stories of Oldman, the first day I saw Kumba as a child, how we used to play in the compound with my cousins. Then as an adolescent, even before my peers exposed to the secret reality between man and woman; man and woman business, I touched Kumba, and she made me a man. I envied all of that over and over again.

  One side of mine was well aware of quasi-non-existence of my old village; death of my father, death of Oldman which I witnessed, and the destiny of most of the other villagers, after the Bush-curse including Kumba and my mother as they were close to my father who was the first victim in our village. I felt like a caged dog. All my emotional needs were tied up by the needs for survival.

  Every time the harvest was collected, a ritual for sacrificing an animal often a cow to the spirits was common. After the rituals having been done in the night, next morning, all women in the community cooked a huge pot of rice and made a delicious pepper soup with all sorts of meat at their reach.

  Once the village chief tasted it, the food would be open to the community. Everyone was waiting for his arrival after having worked hard all day. This time unlike the past years, he came with three other men. Among them, one was a ‘man without skin.’ Children were looking at the strange looking human and tried to resist their laughter covering their mouths. I, being an adult, was already looking astonished, seeing the first white man in my life. He was in a long dress that covered his legs separately as if his legs were wrapped in black clothes. He was wearing a top, on which a
shining metal cross had been attached to a metal chain around his neck that was clearly visible. The other African men were in similar dresses with small crosses. They walked in slowly with the village chief who was wearing a chain with a cross around his neck which was not there when I saw him for the first time. Before eating, they all knelt down and started saying something looking at the sky keeping both hands together. I was watching carefully the strange ritual occurring right in front of everyone which was not a part of Mande or any other ethnicity in Liberia.

  ‘Rituals are secrets; secrecy should be protected.’ The ground rules which I learnt in Poro had not been forgotten.

  ‘This should be a white man thing,’ I said to myself but it was too loud to be heard if there was someone behind me.

  ‘They do rituals for God,’ one said right behind me.

  ‘God’ What is the god?

  ‘He is with the white man,’ the man responded from behind.

  I felt some progressive change that was not clear to anyone occurring in their community. There was no space for strangers to come and join any festival in my Kissi village. In Loma neighbourhood, I saw no white men coming in. But under the crust of Kpelle tribe, something was changing and a man without skin; a scary looking white man with shining blue eyes, was in the centre of a black festival and the blacks were following what he was saying.

  After the short ritual, they started to eat. Others were waiting till the chief and the guests finished their meal to start the feast that went on till midnight. By midnight, they offered a handful of harvest for the haunting evil spirits for them to stay away from human lives.

  ‘It is important not to make enemies with the evil spirits; they need human help. We need to take care of them sometimes, but not to an extent they become dependent on us and keep staying in our huts, spreading sickness that does not have medicine,’ the village chief was telling while he was sacrificing a rooster and offering a handful of rice and other grains to the evil spirits.

  ‘They are afraid of the holy spirit and the cross,’ one of the black men who was with the white man said aloud. Then they knelt down again and started praying to their ‘God.’

  First time in my life, I saw a Chief of a tribe bowing an outsider. The chief bowed the white man, and they moved into the chief’s hut. The children cleaned all the food left just like hyenas did with the carcases left by the lions.

  The following day, the Chief appeared in the village with the three men including the man without skin. He had already asked all the matured men to be present for a discussion which usually happened whimsically when there was a distinguished event or a serious problem.

  ‘It is a warm day,’ the Chief looked at everyone while his eyes were observing the crowd just like a hawk looking for its prey. The roar produced by the villagers by talking between each other was a clear indication that people were either very excited about what was going to happen, or they did not have a hint of what it was; they were curious.

  ‘The God has finally arrived in our village,’ one man of the two black men who was with the white man said.

  As everyone was happy about the presence of the unknown and unseen white man`s God, they cheered. I did the same since I did not have an immediate reason not to be happy about. One of the black men who was wearing the cross spoke Kpelle like water falling from a cascade. He said that the chief was safe in the hands of the God, and so was the community.

  ‘All evil fear the Holy Spirit; it will protect your Chief, your children, your women your crops and you,’ he kept on saying.

  ‘Bad times will hesitate to cross the boundaries of this village’ man could not finish what he was saying. Everyone in the village started to cheer and dance as if the trio with crosses had brought permanent solutions for every single problem the villagers faced.

  ‘You,’ the Chief called me.

  ‘Me?’ I asked for reconfirmation because I had already developed a trust issue with outsiders since the time I was found in Loma village. I had developed a habit of anticipating problems though Kpelle village was quite calm and friendly place.

  ‘Yes, you Kissi boy,’ he said smiling.

  I walked inside the circle of people with hesitant steps and uncertain thoughts.

  ‘Some tribes consume other tribes in rivalry. Sometimes, witchcraft rituals are performed sacrificing people from strong tribes like Kissis. People from the South-west believe that when they sacrifice strong Mande from the North East, the power of the craft becomes stronger,’ Oldman`s words started echoing inside my head with every step I took towards the chief. It was not even a few dozens of feet. When I reached there, I was wet with sweat as if I was caught in August rains.

  ‘This boy is a Kissi, we are Kpelle,’ the chief told when I closed my eyes expecting a cold metal to touch my neck. It was the cold hand of the white man that landed on my head with bushy African hair and rested on the spongy bush for a few seconds till he finished his melodious chanting in an incomprehensible dialect which I thought ‘words of his God.’

  The small gathering area of the village was under a huge tamarind tree which was bordering a stream that ran across the village demarcating the habitat and the rice fields. During the rainy seasons, the flow of water became a curse which took several lives of both human and animals. The aggression of water would take lives straight to the world of ancestors in seconds.

  ‘Nature often takes humans as a product of it, but when it is angry, it attacks the human first.’ The wisdom of the people who lived long in this ever dynamic world cannot be compared with anything. Oldman had told me which had enough to trigger my thoughts on every single occasion in my life at every single hurdle and challenge along the journey of my life.

  I was looking at the feeble waters of the dry season secretly running, leaving the black stones unhurt whereas in the rainy season, all of them were drowned and suffocated in rushing muddy waters. On this dynamic earth, it was no wonder why the faith changed because it existed in this ever-changing space and never in eternal human mind. When the white man`s hand touched my right hand, I felt being taken to the surface of the earth from somewhere I remained plunged and isolated.

  ‘Now, we are going to the stream for purification ceremony,’ he said in a calm tone.

  Giving a bath in the river for purifying was not a new thing to the tribes I had come from. Every single good thing started either with a sacrifice or a purification including Poro. I was asked to go under water a few times and come out. They kept on chanting in the dialect of the white man.

  ‘He is a follower of God; the Holy Spirit,’ the black man who spoke Kpelle, said and the chief nodded in agreement.

  ‘You are reborn as George,’ the white man looked at me.

  I was puzzled as I had already been born and had my Kissi name. It was my identity which I was proud of.

  ‘Your new name as per the Christian calendar is George,’ he repeated.

  I kept on looking at him just like a snake that kept looking at one direction after swallowing a larger prey till it digested.

  ‘I am now George,’ I said. An irresistible laughter cracked within me and disappeared without being able to break the defence wall created by God`s presence before my eyes.

  Even though I could not understand the spiritual transformation and rebirth of mine that white man was talking about, it was the first ceremony ever performed without bloodshed or slaughtering an animal or in other words, without sacrifices.

  The white man’s ceremony of purification partially usurped the village from the guardianship of the Creator of Kpelle. People and their powerful ancestors had placed the destiny of the village in the hands of the white man`s God. Even though they did not reject the existence of spirits of ancestors, they repetitively insisted on the existence of one single superpower—God, and then the son of the God descended to the human world as Jesus Christ.

  Till a few
full moons, the men stayed in the village, and the white man started teaching his language to the children as well as the adults who showed an interest. The village chief was also one of them who participated in his classes. I was going to the morning class for children and evening class for adults which allowed me to catch up faster than the others.

  ‘Kissi boy is very good,’ the white man said to the village chief while drawing English letters on sand.

  ‘He is strong,’ the chief said in English.

  We tried to talk wherever possible, and his teaching kept us occupied during the times when we did not have much work to do in the fields. After some time, he handed over the class to those two black men who came with him and left the village promising us that he would return soon.

  ‘The Chief of the mission is waiting to hear good news, the spread of Gospels deep in the forests,’ he said.

  ‘When he gets to know that all of you have surrendered to the Holy Spirit and started following his son Jesus Christ, he will be happy. He might visit your village to bless you all,’ he added giving us a hope of a new era.

  Everyone thanked him. The village chief sent three villagers with enough food to take him to the next village where he was supposed to meet his colleague.

  For a few more months, the two black men continued the service under the tamarind tree every day and later on, under the shade of the prestigiously standing tree. They suggested putting up a small church to which the village chief agreed single-handedly.

  One day, just after the morning service, the chief called everyone to come together.

  ‘Before the rain starts falling, we need to make a hut which is sufficient for the service,’ he said to the men who were surrounding him.