Quite why he’d demanded to take over the driving bemused me. Were he trying to show off he was greatly mistaken, show-offs not generally wearing expressions of exquisite unease. Who, anyway, would he be showing off to?
That question was shortly answered when two figures in animal skins, clutching spears, appeared from among foliage. They stopped before us, dropped to their knees and kissed the ground before the oncoming Shaman. We, inexorably, carried on going and ran over one of them.
Reaching across hastily, I managed to apply the brake.
As the tribesmen rose to their feet, the one who had been run over checked his body-parts for damage and looked distinctly put out. He was the taller of the two and had a scar running diagonally down his torso, from right nipple to navel. Probably accident-prone. He did not smile. The other, more compact, wore a broad grin the width of his face and was sporting a pair of dead scorpions as ear-rings.
The three locals spoke among themselves in a new language I failed to understand, sounding similar to the Aghanaspan I had heard, with added clicks of the tongue and the occasional guttural snort. From their body language, it was plain that the Shaman was much respected.
Greetings dispensed with, the tribesmen led us through a gap between clumped trees, like some makeshift guard of honour, though they stole regular backward glances to ensure we were at a safe distance behind. The scarred chap was limping badly and kept inspecting his elbow.
The ground opened out into an expansive clearing. It was like stepping into a Tardis. Circular wooden huts with palm-frond roofs – similar in construction but smaller than those back in Mlwlw – were dotted about, and adults and children stood rooted to the spot, staring, focused upon our arrival. Some looked concerned, most aghast – at myself or the motorbike, it was hard to tell. The only movement came from pigs, snuffling among them for unseen morsels. Flies buzzed my head and nipped at any exposed flesh. Though I swatted at them, their numbers were so great it was a war I could not win.
So this was the lost tribe. I might feasibly have been the first white man on the planet ever to witness them. How thrilling! This was genuine exploration, such as Doctor Livingstone practised, or Magellan and Columbus, the doyens of the history books. Might I even have one-upped Harrison Dextrose, I wondered?
Happily, the Shaman managed to brake before we maimed anyone.
One by one the villagers edged forward until they were crowded around the motorbike, muttering to one another, tentatively reaching out to touch the metal machine. One small boy foolishly pressed a palm onto the hot engine, squealed and withdrew his hand, shaking it violently while everyone around him, besides one woman I assumed to be his mother, chuckled enthusiastically. To my surprise, they didn’t seem remotely impressed by me, their first ever Westerner.
The women were all bare-chested, which might have been titillating had I not assumed the responsibilities of a pioneering anthropologist, and wore skirts made of skins or woven natural materials. The men, also bare-chested, wore either loin-cloths, or something like a skirt made of animal skin, and the children were all naked.
Both sexes sported jewellery and bodily adornments: beads, sparkling stones, small bones and carved ivory, dead insects and creepy beasts. One gentleman appeared to be wearing a bright green, red-spotted frog as a jaunty beret.
The Shaman had donned his tall wizard’s hat with the celestial designs, and had his nose in the air. Whenever anyone went to touch the dummy, he pulled the boy away and growled.
Suddenly everyone fell silent and the crowd parted.
A thick-set man, his chest draped in layers of beading, sporting leather chaps and a codpiece made from something’s shell, had appeared in the doorway of the largest of the huts. Their leader, I assumed. He raised a hand to acknowledge the Shaman, spotted me and cocked his head to one side. He then began walking towards us.
It felt like an historic occasion and I wondered whether I should say something, break the ice. But how should I address this man? What was the name of his tribe? Come to think of it, where was I?
Whatever the facts, this was surely all about me, the benign conqueror.
I stood up in the sidecar, causing a couple near me to giggle behind their hands, which was off-putting. “Great leader,” I began. “My name is… My name is Pilsbury Dextrose.” The giggling couple snorted with laughter and tears began streaming down their cheeks. Sniggers rippled out within the crowd.
I continued, only partially undaunted: “I have come from England, a land in the West, to discover your tribe for all mankind.” It sounded portentous enough.
The leader opened his arms. “Calm down, mate,” he said. “We have been ‘discovered’” – he actually made the ‘quotes’ gesture with his fingers – “a dozen times. And if you are so white, where is your camera crew?”
Hang on. “My what?”
“Your camera crew. You know: ‘people with cameras’.” Again the ‘quotes’ thing.
The villagers hooted with laughter and I noticed the shaman’s bloody dummy had only joined in, bobbing its stupid head as its gob opened and closed. I could see its broomstick neck and wanted to wring the fucker.
Someone had exaggerated the ‘lost’ bit in ‘lost tribe’.
“Look,” said the leader, wafting his wrist at me. “The last one gave me a Rolex.”
It was true: a huge, garish, sparkly thing that took ‘gauche’to new dimensions.
He went on: “Tk-tk, tell Pilsbury” – I could swear he stifled a snigger – “who has been here before.”
Tk-tk, a gangly teen with outrageously brilliant teeth, however at all sorts of angles, took up the story. “OK, from the Discovery channel we have had Chipmunk Simmers – Dad beat him at table tennis – and Tent Guy. From Australia we had The Jungle Foodie and Davina Galumph. Her catchphrase was: ‘Sheilas can survive too, you know’, but she said it so often that we asked her to leave. Britain sends well-meaning anthropologists. There was a large man, even though he only ate ants and leaves… What was his name?”
One of the kids piped up: “Sonny Lakeman! He was my favourite!”
A few of the other children lofted their hands and chorused: “Mine too!”
Tk-tk went on: “Then there was that little man who arrived with his own penis gourd and we had to convince him that he would not have to wear it.”
The leader butted in: “He was great. Really gullible…”
Having had quite enough of their reminiscences, I butted in. “Your English is very good. Do all your tribe speak it?”
“Most of the people, yes,” replied the leader. “One TV explorer left a Linguaphone English Language course, many years ago, and we play the cassettes to the children. But some of the elders choose not to learn. They feel it offends our ancestors.”
There came an almighty shriek, the sound of a mother discovering her pram empty. A figure flew in among the crowd, scattering onlookers. Seeing the interloper, the villagers dropped to their knees, revealing a sinister-looking man painted in mud. It had dried and cracked and so he resembled old china. On his head he wore a headdress of coloured feathers and twigs, and he carried in one hand a big stick with a dead raven tied to it by its neck. His modesty was only covered at the front, by a red-painted crocodile’s head suspended through its nostrils from string tied around his waist.
The Shaman hissed and revved the motorbike. This new fellow, visibly unhinged, tried to pull him off the machine. The Shaman produced a blowpipe and blew powder at the man, who staggered backwards and began sneezing.
“Klowerthul nagic!” declared the boy.
The crowd gasped.
The new fellow produced a pack of chewing gum and offered the Shaman a piece, which he dubiously accepted. As he pulled out the stick, a tiny mouse-trap spring thwacked him on the thumb. He howled, more at the outrage than the pain.
Applause broke out.
Eyes narrowed, the Shaman held out his hand, looking for the shake; the new fellow pulled out a knife and stabbed him
in it.
The Shaman yelled in pain, shaking his hand vigorously so the buzzer he had palmed within it fell to the ground. As he was about to launch himself at his attacker, several men of the village fell upon him and the two were pulled apart.
It really was most unbecoming.
The Shaman and I had been shown into the same hut, occupied by two makeshift beds (rug-covered wooden frames on the floor) and a hearth containing cold ashes. The assumption seemed to have been made that we would be staying the night and, though I didn’t fancy it, I wasn’t about to exacerbate the tense atmosphere by saying so out loud.
The Shaman sat there cradling the dummy, stroking its hair with a bandaged hand, sulking.
I wondered, should I stay there with him – basically hide, until we could leave – or venture out and try to make friends? Why were we still in the village, anyway? I thought he had come purely to pick up some magic supplies, an in-and-out mission? And what had that scene with Crocodile Thong been all about?
“Who was that man you fought with?” I ventured.
No reply.
“Was he another shaman?”
Still nothing.
“Is he a more powerful shaman than you?”
That roused him. He was across the hut and beside me, on all fours, like a well-motivated crab, dragging the dummy along with him. I felt his body heat and smelled his breath: an aroma of compost heaps.
“Mnnmk hnnmn, nngl,” he said (or words to that effect).
“Oo-otch it, nister,” translated the boy. I noticed his monocle had become cracked.
“I just wish someone would tell me what’s going on,” I protested.
The Shaman and his son conferred. Eventually the boy said, “Oo-ee oo-ent to shanan school together. He is ny grother.”
“He’s your brother!”
“That is oo-ot I said.”
“So what happened?”
The Shaman shifted the boy in his lap. “Once I oo-oz shanan in this thillage. Ny grother gecane jealous and he cane here one night, nany years ago. He clained he oo-oz a nediun, that he could channel our ancestors. The kleokle listened as he klut on these silly thoices, saying that he should gee shanan here, not nee. And the kleokle geliethed hin!”
“The people believed him?”
“That is oo-ot I said.”
“So you don’t believe in mediums?”
“As if! Oo-ot a load of gollocks!”
“In Britain we had this lady called Doris Stokes…”
But he wasn’t interested in my stories. “Helk ne to gecun shanan here once again,” he said.
“Help you to become shaman here once again?”
“Jesus! Do I hath to keek rekleating nyself?”
“Is that why you brought me here, me and the motorbike? Thought you’d try to make an impression, boost your reputation?”
The boy opened his mouth in horror. The pair of them looked at each other then back at me. “No!”
I wasn’t convinced. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Kill ny grother.”
What? “What?”
“Ith I did it, I’d get in truggle.”
“You’d get in trouble? And what do you think they’d do to me? Put it down to me not understanding tribal ways – some quaint English custom – and offer me the freedom of the village?”
“Nayge.”
“There’s no ‘nayge’ about it. There’s no way! Are you insane?”
“Nayge.”
I decided to try to make friends. Outside the hut the light was failing, a welcome chill had developed and out among the shadows the jungle’s twilight creatures were becoming excitable. Firelight glow flickered dimly in hut doorways and someone had lit a big fire in the middle of the village, around which a smattering of onlookers had gathered. Over the fire a pig was roasting; other pigs glanced at it occasionally and continued snuffling.
A small boy, aged perhaps seven, spotted me, ran across and hugged my leg. Looking up he said, “Hello. My name is Nzonze. What is your name?”
“My name is Pilsbury,” I replied, patting him on the head.
The kid snorted and ran off, giggling so helplessly that he fell over and lay there twitching.
“Cheeky monkey!” I admonished him, hoping to show that I was a good sport.
I had never found it terribly easy to make friends, and this would be one of my more challenging situations. I was reminded of the time in my early teens when Father had hand-picked a small selection of his brightest pupils – he taught science and maths at Glibley Secondary – to visit our house, hoping that I might forge a bond with one or more. Visiting contemporaries being a rare treat, I had acceded to the idea, albeit warily, and Father had corralled us around the dining table to play games.
There were four boys and one girl, as I recall it. Father would have been the last person to encourage my hormonal development, and that single white female had terrible breath, thick specs and made me think of camels. The boys wore an assortment of ties and stiff collars. One smelled keenly of cheese, which I mentioned to my neighbour with a nudge in a whisper, but he only eyed me sternly and pressed a finger to his lips.
The first two ‘games’ involved a spelling bee and an algebra test. When I came easily last in both, Father led the competitive persecution. Finally, a memory game. Mother tiptoed in, all politeness and platitudes, and placed a tray covered in a tea-towel in the middle of the table. When Father said, “Now, Mother!” she whipped off the cloth and he timed us on a fob-watch for two minutes, while we tried to memorise every item on the tray. I came last in that as well, and had to endure one of the boys telling us the provenance and value of the Royal Doulton teapot, as Father glowed with pride and Mother clapped theatrically.
As the children left, each declaring that they’d had the most marvellous time, I was sent to my room. At least I wasn’t expected to see them again.
Memories of home.
Two little tribe-girls were now clinging to my tank-top hem, pigtailed and grinning broadly.
“My name is Elza,” said one.
“And my name is Knka,” said the other.
“What is your name?” they chorused.
I detected a game devised among the smaller children, so told them it was “Dan” and they slunk away dejected.
Then I stood watching the pig being rotated by a crouching chap, who winked at me every time I caught his gaze. I was starving and the crisped-up creature, glazed to a deep russet finish, looked succulent. It was all I could do to stop myself from hopping into the flames and sinking my teeth into a buttock.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was the wonky-toothed teen from earlier.
“I’m Tk-tk,” he said, extending his hand.
We shook. “Yes, I remember your name,” I lied.
“I am the son of Gdgi,” he said.
He could tell I didn’t know who Gdgi was. “He is the leader of our tribe,” he explained. “My father.”
“Absolutely!” I replied. “Tell me, what exactly is the name of this tribe?”
“Exactly, the name of this tribe is the Q’tse.” He waited for me to say something.
“Right. Only no one had told me.”
“Then everyone is remiss.”
“Yes. Yes they are.”
“So.”
“Here we are!”
I noticed we were still shaking hands and gently pulled away.
The silence hurt. “You have nice weather,” I blurted out. “In England, where I come from…”
Tk-tk interrupted me. “My father wishes you to be guest of honour at the feast tonight, with your friend the Shaman.”
“Oh, he’s not my friend!”
The boy’s face betrayed suspicion.
“Well, I suppose he is really. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
I really didn’t know what to say.
Fortunately he broke the silence again. “You might wish to prepare yourself for t
he feast, Pilsbury.”
“Well, I…” I thought better of explaining that I had nothing to change into. “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll see you later.”
“Yes. Goodbye for now.”
“Bye.”
I wasn’t desperate to go back to the hut and the Shaman, but then I’d just said I would prepare for dinner and Tk-tk might be watching me. What if I wandered towards the hut and doubled back at the last moment? No, it was all too fraught with potential social ineptitude. Easier to face the madman.
“Hello!” I chirped as I pushed back the door, trying to sound positive.
The Shaman was kneeling with his back to me, trying to get the fire going. “Oh. You’re gack. Great,” he went, even though the dummy was lying on his bed, flattened and forlorn.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” I said. “Look, can we pretend that last conversation never happened? You know, just forget about it? We’ve been invited to a feast as guests of honour.”
The fire caught. “Oh yes?”
“Don’t get any ideas. I’m not doing any dirty work for you. And if you try anything, I’ll…”
He turned to face me, the shrunken head hanging from the tip of his silly hat singeing gently in the licking flames. “You’ll oo-ot?” he said.
I ignored it. Let him get out his dead-head trinkets – his joke-shop magic didn’t scare me. The tit was all talk.
In the absence of any clothing options, I did my best to brush myself down and tug out the multiple creases stiffened and salted with dried sweat. When that didn’t take long, I sat on my bed wondering what to do next.
The hut heated up quickly and smoke began billowing up towards a hole in the apex of the conical roof. The shaman was applying red face-paint: short lines perpendicular to his eyes and two fang-shapes beneath his mouth. He opened up one side of his feathery cloak and I noticed for the first time that the lining was covered in pockets of all sizes. From one he withdrew something scrunched up and unfurled it to produce a new headdress, similar in design to the current one, only twice as tall. He swapped the two, rolling the other into a pocket.
The Shaman picked up the wooden boy, inserted his arm and sat him on his knee, jiggling him until he was comfy.
Looking for Mrs Dextrose Page 5