Black Power

by Richard Wright

  He listened at some length on the phone, then sighed and said into the transmitter:

  “I say, let me call you back, eh? Good-bye.”

  He hung up and turned to me.

  “Here’s a typical problem,” he told me. “That was a call from a Fanti delegation. Now, they want to send a petition to the Prime Minister. But, in the Fanti language, there’s no concept for Prime Minister and they’ve addressed him as: Otumfuo…. That means The All Powerful One. Well, to say the least, that’s not an accurate designation for a Prime Minister. They realize that, but they don’t know what other expression to use. They’re asking me to help them….”

  “In other words,” I said, “when the Fanti language evolved, there was no concept for Prime Minister, and the Fanti people want to call the Prime Minister the name they used for their king….”

  “Exactly,” the Commissioner told me.

  It was a problem, all right, and it was not the first time in the history of the Gold Coast that these cultural differences had manifested themselves. Happily, this was a rather innocent misunderstanding.

  I recalled reading that, in 1863, a subject of the King of Ashanti, the Asantehene, found a big nugget of gold and, instead of surrendering it, as was required by Ashanti law and constitution, to the Asantehene, he kept it for himself. The Asantehene, upon hearing of this, summoned the culprit to Kumasi to stand trial. The man hid his gold nugget and fled to Cape Coast and begged the protection of the white Governor.

  The Asantehene sent a delegation to the Governor, and this delegation took with them a famous Ashanti symbol: a Golden Ax. Now, in Ashanti, a Golden Ax is a symbol of peace; it signifies: Let us cut down trees and clear the land and make farms in common….

  But the British Governor, a Mr. Pine, grew frightened at the sight of the Golden Ax. The only associations that that ax evoked in his mind was that he, Mr. Pine (maybe he was reacting to the magical relationship between the words tree and ax? After all, his name was Pine…) would be cut down from his place of power; to him the Golden Ax was a symbol of war. Accordingly, he invented on the spot a tall tale of a nonexistent treaty between him and the Asantehene; this treaty, he declared, stated that he did not have to return an Ashanti criminal to the jurisdiction of the Asantehene.

  As a result, the Ashanti declared war and invaded the colony in three columns and, after a costly and protracted campaign, won the war. So serious did the British position grow that the House of Commons debated withdrawing from the Gold Coast in toto….

  Two worlds did not understand each other’s symbols and they tore at each other’s throats, each convinced that the other was a devil and had to be killed!

  That afternoon I told Kojo to drive me to one of Ashanti’s most sacred bodies of water, Lake Bosomtwe, a lake which is second only to the River Tano in the degree to which it inspires ritual, dread, devotion, and sacrifice from those who live near it. Viewed from the surrounding hilltops, it is a beautiful lake, calm, majestic, gleaming like a jewel amidst the dark green forest hemming it in. Tiny mud villages lay humbly about its almost perfectly circular rim. I was told that those villages were filled with leprosy….

  Clinging to Lake Bosomtwe is that same halo of legend that clusters about so many rivers and brooks and ponds among the Akan Africans. Though local legend holds that the lake has no bottom, British scientists have measured its greatest depth, which is about 233 feet…. It is a fresh-water lake and was no doubt formed by a meteor. The lake’s most astonishing manifestation of “spiritual” action is that every three or four years there is an “explosion” deep in the depths of the water and dead fish, floating to the surface, can be caught by the thousands…. This so-called “explosion” is referred to by the natives as “Bosomtwe’s firing his gun.”

  The scientific explanation of the “explosion” is quite simple. The organic matter at the bottom of the lake—rotting leaves, etc.—would form from time to time masses of gas which would, because of mud and slime, be gathered and held down. When a sufficient volume of such gas was collected, it would force its way upward rather violently to the surface of the water, creating the “explosion” that the natives so much feared and loved. The reeking odor of the gas was what made them believe that some mystic gun had been fired.

  The dead fish that could be so easily gathered would be the lake’s “gift” to the people. (Psychoanalysts would clap their hands in joy over this one!) So, when the lake failed to “explode,” it was said that the lake’s taboos had been violated. These taboos included: no metals, no oars, no paddles, no strings, and no poles could be used on the lake.

  Despite the mass of written material that exists on the lake’s natural idiosyncrasies, even literate Europeans as well as Africans love to dote on the lake’s “mysteries.” Everybody likes to dream.

  I intercepted a fisherman coming up the steep slope of the lake and examined his catch. The string of fish he held in his hand looked and smelled like ordinary fish from an ordinary lake.

  Thirty-Six

  I was a guest at a dinner attended by the King of Ashanti, the Asantehene, officially known as Otumfuo Sir Osei Agyeman Prempeh II. He was of medium height, slender, about sixty years of age, not quite black in color but definitely Negroid of features, quick of expression, and flat of nose. His skin was pitted with smallpox scars; his lips were clean-cut, his head slightly bald. He was poised, at ease; yet, like other men of the Akan race, he smiled too quickly; at times I felt that his smile was artificial, that he smiled because it was required of him. During the meal he had an occasional air of preoccupation and there was something definitely cold deep down in him. He was the kind of man about whom I’d say that, if there was to be a fight, I’d wish that he was on my side and not against me….

  He was installed by the British in 1931 as Omanhene of Kumasi, and, in 1935, upon the restoration of the Ashanti Confederacy, as Asantehene. He struck me as a man who had suffered much in silence, as one who could really talk frankly only to his trusted and intimate friends. Though a king, a British Commissioner really ruled over him. I asked him to grant me an audience and he was kind enough to consent at once.

  From a young, intelligent African I heard a queer story. When I asked him why so many of the women who were scantily clad had markings of various sorts cut into the flesh of their stomachs, he told me that there is a legend that when women die and go to heaven, God carefully examines all the skins of women’s stomachs to see if they are good enough for Him to use in His making of drums. Only women whose stomach skins are smooth, taut, and strong can be used. Hence, when God looks for a skin and sees that the skin of a given woman’s stomach has been deformed, marked, cut into, He will pass it by…. I was so intrigued with this story that I forgot to ask my friend just why God had need of drums….

  Mornings dawn gray and damp. There is little or no sun. Somber is the word for the sky over Kumasi during the season of rain. Weather broods over the city; always it feels like rain, looks like rain, smells like rain; and then, suddenly, a fine drizzle falls. I’m sure that a few hundred feet in the air this city and its surrounding vegetation are invisible. Outside of my hotel window the ranging hills recede and fade in mist; now and again a slight wind agitates the tops of the stately palm trees.

  To my hotel this morning came a young photographer whom I’d met in London; he is a grandson of the Asantehene and has agreed to accompany me to Mampong, a village about thirty-six miles from Kumasi. I was delighted to have him along because he, being of royal blood, could help to make the dour and brooding Ashanti open up.

  Upon our arrival in Mampong, a typical mud village, we went to the local council over which the chief was presiding. We were admitted and sat while the council members conducted their business in their native tongue. The meeting adjourned and we followed the chief, Nana Asofo Kamtantea II, Mamponghene, to his office. The entourage surrounding the chief was amazing. One little boy held the big state umbrella, another carried the stool, and still another carried a bushy f
an of some kind.

  “Who are these boys who follow the chief?” I asked the Asantehene’s grandson.

  “They just follow him,” he told me with a shrug of his shoulders.

  But I knew better. I’d inquired to check his answer against what I’d read about entourages of this sort; I was convinced that he knew the answer. Then why was he lying? He was Catholic and was evidently ashamed to tell me that one boy was an umbrella carrier, another was a stool carrier, and that the third boy was a “soul” carrier, that is, the chief had selected this last boy for his innocence and had asked him to serve him so that he could be constantly reminded to keep his own soul in a state of innocence…. I looked at the Asantehene’s grandson and he grew uncomfortable, then he smiled and said:

  “I must show you where Okomfo-Anotchi, the great fetish man, drove a sword into the ground and no one can pull it out.”

  “Why can’t anyone pull it out?” I asked.

  “They just can’t,” he said. “Okomfo-Anotchi is the man to whom God sent down the Golden Stool from heaven on golden chains.”

  “The Golden Stool originated in that way?”

  “Absolutely. And it must never touch the ground,” he explained.

  “And what else did Okomfo-Anotchi do?”

  “Well, there’s a sacred tree on which his footprints are still visible. You see, he climbed that tree and wherever his feet touched, they left impressions. You can see them.”

  But why had he not told me the truth about the roles played by the little boys? And he was willingly telling me about the supernatural origin of the Golden Stool!

  “What has the Catholic Church to say about the Golden Stool?” I asked him.

  “Oh, they say it’s all right,” he explained. “It has been Christianized.”

  I began to understand. Some things he was ashamed of because the church forbade them; other things he could accept because the church had endorsed them. I learned later that the strength of the Catholics was five times that of other Christian sects in the Gold Coast.

  In the chief’s office I met the Queen Mother; she was a daughter of the Asantehene and was accompanied by a tall, black woman who, I was told, was Head Woman of the Queen Mother’s household. I noticed that when the Queen Mother rose to speak to me, she turned over her silver stool to make sure that no evil spirit would take possession of it.

  “Why did she turn over her stool like that?” I asked the Asantehene’s grandson in a whisper.

  “Oh, that…? It just fell over; that’s all,” he said lamely.

  He had again evaded telling me the truth, and yet I held under my arm a volume by a British anthropologist which explained the turning over of the stool! I was to encounter this shame and shyness many times in Ashanti; they believed in and practiced their customs, but they were ashamed of them before the eyes of the world….

  The chief sat silent, waiting for his elders; he could not talk to me until they were present as witnesses—a universal practice among the chiefs of the Akan. I met many chiefs who refused to say more than “good morning” or “good evening” for fear that their elders would accuse them of misinterpreting the customs and traditions of the people to strangers. The Mamponghene’s elders never came and we took our leave without talking to him. The Queen Mother, ever gracious, saved the hour by inviting me to her “castle” for a drink. I accepted. Her “castle” looked like a tenement on Chicago’s South Side.

  Seated in the Queen Mother’s living room, I was struck by the number of men and women wandering in and out without being introduced. They sat and looked at me out of the corners of their eyes, then would rise and hurriedly perform some order of the Queen Mother. While the Queen Mother and the others were chatting among themselves, I whispered to the Asantehene’s grandson:

  “Who are these people? Are they guests of the Queen Mother?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Are they friends?”

  “No.”

  “Are they servants?”

  “Well, no.”

  “They all live in the same household?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they paid?”

  “Well, no; we don’t pay them.”

  “But they work for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can they leave when they want to?”

  “They’d never want to leave.”

  “Are they slaves?” I asked him finally and bluntly.

  He was irritated. He bit his lips and looked off.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “They wouldn’t want to leave us. They live with us all of their lives. If they left, they wouldn’t have anywhere to go. We feed them, clothe them; they live with us till they die. They are like members of the family; you see?”

  “But other people would call them slaves, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes; but that’s not right; it’s not the right word. It’s not right to call them that.”

  It was slavery, all right; but it was not quite the Mississippi kind; it fitted in with their customs, their beliefs. There was no lynching…. I stared at the slaves. I tried to swallow and I could not. The Asantehene’s grandson seemed to be worried at the impression I was getting and he said:

  “We live differently; you see? We take care of these people. We give them all they need. You see?”

  “Yes; I see,” I said.

  After a lunch of hard-boiled eggs, beer, bread, and tinned butter, we drove out along the roadside to look at the stool-makers. Entire families were engaged in this ritual-like profession, for the making of a stool was a complicated affair. They were carved whole out of tree trunks, with long knives attached to tree limbs for handles. There were no nails, screws; no measurements were taken. The black boys hacked at the wood and their aim and precision were amazingly accurate. Families selected a certain type of stool and commissioned the stool-makers to carve them for each member of the family. No one was supposed to sit upon your stool; it was yours, personally, and it was believed that, since you sat on it all of your life, some of your spirit adhered to it. When you died, your stool was placed in the Stool House along with other stools of the dead members of the family. If you were a chief or a king, sheep’s blood would be dripped on your stool to revivify it; in the old days the blood of human beings was dripped or smeared on the stools. Such stools, in time, were referred to as “blackened stools.”

  I returned to my hotel in a heavy downpour. My room was as damp as an underground cave. Water pounded on the roof like somebody beating a big drum. Now and then a European car sped through the wet streets, making a swishing noise. I glanced out of the window and there was no sky. For hours the rain tumbled. Weather dominated everything, created the mood of living, framed the passing hours, tinted the feelings with somberness, with an unappeasable melancholy….

  Most of the Akan people, I’ve noticed, have a peculiar way of making odd mouth and head noises when engaged in conversation. For example, when we would say, “Unh hunh,” an Akan would say, “Haaaan,” to let you know that he was following or agreeing with what you were saying. Hence, when listening to a roomful of Ashanti talk, your ears are startled by a succession of “Haaaans” uttered sometimes with the mouth open and sometimes with the lips closed.

  And why do most of the people spit all the time? Young and old, men and women, people of high and low stations in life, spit. I observed a young girl of about twelve years of age for about five minutes and she spat six times; and this spitting is not just ordinary spitting; it’s done in a special manner. First, taut lips are drawn back over clenched teeth and from out through the clenched teeth comes a jet of saliva, straight, clean, strong, like a bullet from a gun, never touching the lips. The people do not seem to be ill; I’ve seen no one chewing tobacco or dipping snuff. Is this spitting at all times and in all places a kind of reflex? Or does the climate here engender a universal catarrhal condition…? I tried, before my mirror in my hotel room with the door locked, to spit like that and I succeeded only in soiling the
front of my shirt….

  Thirty-Seven

  I spent the next few days visiting chiefs and there formed in my mind an image of a vast purgatorial kingdom of suppliant and petitioning multitudes ruled by men wielding power by virtue of their being mediators between the guilty living and the vengeful dead. What a fabulous power structure these chiefs have built up through the ages, a structure whose essence consisted of a kind of involuntary emotional slavery! Only in an illiterate society could these “fathers” of the people have derived so much absolute authority from their exploitation of the loyalty, of the love and fear that men feel for their mothers and fathers. How these poor, half-naked beings rushed compulsively to obey their chiefs’ interpretations of a menacing and vindictive shadow world whose emotional claims they could not conceive of questioning or denying…!

  One chief’s house was like another. One part of a vast, sprawling rectangle was given over to the living compound, another to the women and children. (Each chief, according to his wealth, had a houseful of wives; he also had wives who did not live with him.) Then there was the inevitable meeting hall, and, lastly, a police station…. And, somewhere usually more or less out of sight, was the Stool House holding the precious ancestral trinkets about which the spirits of the long dead were supposed to hover or could be persuaded to do so. In full view were the huge state drums used to summon the populace in tonal rhythms of joy, anger, or alarm…. No one was supposed to play upon those drums unless authorized to do so; to tamper with them irreverently merited a penalty of imprisonment. (In the old days the penalty was death.)

  Some of the chiefs were literate; most of them were not. Inside of his rectangular building was a courtyard in which, at most all hours, large or small crowds of natives gathered, arguing, or waiting for an audience with the chief. The so-called “enstooling” and “destooling” of chiefs provided one of the most popular, passionate, and chronic activities of the colony. Hardly a day passed but what some chief somewhere, on a cloudy pretext whose density would be difficult to grasp by an outsider, was tossed out of his august spiritual position and some other aspirant placed on the stool in his stead. Though the chief, in theory, partook of the divine while he was in a position to mediate between the living and the dead, the moment he was off the stool he was no longer considered divine; indeed, he was someone to fear, for he might begin scheming at once to regain possession of the stool. “Destooled” chiefs, therefore, were urged to get as far as possible from the scene of their former divine activities….