Ama

by Manu Herbstein

  Nandzi translated as best she could.

  “But don't mind him,” she added. “He is just telling us that to make us scared.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Minjendo.

  Nandzi had no reply.

  She said only, “Spirits or no spirits, one thing is clear: it would be madness to try to run away and hide in this forest. You would get lost in no time. And if the spirits did not kill you, there must surely be wild animals there which would.”

  “You are always thinking of escape,” said Minjendo.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon they passed a clearing planted with corn, plantain and cassava, all plants which were new to them.

  “We must be approaching a village,” said Nandzi.

  A old woman who had been hoeing straightened her back and took a break to watch the extraordinary procession.

  “Adwúma óo!” cried the first rank of Asante musketeers as they passed.

  “Adwuma yé,” she replied, “the work is good.”

  “Adwúma óo!” Nandzi echoed the greeting.

  “Adwuma yé,” the woman replied again.

  Then the slaves behind followed suit and the greetings and replies rippled through the forest like the wind in a corn field.

  Koranten Péte had sent a runner ahead to give notice of their coming.

  For the villagers the arrival of such a large party of northerners was an event which would provide material for conversation for weeks to come. This was some recompense for the cost which they were obliged to incur in entertaining the party. The young scouts who had been on the watch all day came running in to announce the imminent arrival of the caravan. The chief put on his best cloth and the panoply which was the privilege of his office and, with drummers and umbrella bearers in attendance, he and his elders proceeded slowly to meet the oncoming party. The caravan's drums were heard in the distance and the village drummers replied. At the boundary of the village territory, the welcome party waited with quiet dignity. A swarm of small boys and girls ran this way and that, aware that some great event was about to happen, but unable to conceive what it might be and unable to contain their excitement.

  A camp ground had been cleared and newly fenced. The slaves were served with water as if they were honoured guests. Palm nut soup was cooking in as many pots as the village could muster. And when the guests had eaten their fill the children, only dimly aware of the distinction between slave and free man, circulated shyly amongst the visitors, intrigued at their manacles and chains, offering them the bananas and pineapples, pawpaw and sweet limes which they had picked especially for this occasion.

  Tired as she was after the day's march, Nandzi organised the female slaves to serve the men, to bring them water to drink and wash, to bring them food and to dress the festering wounds which many of them suffered from the constant friction of their manacles. When the women, too, had washed and eaten, one of them started singing Nandzi's dirge and they all joined in, singing themselves to sleep.

  By day they trudged on; through Mampon, home of Koranten Péte's wife; through Nsuta, where his father was the monarch; through Agona with its wide straight streets and well built houses; through Effiduase with its busy market, and on to the very outskirts of Kumase itself.

  CHAPTER 8

  Koranten Péte had had a secure camp prepared just beyond the city limits.

  His men had roofed the simple bamboo sheds with plantain and palm leaves to give the newly arrived slaves some relief from the sun. The male slaves were released from their shackles and chains. Their beards and heads were shaved and their wounds were treated with herbal balms and wrapped in medicinal leaves. There was hot water; and balls of black soap and loofahs and shea butter. There was plenty to eat. And each slave was given a large piece of indigo cloth., as Koranten Péte had promised.

  “This is too good to be true,” said Minjendo as she combed the knots out of Nandzi's hair. “I can't remember when I last bathed with hot water and oiled my body.”

  “Too good to last, I fear,” replied Nandzi. “Remember, we are slaves. They must be fattening us up to some purpose.”

  Musketeer Mensa was passing by on patrol.

  “Sir, Sir,” Nandzi called to him, “Nana Mensa.”

  “Oh, it is you is it?” he said. “Have you changed your mind? Tonight is probably your last chance, you know. By tomorrow you might have joined the King’s harem.”

  “Nana, don’t you have a wife?” she asked.

  “Several,” he replied, “but what has that got to do with it?”

  “Oh nothing, I suppose,” she answered. “What I wanted to ask you was this. Do you Asante always treat your slaves as well as we are being treated here?”

  “Of course, of course,” he said, “But tomorrow is Akwasidae, a special day. Listen: can’t you hear the talking drums announcing it? Tomorrow you will be presented to the King.”

  * * *

  Dressed in their indigo, each carried a basket or parcel of the tribute goods on his head. Nandzi had been given a bundle of silk fabric, Minjendo a load of Hausa men's tunics. Others carried cotton cloth, shea butter, iron tools.

  The musketeers had had a chance to slip into Kumase and change into their dress uniforms.

  “Good morning, Miss,” said one of them.

  Nandzi returned the greeting casually. Then, recognising the voice, she took a second look at the face.

  “Nana Mensa!” she said in surprise, “How fine you look, and how fierce! I didn’t recognise you at all. At all!”

  Projecting from Mensa’s forehead was a pair of gilded rams’ horns. Above this rose an enormous head-dress of eagle feathers, shimmering in the early morning light. The musketeer's face and upper arms were adorned with stripes of white clay designed to terrify the enemy. His heavy red vest was embellished with countless silver and gold amulets and tiny brass bells.

  Mensa did a little war dance and the amulets flapped and the tintinnabula tinkled as he sprang up and down. He spun around and the spotted tail which was attached to his cowrie-studded leather neck band swung after him.

  Nandzi recalled the night she had spent in a tree in the Yendi bush with a leopard circling below and shuddered.

  “Did you kill the beast yourself?” she asked him.

  He answered by raising aloft his shining musket. Its haft was bound with gold wire and hung with red tassels. Then he took mock aim, miming the single shot with which he had dispatched his prey.

  Nandzi continued her inspection.

  “You are as beautiful as a bird,” she teased him, “and as musical.”

  Koranten Péte approached, inspecting the ranks of his charges and their guards. He was simply dressed in a rich green, yellow and red silk kente cloth, thrown over his left shoulder. On his way back down the line, he recognised Nandzi. He took her by the arm.

  “Come,” he said, “and you too,” signing Minjendo to follow.

  “You and your friend will lead the procession today. I shall tell you what to do and you will pass on my instructions to those who follow you.”

  He took his place and at a sign his seven horn blowers lifted up the elephant tusks which were their instruments and blasted out their strident fanfare.

  Musketeer Mensa, who had taken up his station beside Nandzi whispered, “Do you hear what the horns are saying?”

  She shook her head.

  “It is Nana’s own horn call. Listen: ‘ase ase ayo, ase ase ayo!’ That means that Nana has achieved everything he promised. Like defeating the Dagomba in war.”

  The drummers took over and the procession set off. The musketeers walked alongside, just in case one of the new slaves should take it into his head to attempt some foolhardy act.

  Another party entered the road ahead of them. Behind the horn blowers and the drummers, a chief and his attendants walked in the shade of an enormous silk umbrella with a carved gilt pinnacle in the form of a deer's head. Behind him, a slave carried a brass-studded carved armchair on his hea
d and twelve small boys danced and waved the tails of elephants.

  They passed through the city gate, a tall tower constructed of bamboo. Looking up through the red cloth buntings fluttering in the light breeze, Nandzi saw the carcass of a sheep hanging in a red silk sling. She stretched out her arm and poked Mensa’s shoulder. His eyes followed hers as she looked up again.

  “It is just an offering to the gods and the ancestors,” he explained.

  Noisy parties joined them from left and right. The road became congested with people, all heading towards the great open square before the Asantehene’s palace. Bearers plunged and spun their masters’ umbrellas as each sought to outdo his rivals in dexterity and skill. Others flourished Dutch, English and Danish flags, swinging their short poles this way and that in ostentatious display. Prancing musketeers raised their flintlocks in one hand and fired carelessly into the heavens above. Explosions of firearms rent the air; countless bands of drummers competed with the harsh message of the horns and a confusion of animated chanting and singing and shouting. Minjendo coughed and sneezed as the dust and smoke and smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils. She gripped Nandzi’s arm in alarm. Ahead of them, Koranten Péte pressed on regardless.

  At last they entered the square. Koranten Péte led them to the space which had been set aside for them. They put down their loads and squatted on the ground in their indigo ranks. It was already hot and they began to sweat. Koranten Péte sat before them on an armchair in the shade of a large umbrella. A small boy fanned him with a fan of ostrich feathers. Immediately behind him sat a row of musketeers in their splendid attire.

  The dignitaries moved to their allotted places, the kings and chiefs under their umbrellas, the less important delegations under temporary awnings. The general populace milled about behind. The noise sank to a respectful murmur, then rose again to a crescendo as horn players and drummers led each new chiefly party into the square. A group of Hausa clerics and businessmen took their seats. Nandzi thought she caught a glimpse of Sharif Imhammed amongst them.

  The four sides of the square were full, except only the place of honour before the palace gate. For a long time nothing happened. They sat patiently in the sun and sweated. Then the gates of the palace opened and out tumbled the red-shirted palace dwarfs, cartwheeling and rolling on the ground, leaping and twisting. The assembly greeted them with loud cheers and rapturous laughter.

  Some of the dwarfs had tiny bow legs, others huge bellies; some grotesquely distorted heads; others bodies as thin as a skeleton. They held hands in pairs and in unison whirled each other around like so many demi-human spinning tops. They fell flat on their faces and flat on their backs; they somersaulted backwards and forwards; they rolled on their sides in the dust, over and over; and then head over heels; they wrestled and boxed; they made concerted mock attacks on the ranks of the executioners and the musketeers. Every new trick was greeted with rollicking applause.

  Nandzi's attention wandered. She wondered idly whether, when these court dwarfs died, their spirits were transformed into dwarfs of the forest, mmoatia.

  Sensing some restlessness in the assembly, a group of horn players exercised their right, hallowed by custom, to issue a summons to the King.

  “The horns speak,” said Mensa. “Like our drums, our horns speak. They are saying, ‘Oh, mighty King. We are impatient to see you. Please come. Protector of Asante, scourge of our enemies, please come.’”

  A parody of a royal procession, complete with a King in his miniature palanquin, spinning umbrellas and scaled down fontomfrom drums was parading around the square. The dwarf Queen Mother acknowledged the cheering with a curtsy that took her forehead to the ground. Minjendo dug her nails into Nandzi's arm. She was so completely absorbed in the mummery that she was quite unaware that she was hurting her friend.

  “Poor wretches,” muttered Nandzi.

  She turned to scan her fellow slaves and the audience nearby, wondering whether she would see in any other face a reflection of her own confused feelings.

  Slaves, dwarfs, she thought, dwarfs, slaves.

  She was surprised that these poor caricatures of human beings had been permitted to survive. Once, at home, when she was still young and free and a bit wild, before she had even met Itsho, she had eavesdropped on a whispered conversation between her mother and Tabitsha's rival, Tigen's senior wife. A woman in the next hamlet, she had heard, had been delivered of just such a monster. The infant's life had been snuffed out before it had had a chance to become a human being. No one had ever spoken of it again. It was as if it had never been born. Why are such creatures ever born at all? she wondered. Are they sent by the ancestors to punish their parents for some misdeed? She recalled how she had broken a taboo by tasting meat. Was her slavery a punishment for that transgression? Might the ancestors send her a dwarf child to punish her once more? She shuddered. The minds of the ancestors are inscrutable, she thought.

  At long last, from the depths of the palace, the deep voices of the atumpan, the talking drums, signalled the approach of the real royal procession. The dwarfs' gyrations came to an abrupt halt and they melted away unnoticed. All rose to their feet. Koranten Péte turned and raising his upturned palms, signalled to the slaves to follow suit. Both men and women dropped their cloths from their shoulders and rewrapped them around their waists or under their armpits, leaving their shoulders bare.

  Nandzi and Minjendo were in the front row of the slaves, just behind Mensa. As the procession entered the arena, he whispered a running commentary to them over his shoulder.

  “The Blowers of the Golden Horns,” he said, as the gates opened and the royal procession entered the arena.

  The elephant tusk at the head of the procession was larger even than the one Nandzi had seen in Yendi. It was sheathed in gold and would clearly be too heavy to hold up and blow without assistance. The larger end was decorated with what looked like jawbones. Nandzi shuddered. Once Itsho had found a human skeleton lying on a lonely, unfrequented hillock. The scattered bones had turned out to be the remains of a hunter who had disappeared without trace many years before. Moved by a curiosity she could not control, Nandzi had ignored Itsho's dire warnings and picked up the whitened skull. The lower jaw had dropped and the sudden opening of the mouth had given her such a fright that she had let the skull fall to the ground. She thought she recognised the jawbones on that golden tusk. They looked suspiciously human.

  Six horn players followed, each blowing into a gold mouth piece. One horn spoke first, another answered and then the other five sang out a chorus in different tones. The sound of the horns left no one in doubt that the King would soon emerge from the palace gates.

  “The horns are speaking the words of our second King, Opoku Ware, ‘Kotoko, Asante porcupine, remember me,’ and indeed we do still honour his memory.”

  “Now they are speaking to our present King. ‘Osei Koawia,’ they are saying, ‘While you reign over us, our enemies can do us no harm. The rain may beat the rock but it cannot make it move.’”

  “The Master of the Royal Music; the Manager of the King’s Markets; the Keeper of the Royal Mausoleum; the Captain of the King’s Messengers . . .,” Mensa continued.

  Each official was distinguished by the magnificence of his attire and some solid gold symbol of his office, hung around his neck, a sanko, weighing scales, a skeleton, a ceremonial sword.

  Next came the fat eunuch who was the Manager of the Royal Harems.

  Minjendo gasped. She squeezed Nandzi’s arm again, to make sure that she had also seen the object of her astonished attention. Coming out of the gate was a man of enormous size, a veritable giant. He wore only a flimsy cloth, wrapped around his waist. His oiled body bulged with muscles. A solid gold axe hung from his necklace, both the symbol and the tool of his office. The stool which was borne aloft before him was black with the blood of his victims. An awed murmur rose from the crowd.

  Then “The King,” Nandzi whispered, overwhelmed in spite of herself by the magnifice
nce of the Asante monarch.

  The Asantehene was in his early forties, somewhat heavily built. His manner was majestic, yet Nandzi thought she caught a kindly look in his eye. He bent his head slightly in acknowledgement of the cheers.

  “His stool name is Osei Kwadwo,” whispered Mensa, “but we call him by his nickname, Osei Koawia, He Who Fights in the Afternoon. Our fathers gave him that name for his great valour and many victories. Now listen to the horns. They are saying, ‘Nana, most excellent King. We will follow wherever you tell us. God spare you to lead us for many more years.’”

  A great roar of welcome rose from the assembly.

  The King wore a plain cloth of dark green silk and simple white leather sandals with gold and silver charm-cases on the straps. There the simplicity stopped. From head to ankles, he was adorned with the finest gold ornaments: on his head a crown of black velvet decorated with solid slabs of gold and the mysterious multicoloured aggrey beads. Just below the crown a red silk ribbon encircled his forehead. At his neck he wore a chain of imitation snail shells cast in solid gold; hanging over his right shoulder a silk cord on which hung three golden charm-cases; his arms were covered with bracelets of gold and aggrey beads; there were several gold rings on every finger; his chest was covered with a golden breastplate in the shape of the unfolding petals of a flower; around his knees hung bands of aggrey beads and around his ankles strings of exquisite tiny gold ornaments in the shape of coins, musical instruments, weapons, animals and birds. From his left forearm hung lumps of unformed solid gold, in the same raw state in which they had been wrenched from the earth.

  Weighed down by this enormous burden of gold, the King walked slowly and with difficulty, supporting each wrist on the head of a page boy. Attendants surrounded him, ready to grip his elbows and his waist, should he stumble. What with the fan bearers waving their ostrich feather fans and the umbrella bearers, he could move neither left nor right.

  Nandzi studied him as he passed. This man is ill, she thought. He has a serious illness. She pitied him. She recalled a day when she and Itsho had broken open a termite mound to look for the queen and of her disgust when they had at last found the distended immobile body. This king seemed to have as much freedom to move as that termite queen. And yet his subjects seemed just as loyal. Itsho. The thought of Itsho kept coming back to her this afternoon. She looked up at the cloudless sky.