My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

by Amos Tutuola

  “After the sixth month that the church was opened, I converted it to both church and school. I was teaching ghost children of this town how to read and write and also scripture which is the main subject. But there was no paper, chalk or slates on which to write as in the earthly towns so, instead of that I cut a 4 ft. sq. flat bark of a tree as blackboard and also cut 1 ft. sq. for each of the scholars as slates and all were using coal as chalks. As we were using the church in the ordinary day and also on Sunday as a church, then I built a big separate house as church with the help of both scholars and members of the church, because the scholars are making the former one too rough before Sunday. This second building nearly touched the former one. After some years I have had more than fifty ghost teachers out of these scholars and over nine hundred scholars were attending the school regularly. Having trained many bright scholars as teachers and headmasters, then I built over a thousand churches with schools in all provinces which are under this 10th town. So I am using the 10th town as headquarters for the rest and also the Synod is held here yearly, because I am the bishop at present. My work after the church services is only to be supervising churches and schools. Although there are many supervisors, directors of education and education officers who are carrying on their tasks according to the rules and regulations given them to my satisfaction. In my leisure hours, I taught many scholars who had been passed out from the school’s sanitary work, surveying, building, first aid nursery work, but only this ‘first aid’ nursery work I could teach them, because I am not a qualified doctor.

  “After all these students had qualified for these various trades and carrying them on successfully to my entire satisfaction, then I introduced new plans of houses and luckily all the ghosts who are the rulers of this town agreed to follow it. Then new houses were built which made this town to link up as the most beautiful town in the Bush of Ghosts. Though it was only disqualified at that time for the hospital which was not established in the town, although there was provision for it but no qualified doctor who could carry on the works.”

  The second day my cousin took me round the town and I saw many churches, schools, hospitals and many houses which are built in modern styles. But when I asked him about the hospitals who is acting as a doctor and as nurses or who are treating the patients there as he himself is not a doctor, so he replied—“Do you see my wife?” I said—“Yes.” Then he told me in short about her as follows—“She is the native of a town in Zulu country, the town which has now been converted to a big city after she had died there. Before she died, she was a well-educated girl and after she had finished her schooling, her father sent her to a part of England as a doctor student, but after she had qualified as a doctor, she returned to her father’s town and in the same week that she arrived home she met with an accident and died suddenly as a result of injuries. Having died she left that town, she was going here and there as a dead young person could not stay in a town which belongs to earthly persons, because that is forbidden for all deads and she was roaming about until she reached this town, then we got married as both of us are deads. But as this town is well improved but only disqualified by the hospitals which were not then in it, so as she is a qualified doctor before she died, she established hospitals in this town and acted as the Director of Medical Services. Having trained several thousands of nurses and medical officers.”

  Again I asked him these questions:—(1) Who ordained you before you came up to the rank of a bishop? (2) Who is supplying you all kinds of medicines and apparatus which you are using in the hospitals? (3) Who are supplying you all the educational books, religious books as bibles, songs books and papers or stationery, as the flat bark of the trees are no more in use by the scholars? (4) From whom are you getting the iron sheets and all the building materials, as all the houses are no more thatched with grasses and flat bark of the trees? Then he replied as follows—“(1) As I am carrying on this Christianity work for many years and faithfully to all creatures and did not doubt once for everything that I am doing, so one night, I dreamed a dream and heard the holy voice from heaven that I am ordained as a bishop from heaven as from this night. When the day broke which was Sunday and I explained this news to all the members they confirmed it since that day. (2) Thank you, we are getting the medicines with apparatus for the hospitals from the dead medicine-makers and hospital apparatus-makers who are expert in such works before dying and living in the Deads’ town which belongs only to deads. (3) All deads who are the publishers of religious books, educational books and stationery before they died and went to live in the Deads’ town are supplying us from there. (4) Deads are supplying us everything that we need here after we had entered into the agreement with them and they are acting for us as the ‘Crown Agent’.”

  Having answered all the four questions, then we came back to the house. After that he called his four daughters and two sons, after a while his wife who is the Director of Medical Services came back from the hospitals and showed me to them and explained how I am related to him. Those two sons were still attending the school, but the four daughters had passed out from the school and also qualified as nurses and doctors.

  After the third day that he had told me his stories, then he told me to give him the home news which went thus—“After you had died and before I myself entered into the Bush of Ghosts none of our family die, but one of them was sick seriously for three weeks before he became well. After the sixth month that you died a war of slavery broke into the town and drove me into this Bush of Ghosts, even I was seven years old before I entered it. At present I could not definitely say anything about their condition at home, because I left there over twenty years ago. So since I left the town my mind does not rest at all at a time except to return and I am still looking for the way until I reached here and instead of seeing the way I was only punished in the bush by the merciless ghosts. So I am exceedingly glad as I meet you in this town and I shall be very glad as well if you will allow me to live with you here for a short period to rest for some time for all the punishment which I had met past and then to continue to find the way as before I reached here or I shall be glad too if you will tell me the right way direct to the town.”

  After I told him some of my stories in this Bush of Ghosts, then he asked this question—“Have you died before entered this bush?” I replied—“Not at all sir.” But at the same moment that this reply came out of my mouth, he shouted with his loudest voice “Ah!” together with some ghosts who sat with us at that time. Then he said—“You will not be able to live with deads, of course, as you soon become a full ghost and also hear the language of ghosts, so by that I will teach you until you will qualify to be a full dead person.”

  After some weeks he handed me to one of the principals of his schools as a new scholar, then I started to learn how to read and write. In the evening my cousin would be teaching me how to be acting as a dead man and within six months I had qualified as a full dead man. And again as I had a quick brain at that time, so I finished my schooling after a few years. Then I was sent without hesitation direct to the Deads’ town as a student to learn how to judge cases, as police and also all the branches of the court works. Having become expert in this field, then I returned and started the works. But at the first time we built police stations, courts and prison yards in every part of the town, because these works were not yet established before I reached there. After that I taught many ghosts who had just passed out from the schools all these works and later on I was chosen as the chief judge of the highest court which is the “Assize court”. So I was judging all of the important cases which were sent to me from the lower courts.

  One day my cousin called me to discuss about his four daughters with the two sons. He asked me who would marry the four daughters, because they are at the ripe age to be married, but no earthly man in any part of the Bush of Ghosts could marry them and again no earthly ladies for the two sons to marry. When he asked me like this, I told him to let us advertise them on the earthly newspapers
several times, perhaps we would get those who would marry them, he agreed to my suggestion and told me to advertise them on the earthly newspapers. “So do you like to marry one of them? If it is so, please, choose any and only one of these numbers—733, 744, 755, 766 and 777, 788 respectively, so that his or her picture may be sent to you or to come to you personally.”

  Invisible Magnetic Missive Sent to Me from Home

  Having been educated and become the chief judge my mind was then at rest, I did not feel to go to my town again, even I determined that I should not go for ever. But one night, when I slept I dreamed a dream which was just as if I was in my home town and also eating with my mother and brother as we were doing before we left each other and I was also playing with my friends as before entered the Bush of Ghosts. So when I woke up in the morning I remembered all these dreams, then I began to feel to go, but however I was putting my mind away from it. When I slept the following night I dreamed the same dream again, but when I woke up in the morning I felt to go my town more than the first time. And the third time that I dreamed again I was unable to eat, play, or feel happy at all, except to go. Even if I walk to any corner it would seem as if I was with my people, doing everything we were doing before I left them. So at this stage I thought of nothing more than to go, because I could not sleep both day and night any more, and I was always dreaming without sleeping or without closing my eyes. Not knowing that my people at home had gone to an earthly fortune teller and asked him whether I am still alive or dead already, but he told them that I am still alive in a bush, but my aim is not to come back to home any more. He said furthermore that I am living with somebody who is taking great care of me. Although he was unable to tell them the real bush that I was in and he could not tell them the kind of the person that I was living with. As he told them that I am still alive, my people simply told him to call me home with the power of his “Invisible Missive Magnetic Juju” which could bring a lost person back to home from an unknown place, how far it may be, with or without the will of the lost person. So having paid him his workmanship in advance, then he started to send the juju to me at night which was changing my mind or thought every time to go home.

  Bad-bye Function

  But as I could no longer bear to stay with my cousin except to go, then I told him, but he refused totally at the first time. When I was pressing him every time and telling a lie that I want to go and visit a friend of mine in the 7th town of ghosts, then he allowed me to go, because I was lean as if I should die within a few days. So as I was very popular with all ghosts of this 10th town and environment, when it remained one day for me to leave there I called all the ghosts of this town to my cousin’s front house for a special function for this “Bad-bye”. But none of them knows that I would not come back again as it was a “secret function” to all of them. This function was so greatly performed so that nobody could sleep till the morning except drinking, dancing various dances, beating drums and singing. But my cousin was so sad that he did not appear.

  Immediately the day broke I left them there and started to find the way to my home town as before I met my cousin in this 10th town of ghosts. This is how I left them. But as I did not know the right way straight to my town so this “Magnetic juju” was taking me to every place in either dangerous bush or not, so I started another punishment by ghosts. After the ninth month that I left my dead cousin I reached the 18th town which is about six hundred miles away from the 10th town. Having reached there a ghost whose throat was always sounding with various voices as a motor horn received me to his house with gladness. His house was on a high rock which is above every house in this town, he was the one who was blowing the horn through his throat to all the ghosts of this town in every hour as a clock and this horn was also waking everyone at five o’clock in the morning. After a week that I arrived to his house I noticed that he was too poor to feed me, because he was very old, even he could not feed himself and had nobody to support him. But as I had already become a real ghost before I left the 10th town, so by that a ghost friend of mine taught me the art of magic, because he did not know that I am an earthly person at that time, otherwise he would not teach me to become a magician. So as I was taught this art before I reached this town, one day, when I thought within myself that this old ghost could not feed me unless I would feed him, therefore I went to a village which is near this 18th town, luckily, I met a ghost magician who was displaying his magical power for the head chief of that village at that time. Then I joined him to display my own as well before these chiefs, as a competition. But when I changed the day to the night, so every place became dark at once, then I told him to change it back to the day as usual, but he was unable. After this I changed him to a dog and he started to bark at everybody, then as my power was above his own the chief with all the scene-lookers gave me all the gifts which were to be shared for both of us. After that I changed him from the dog to a ghost as usual. Then I packed all these gifts and kept going to the 18th town where I came to that village, I did not give him any of the gifts.

  Having left this village to a distance of a mile this ghost magician came to me on the way, he asked me to let both of us share the gifts, but when I refused he changed to a poisonous snake, he wanted to bite me to death, so I myself used my magical power and changed to a long stick at the same moment and started to beat him repeatedly. When he felt much pain and near to die, then he changed from the snake to a great fire and burnt this stick to ashes, after that he started to burn me too. Without hesitation I myself changed to rain, so I quenched him at once. Again he controlled the place that I stood to become a deep well in which I found myself unexpectedly and without any ado he controlled this rain to be raining into the well while I was inside. Within a second the well was full with water. But when he wanted to close the door of the well so that I might not be able to come out again or to die inside it, I myself changed to a big fish to swim out. But at the same moment he saw the fish he himself changed to a crocodile, he jumped into the well and came to swallow me, but before he could swallow me I changed to a bird and also changed the gifts to a single palm fruit, I held it with my beak and then flew out of the well straight to the 18th town. Without any ado he changed himself again to a big hawk chasing me about in the sky to kill as his prey. But when I believed that no doubt he would kill me very soon, then I changed again to the air and blew within a second to a distance which a person could not travel on foot for thirty years. But when I changed to my former form at the end of this distance, to my surprise, there I met him already, he had reached there before me and was waiting for me for a long time. Now we appeared personally to ourselves. Then he asked me to bring the gifts, but after both of us struggled for many hours, then I shared the gifts into two parts, I gave him a part, but he insisted to take the whole. However, I gave him all.

  Immediately he left me, then I changed to the air again, after I blew far away after him, I stopped on the way on which he would travel to his town, then I changed to a person. Before he could travel to that place I used my magical power. I killed a bush animal, I dug a hole close to this road, after that I cut the head off this animal, I put it upright inside the hole, it faced the road as if it peeped out of the ground alive, having done this, I hid myself near there. After a while he travelled to that place but when he saw this head as it appeared from the ground, he stopped suddenly and looked at it carefully for a few minutes, because it was very curious to him. Then he started to ask this head with fearful mind—“Ah! my lord, here you are?” After that he bowed down respectfully for it for three times, having done so, he was asking it—“Do you want one of these gifts?” But as it did not show any sign of motion, so he threw one of them before it. But as he wanted this head to talk to him, he said again—“Or this is the one you want?” he held the gift, showing it to this head as he was saying so. And threw that as well before it, and it was like this he was doing until he threw all these gifts before it. After that, he laughed louder and ran hastily to his town, he tol
d all the inhabitants with the king that he saw where the “ground has head and eyes” today. Having told them this wonderful news, the king asked him three times—“Are you sure?” he said—“Yes, I am sure.” And said furthermore that if it is a lie, then they may kill him for telling a lie. Having confirmed it, the whole of them with their king from whose head the smoke was rushing out followed them to the place to witness this ground whether it is true. But as I had removed this head together with all the gifts and went away immediately he left there for the town, so when the whole of them followed him to the place, they did not see where the “ground has head and eyes” as he told them. But as he had been promised that they may kill him for telling a lie, so the king ordered the ghosts to kill him, because they did not see any sign of what he told them. This is how I took all my gifts back from him.