by Vamba Sherif
Since my encounter with the slave-trading chief, I had learned to be careful and patient with the people of the interior. I did not want to anger the chief by attacking his idols. Perhaps one day he would see the light.
‘You’ve been kind to us,’ I said.
He nodded, and said, ‘Your lodging is ready.’
During the night, we stayed indoors and were surprised by the songs of children accompanied by clapping hands. On enquiring, I was told that it was the moonlight dance. Boys and girls would gather to tell stories and to sing and dance, just like we had done on the plantation.
Early the next morning, we bade the chief farewell, thanking him for his generosity, whereupon he said that he would like us to visit again.
We headed toward Bopolu. Along the way, we came to the village where Joseph’s mother was born, and the old chief welcomed us like relatives. We stayed on for a few weeks, a period that gave me the opportunity to observe the customs of the people.
The men rose before cockcrow and headed for their farms, returning before dusk. Most often, the women accompanied them or stayed at home to prepare a meal and then took it to them. The elderly stayed at home, cared for by their working children. Often, they played a part in rearing their grandchildren and proffered advice on matters relating to the village. Although the bulk of them were farmers, the villagers nevertheless went once a month to the market of Bopolu to sell their crops, consisting of palm oil, palm kernel oil, rice and vegetables. The people traded in iron money, a tiny iron bar an inch long. Those who could not afford the currency swapped their goods.
The village practised polygamy, with the men dividing the night equally between their spouses. All the women adorned their waists with beautiful tattoo patterns and the most privileged wore huge gold earrings. Beauty was celebrated here as I suppose it is in all the villages of the interior. The most beautiful of the women or girls were greatly admired, and their beauty drew men from all over the interior and down to the coast.
After a fruitful stay, we pressed on with our journey. At one village, we heard the peculiar story of a man who could camouflage himself as a forest creature, throwing the hunted animal into confusion. We met the men returning with a kill. It was a leopard. As customary, pregnant women were not to see it for fear that their offspring might bear the countenance of a leopard. To protect those women, the leopard’s face was covered with a piece of cloth. Horns were blown to welcome the great hunters. But on the outskirts of the village, people could not agree whether to bring the kill into the village or not. Some were against it, while others were for it. At last, as it was bound to be, those who favoured the bringing of the leopard to the centre gained the upper hand. And the kill was brought in with cheers and uproar.
The chief served us palm wine. Later we headed on. Joseph warned me of the next village, which teemed with sorcerers, a place where a cooking pot was nowhere to be found, for the witches used invisible pots. We passed through there without seeing a single soul.
That same day, we reached Bopolu. It was a large town, perhaps bigger than Monrovia. It was market day. Dozens of people roamed about, selling and bartering goods: kola nuts, vegetables, gold, silver, guns, knives, perfumes, clothes and a host of other things.
My companions led me to the king’s palace. It was huge and plastered with cow dung. He was a giant of a man with a calm disposition and a soft voice. Among his retinue was a praise-singer. The chief received us as though we were not strangers. Indeed, he told us later, he had met some government officials from Monrovia before and had worked hand in hand with the government.
He told me the history of the town. The famous king Sao Boso, his grandfather, was a friend of the settlers and had helped them to acquire much needed land. But the settlers had not responded to the needs of the natives when they had asked for help. He mentioned Samori, who had asked the Liberian government for help several times but to no avail. I told him that I had met Samori’s emissaries. The king expressed his hope that the government would accept Samori and his gesture of friendship.
The praise-singer now began to tell me about Bopolu’s past. Most of what he said was interpreted and I gathered from his gestures what he was trying to convey. Flipping his hands about him, playing his musical instrument accompanied by songs, he lamented the past, which was greater than the present. Suddenly he stopped and took a bite of a kola nut. He was sweating from the effort. Bopolu, he said, was the link between the forest and the savannah, along a trade route that went as far as Timbuktu and beyond. It occurred to me to bring up the subject of the salt people in my mother’s stories. While my words were being interpreted to him, the praise-singer was nodding.
He knew the story of the salt people. ‘In our society’, he said, ‘children are not told the stark truth regarding death. They are told instead that the dead have gone to buy salt. That is because a people who had once travelled to buy salt never returned. The salt people were the people of the borderlands and the Arabs themselves. Traders brought us salt. But at one time, the supplies ran out. Some of our people went in search of salt to a kingdom once ruled by Sundiata Keita but they never returned, and those who followed met the same end. Rumours then spread that they had been snatched by people who had come in boats from across the sea.’
The puzzle fitted. My mother, without us realizing it, had been telling a story that was still alive here. While the people of this land did not know the lot of those who had gone to buy salt, we knew, we who were on the other side of the sea. I thanked the praise-singer.
Later on in the day, we saw the king again. When the conversation came round to the subject of Muslims, he mentioned that he was one himself but was not as educated as the imam of the mosque. I asked to have an audience with the imam. The king answered that it could be arranged. Someone was on hand to take me to him. The imam, dressed in a tunic, was austere-looking and surrounded by his students who were reciting words written on wooden tablets. He received me kindly. I asked him if he had anything in his religion about Jesus. To my amazement, he told me about Mary and the miraculous conception of the Lord. When he was finished, I said that I had brought him the word and told him about the kingdom of God about which, surprisingly, he knew a great deal. He accepted my teachings. And I thought that we needed such people to build a unified Liberia, for that was the future, for us and for them.
During my stay at Bopolu, I learned more about its people. It was a heterogeneous society with many of the tribes of the interior dwelling within its walls. I also began to learn some words of the language to prepare me for my final destination.
Every day I asked and was granted the king’s audience. He would tell me about the customs of the land and ask me questions about America. On my second visit to the imam, I learned how his religion was introduced into the interior. Traders and clerics like him took the religion to many parts of the forest; some of them settled and intermarried. Most had risked their lives, like I was doing, to propagate the teachings of God.
Months after our stay in Bopolu, my three young travelling companions decided to return to Monrovia, their task of guiding me completed. Joseph had been the most helpful. Not only could he speak his mother’s tongue but also three languages spoken in Bopolu, including Gbandi, the language of Tenneh’s mother’s people.
Joseph, Patrick and Matthew taught me all they knew about the ways of the natives. The three found it sad to part from me, for they were given the same respect as I was. Each was allotted a home and young women sang their names at night. One day, Joseph told me that he had fallen in love with one of the young women and was planning to stay in Bopolu. Although I did not see the young woman, he never ceased talking about her. Patrick and Matthew went with some men every day to tap palm wine, as if they had lived there all their lives. But when the time came to return to Monrovia, the three were ready. I took them to the king who expressed his disappointment at their departure. I thanked them for their help and escorted them to the outskirts of the town.
/> With my companions gone, I found it increasingly difficult to extend my stay in Bopolu.
A few days later, I decided to leave. My ever-generous host, the king, appointed four ably built men, one of whom could speak some English, to carry my luggage.
My departure from Bopolu was celebrated. The elders, including the chief, came to see me off. Young women, led by the praise-singer, sang my name. I went to see the imam. The cleric held my hand and prayed for me; the serious and seraphic tone of his chanting affected me so much that I broke into a prayer. The king declared that I was one of the few who had come to his town with a sincere heart, and he reiterated his joy at receiving me and promised that as long as he lived I was welcome there. That moment, I had an almost sacred sense of belonging to these people and of being part of their world.
We journeyed through many villages and for many days before reaching a town in the Loma country where we were confronted, for the first time, with the masked being. On hearing the cry of one of his retinue, a cry that announced its presence, my travelling companions rushed to the bush for cover. I stood there flabbergasted. One of the men, trembling with fear, took me by the arm and led me away, berating me for my foolishness. That was the unseen masked being, the dreaded masked being, he told me. Ensconced in the cover of the bush, I did not see the masked being or its retinue.
Later, when we were sure it had gone, the men told me that the ritual of initiation into adulthood and the cult of the masked beings were pervasive in most tribes of the interior. Seeing one without being an initiate could result in certain death. People’s lives revolved around the initiation ritual. Children were told about the masked beings from early on and prepared for the time when they would be initiated. No one, not even the Muslims who did not adhere to the cult, could mock them, for they did not distinguish a believer from a non-believer. They were all powerful and fearsome beings that sang like birds or shouted like thunder. They could read thoughts, tell the future of a whole people. Their source of power was the might of the ancestral spirits. Though they had little in common with the Muslims, they wore their protective amulets, thereby possessing the most powerful weapon of Muslims and Christians alike: the words of God.
So touched was I by these stories that I chose not to stay a moment longer in the village despite many pleas from its goodhearted chief.
We travelled the whole day and arrived at another place where I wrote down a journal of my observations. Relative peace reigned in the land. Except for few instances, the people were generous. Curious to know us, they asked many questions, sometimes verging on naivety. They wanted to know about America, about Liberia, about how we conducted our relationships, about our food, our women, our climate, and our means of transport and our homes. Whenever I answered a question, one of them ended up asking me the same question again.
The land was fertile. One had but to throw a seed anywhere, even on a hard-worn path, for it to grow. The future of Liberia lay in working together with these natives and in the yields of this soil. The climate, at first hostile to a newcomer, could be very favourable with time.
We were now far to the north of Monrovia, according to my sextant, in a fortified village that had just survived an attack from its bloodthirsty neighbours. A day’s rest saw us on our way to our final destination.
It was a beautiful day and the sun was bright. My companions were in a merry mood. More than ever since the beginning of this journey, I thought of Charlotte and my son Edward, but was content with the choice I had made. I had had the opportunity to love them.
We arrived at our final destination at noon.
On the outskirts of the town, I encountered a man tilling his land. Handsome and with penetrating gaze, his eyes affected all who looked at him, including me. He welcomed me and held out his hand, then asked me in passable English the reason for my visit. Using my rudimentary grasp of his language, I answered that I had come to settle down in his town, Leopard Town, and to bring peace to the people. This pleased him so much that he held my hand and would not let go.
The village, nestling under a chain of mountains, looked mysterious, plucked out of a bygone era. I saw a few people coming out of their homes in ones and twos, walking with nervous steps and casting curious glances at me as though they had been confined to their homes for some reason and were coming out now it was safer. Did it have to do with the masked beings or with fear of war? I wondered.
My host led me to his compound and introduced me to his wife, Miatta, and his son, Salia. I had reached my destination.
The man’s name was Halay.
Book Two
Dance of the Masked Beings
1
I’ve decided to tell you my story in order to explain the choice I am about to make, one which will affect the course of our friendship forever. I see no other way. There are no other ways. That you happened to be among us here in the forest, far away from America where you were born and bred, is perhaps as remarkable as the circumstances that led to the man I’ve become and to the decision I must make. So bear with me.
I was born in this town, a momentous event for my parents, perhaps for the land, because the months preceding my birth were characterized by frequent incidents of many parts of the forest bursting into flames. Our ancestors had left no traces in their songs and stories of such events ever occurring. Rice fields and vegetable gardens, ripe with the promise of good harvest, would catch fire and burn to the last seed. Every once in a while, as the day edged on towards dusk, a storm of dust would sweep across our towns and villages as though it was at war with the people. There were so many presentiments of a terrible misfortune about to befall that my people slaughtered animals in elaborate sacrificial rituals meant to soothe the earth and appease the gods, and they poured libations and consulted the oracle, over and over again, all to no avail. Something had gone terribly wrong. The earth was about to erupt into violence of a kind never witnessed before.
My mother was on her way from the farm and was resting on a rock on the summit of a mountain, below which the land spread out like a river, when the first pangs hit her. She had decided to pause and make up her mind regarding her condition. But the pangs, having taken firm root in her, compelled her to hurry down the mountain, and as she did so she felt as if the tall trees along the path would collapse on her and the road would roll up and bury her. In front of her, to the left of the path, there was a colossal tree whose branches she thought might offer her sanctuary, but she realized on approaching it that she did not have the courage or the knowhow to deliver me alone. As the shadows lapped up the sunlight and the trees blended with the shadows, heralding the night, my mother panicked. The road suddenly seemed longer, the hills and mountains yet to climb innumerable, but the fear of losing me compelled her to move on.
After what seemed like forever, my mother arrived late at night in our town which, nestled under a mountain and with light burning from hearths, seemed innocuous, detached from her reality.
‘On reaching home, Halay,’ she would tell me years later, ‘the strength that had held me together abandoned me, and I fell on my knees in the dust.’
The women of the compound led her into a hut. One of them left to fetch the midwife. The old woman, whose age was unknown even to the oldest in the land, tiny and spry, the skin of her forehead as tight as a drum, entered the compound with a knife and an amulet wrapped up in a sheet of white cotton cloth. The knife was meant to sever me from my mother and the amulet to protect me against malevolent spirits.
The old woman was believed to have been born to a mother from the land beyond the great river and to a father who disappeared before she could begin to remember him, leaving behind a strange, musky scent she would come to associate with traders from the savannah who purchased kola nuts from our forests in exchange for salt and other goods.
She met my mother spread out on a mat, deep in the throes of labour. ‘The dust,’ my mother was saying. ‘The dust is strangling me.’
The dry se
ason had by then reached its zenith, and at that hour peppery dust poured into homes, swept up by the ever-present winds, which brought mysterious death, choking breath and unleashing havoc among my people, carrying dozens away in the process.
My mother began to shiver, caught in a paroxysm of fear. ‘Don’t panic. Take hold of yourself,’ the midwife said, and she went to work, her face set in a frown, now and then encouraging my mother but without sentiment in her voice, for a woman in labour required strength not unnecessary compassion. From somewhere deep within her, at a moment when everyone, including the midwife, had given up on her, my mother found the strength to guide me into the world.
Four days later, as custom prescribed, my mother presented me to my father. ‘I met your father standing at the edge of the valley, facing the huge mountain before him, his patience at breaking point. “Here’s your son, Kollie,” I said, as though I was done with you, Halay.’
My father was slight of build, broad-shouldered, and in the habit of crushing palm kernels with his teeth. He was known to cover long distances on foot, carrying heavy sacks of rice or kola nuts on his head or shoulders. On encountering him for the first time one would conclude, as so many did to their detriment, that a man of his build could not be endowed with extraordinary strength. But this was a man who, in a war that would define him and seal his fate and that of the land forever, had captured the ruler of the people across the river and had married his daughter, my mother, to facilitate peace between the two peoples.
My father wrapped me in his arms and whispered his dreams in my ears, like his father had done before him – a tradition that could be traced back to a group of people who, determined to forge a new beginning for themselves, had crossed crocodile-infested rivers and had fought strange beings and lost companions in the process and, exhausted and unable to press on any longer, had decided to settle in the embrace of these forests. ‘You will take after me, my son,’ he said. ‘You will do whatever it takes to protect this land.’