Malick Sy was born in Sonyma, in the Futa Tooro. He was a gifted student, and his father sent him away to study the holy texts of Islam in the north. Anticipating his son’s future return, he then set aside a ram which he kept in a stall and fattened carefully. After seven years, Malick Sy returned to Sonyma. But that very day, a slave, one of the servants of the Satigui (the ruler of the Futa Tooro), came to the village. As was the custom, he was offered a gift: would he accept a cow? Two cows? An ox? No. What he demanded was the fattened sheep that he had heard was kept by the father of Malick Sy, and nothing else would satisfy him. He was told that the father had sworn to God that he was saving the sheep for his son’s return; the Satigui’s slave insisted he must be given the sheep. The village leaders went to Malick Sy’s father and asked him to give up the sheep. The father asked the son, who told him he should give up the sheep. They did so. The slave had it slaughtered and cooked, and then offered it to the village, including Malick Sy and his father.
After the feast, Malick Sy went to the slave and stabbed him, to avenge the insult done his father through the breach of the oath. Then he told his father what he had done. His father was horrified, fearing the reprisals of the Satigui, and wished to flee.
‘If we flee, we shall be caught,’ answered Malick Sy. ‘Let us try another course.’ He led the village leaders to the court of the Satigui and there told how the slave had come and demanded the sheep, despite the oath sworn by the father, and how after they had given him the sheep Malick Sy had killed the slave to avenge his father.
The ruler was furious. ‘Because you have faced me,’ he pronounced, ‘I shall not have you killed, but you must remove yourself. Never let me see you again. Leave this land at once.’
Malick Sy then left Sonyma, and travelled to Jara. There he settled and began to practise his faith. His learning and his piety won him a great reputation. His skills went beyond religion; the king entrusted to him the construction of the wall, the tata, intended to protect the town from raiders. When the project was completed, the king offered Malick Sy sheep or cattle or gold. Malick Sy refused all these gifts.
‘What should I give you?’ asked the king.
‘I ask only one favour,’ answered Malick Sy. ‘Allow me to see the sword from Mecca which was given to your ancestor Daman Gille.’
‘It is a sword of kingship,’ answered the king. ‘I cannot take it out of its sheath.’
Malick Sy was apparently satisfied with this answer, but in fact he simply sought out another means of seeing the sword. The king had a favourite wife, Dongo, who was childless despite many efforts and much assistance from healers and diviners. Malick Sy came to know Dongo, and eventually she asked him for his assistance in getting her a child. He agreed to offer up his prayers on her behalf, but told her that the price for his assistance would be to see the sword from Mecca. She agreed. He prepared amulets for her, and went into a retreat in which he prayed concentratedly. Soon Dongo became pregnant, to her great joy. Her pregnancy came to term, and she was delivered safely of a boy.
After the naming ceremony for the child, Malick Sy came to Dongo and reminded her of her promise. She recognized her obligation, but asked him to wait until the night was troubled with thunderstorms. He agreed. Soon after, the clouds rolled over the horizon and the thunder sounded at dusk.
That night, Malick Sy made his way to Dongo’s chamber. She had brought the sword from Mecca into the room. He drew the blade a small way out of its sheath. An intense light filled the room, and a rumbling shook the walls. The king came running to ask Dongo what had happened. The wife concealed Malick Sy and answered that it was only a flash of lightning, and that the stroke seemed to have landed nearby.
A second time, Malick Sy took up the sword. This time he drew it halfway out of the sheath. Again, light filled the room, and again a rumbling shook the ground. The king was not so easily satisfied with his wife’s explanations this time, but he finally left her alone.
‘You have seen the sword,’ said Dongo. ‘Surely that is enough?’
‘No,’ answered Malick Sy. ‘I must see the whole blade.’ With that, he unsheathed the sword so that it flashed in the dark room like lightning itself and a great roll of thunder made the palace complex shake. The king came running.
‘It was the sword from Mecca,’ explained his wife. ‘It fell from the sheath as I was holding it over our son.’
The next morning Malick Sy went to the king as usual, to greet him and ask after his health. As he approached, the king stared at him.
‘Your face is luminous,’ stated the king. ‘It is as though the sun shone behind your eyes. What has brought this change?’
Malick Sy admitted that he had seen the sword from Mecca. At first the king was furious, and was ready to order his execution. But then Dongo intervened, and explained that she had helped Malick Sy as the price of her – or their – son. At these words the king calmed down. But the portents were still clear. Malick Sy was destined to become a king. So the king ordered Malick Sy to leave the land of Jara and find a territory to the west.
Malick Sy left Jara. He passed through the Kaarta, and was guided by the words of an old man to the mountain of Krina, where he greeted the mountain and prayed, in the name of God, for its favour. Then he travelled on over the hills into the land that would become Bondu. He took service with the Tunka, the ruler, for a while, until he felt ready to ask for a boon. He asked the Tunka for some land, and the Tunka readily granted him a stretch of land: the region was arid and unpopulated.
Malick Sy then prepared charms which he hung on certain trees, and after a time they died. His servants went out and easily knocked over the trees; where the roots had dug into the earth, wells sprang forth. Thus the country acquired its new name: Bondu means the land of wells. The water brought people to the place, and they considered themselves subject to Malick Sy, as it was his power that had produced the water. More people came, and his authority grew.
Eventually he felt strong enough to ask the Tunka to divide their lands. The Tunka agreed, having heard how Malick Sy had brought water and fertility to Bondu, and proposed that they should each depart from their homes at dawn, walking towards the other’s residence, and that where they met should be considered the dividing line of their territories. But Malick Sy left his home well before dawn, and hastened towards the Tunka’s palace. The next morning, the Tunka was amazed to meet Malick only a short distance from the edge of his town. But he had given his word, and so that point became the border of their two lands. Malick Sy’s sons ruled after him; the dynasty was known as the Sisibe.
THE SAHARA
71
THE TUAREG OF THE SAHARA
The Sahara is not uninhabited, although it counts as one of the harshest environments on earth and there is some question (from historians and demographers) whether the populations of the central Sahara have actually been self-sustaining, or whether the peoples of the desert have maintained their numbers thanks to a constant influx from the edges due to marriage, trade and slave-taking. The oases allow the cultivation of date-palms, but most other foodstuffs are imported. The nomads of the desert have survived through trade and through persistent raids on the more fertile lands to the south. The populations are not at all unified; they are marked by a degree of linguistic diversity (within a larger family) and by intense political rivalry between segments of the same larger groups. But their image has benefited from the mystique of the desert itself, enhanced by particularities such as their matrilineality, unusual within heavily Islamized groups, and the wearing of the veil (dyed a rich indigo) by the men. In recent years, there have been conflicts along the southern edge of the Sahara, as Tuareg and Berber groups claimed more autonomy or political power in the newly independent states. The stories given below are taken from a variety of sources, ranging from a mid-nineteenth-century account to modern transcriptions of oral traditions.
THE FIRST QUEEN
Many years ago, a queen fled from the Maghrib with
her entourage. Her name was Tin Hinane, and she was accompanied by a servant named Takamata. The cause of their departure is not given, but probably involved an indiscretion whose consequences the women wished to escape. They came to the middle of the desert, and their food supplies ran out. The servants did what they could to protect their queen, but she was suffering from hunger and the heat and was soon close to death. Takamata went out to see what she might find: she came across some anthills, and hopefully broke them open. She was rewarded: the ants had laid up a stock of grain and other foods. She scooped out her treasure and quickly brought it back to Tin Hinane. This trove enabled the group to regain its strength and continue on, until they came to a village, Abalissa, near Tamanrasset in the heart of the desert. There both Tin Hinane and Takamata gave birth, to one and two daughters respectively, and these three daughters are considered the founding mothers of the Tuareg people of Tamanrasset. Tin Hinane’s tomb can still be seen in Abalissa.
CHILDREN OF THE JINNS
A party of merchants was travelling north from the region of Gao with seven Bella slave-girls. They came to the region of Taylalt and there were joined by a holy man. As they travelled on, they came to a valley. The holy man warned them not to camp there, although it might seem a favourable spot, for the valley was the habitation of jinns. But the merchants disregarded his advice. It was the end of the day when they reached the valley, and it promised a secure and comfortable campsite. So they spent the night there. As the trip progressed, however, it became clear that the seven Bella women had all become pregnant and seemed to be inhabited by spirits. The merchants then remembered the holy man’s warning, and realized that the women had been visited by the spirits as succubi, and so they abandoned the women at an oasis. The women all gave birth, and their children established the Iwillimiden group of the Tuareg.
THE ORIGIN OF MATRILINEAL SUCCESSION
A king once was cursed. In consequence, his first wife’s child proved to be a jinn who fled the world of humans at birth and joined the other spirits. The father blamed his wife and divorced her. He married again; his wife conceived. Again, she gave birth to a spirit, which vanished. The king divorced her and married again. This continued until he became too old to marry again. All his children had gone to the world of the spirits. He had no heir.
He was worried what might happen after his death; he feared a civil war that would split the people and bring harm to them. So he summoned all his subjects and put to them the question how they should ensure a peaceful transmission of power upon his death. Some suggested one recourse, others something else. Some were ready to put the question to a test of arms, others suggested divination and auguries. At last, an old man asked to speak and was granted leave. He was a holy man who had spent his time in contemplation.
He reminded them of the series of wives, all noble and virtuous, who had passed through the king’s bedchamber. He pointed out that such a series of events must have occurred according to the divine will, and asked then why the people were being subjected to this trouble. Why had the king been denied an heir? Certainly, the people needed a ruler, and a ruler of known royal blood. How then to ensure this result? There was only one way, said the holy man. They must look to the son of the king’s sister, for there was no question of his royalty. The people agreed to this solution, and so the king’s nephew became ruler upon his death.
THE FIRST IHAGGAREN
The Ihaggaren are a Tuareg sub-group based in northern Niger. This story is retold from a recent collection of Tuareg tales.
There was a man of some intelligence and resource who had two wonderful possessions: a sword that could cut through anything: flesh, wood, even stone, and a servant of tremendous strength who had been seen to uproot a tree with his bare hands. The man was not married; he was looking for a wife of rare cleverness and perception.
He was raiding with his companions when they came upon the trail of a travelling group: a family with their servants and camels. The man went to scout out the situation. He slipped over the dunes and spent the day spying on the camp. He soon realized it was one family, and that they had no sons but only a daughter. Their camels were of rare quality. He waited until a servant went out to milk one of the camels. The servant tethered the camel colt to one side and called for help in milking the mother. The man then slipped down from the dunes and joined the servant, standing on the other side of the she-camel and helping to milk her. The servant thought it was his master.
The servant brought the milk to the daughter, and she asked him who had helped him milk the camel. He answered that it must have been her father, although he had not seen the man’s face. The daughter sniffed the milk. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The man who helped milk the camel had been riding all day, holding in one hand a wooden stick and in the other a metal spear. There must be raiders somewhere near here.’
The man had heard her words, for he had followed the servant to the tent and then slipped around the back to listen to what passed. He realized that this was the woman he had been seeking, a woman of intelligence and perception. He waited. The woman went to her father and warned him that a party of raiders lay nearby and that they should try to escape. But they could think of no way to slip off without leaving tracks that the raiders would have no trouble finding. When the woman was alone, the man went into her and revealed that he was the man she had detected, who had helped to milk the camel. ‘But I have not come to raid your camp,’ he said. ‘I have been seeking a woman such as yourself for my bride, and so I shall do what I can to protect you.’ He arranged a stratagem with her: they hamstrung the male camel, so that he lay on the ground bellowing and groaning, and then they tethered a young camel nearby so that it called out for its dam. Then the party packed up their camp and slipped away in the night. The man gave the woman his camel-stick, and asked her to drop it after they had ridden for half a day or more.
The man returned to his companions at dawn and told them he thought they had missed their chance. The people of the camp had left. But the companions pointed out the noise of the camels, and said they should wait until the evening to attack. When they did so, however, they found an empty campsite, with two camels bellowing and groaning loudly enough to deceive them. They butchered the male camel and feasted on its meat, and then the next day they began following the trail of the party. In the afternoon, they found the man’s camel-stick in the sand.
‘I told you they had left,’ said the man. ‘I followed them this far, but still could not find the camp.’
The man waited for three years and then went looking for his promised bride. But he found no trace of her or her father’s camels. More years went by as he searched across the sands and through the valleys, and as the seventh year was ending he finally heard where they were and hastened to join them. But time had run out for her. Her father had promised her to a man, and his suite had come to fetch her and bring her to her wedding tent.
While she sat alone in the tent, a lion passed by and smelt her presence. It broke through the sides of the tent and carried her off into the waste. It passed by the man who had finally located the camp and was watching it from a nearby dune, and he attacked it. The lion dropped the woman and leaped on the man; the man used his shield against the mighty paws and talons and then slashed at the lion’s neck with his sword. His sword was a wonderful blade that cut through anything, even stone; the lion’s head fell to the sands. Then the man turned to inspect its prey. He recognized his intended bride, and she him. They spent the night talking and planning how to undo her marriage.
Before the dawn light came, the man arranged the lion’s carcass so that it seemed to be standing over its prey. The woman lay beneath the paws, and the head was mounted on a stick, and swayed from side to side. Servants came running from the wedding tent. They had brought food to the bride and found the sides shredded and the lion’s track. They stopped when they saw the lion and turned away. Soon, the leaders of the camp arrived, among them the intended groom and the bride’s fath
er.
‘Go!’ called the father. ‘There may yet be life in her! Kill the lion!’ But the men refused. The father turned to the groom and asked him to try to save his daughter. The groom refused: he was sure the daughter was dead and beyond hope. At that, the man came and offered to attack the lion if he was given a reward.
‘What reward do you want?’
‘Give me the lion’s prey.’
‘What would you do with a corpse, a dead woman?’
‘Grant me the gift, then I shall attack the lion.’
The men agreed, and the man then went and knocked over the lion’s carcass. He raised the woman to her feet and returned her to her father. Her father willingly gave her as a bride to the lion-killer.
Their troubles were not over. As the man and his bride were returning to his home territory, he left her for a moment in the care of his servant while he went to refill their waterbags. When he returned, he found that the servant had seized the woman, who was riding one of the wonderful racing camels that her father bred, and carried her off. The camel’s pace and endurance were such that the man could not catch up with them. The servant and his captured bride rode for forty days into the wilderness, without pausing to let the camel eat or drink, and then they rested for a time at an oasis. They then continued further into the desert. The servant settled in a forbidden land, one which even the jinns feared to enter. He took the woman as his bride. She did not dare refuse: the servant had carried off her lover’s wonderful sword, and he had, besides, a ferocious dog who would attack and kill anything. But she stopped caring for herself, and her hair became grimy and tangled, her clothes tattered and stained.
Her lover cast about in all directions from their tracks, looking for his lost bride, but he could find no sign of her. Finally, he returned to her father and asked for his help: the servant had escaped thanks to the endurance of his camel, and only with a similar animal might he hope to find their trail. The father gave him a four-year-old she-camel which had been tested for its endurance and courage. Then the man set off.
African Myths of Origin (Penguin Classics) Page 44