When the Tiger Roars

by Graeme Cann

  He taught them about restorative justice. For Abele, the focus was not on the crime and the appropriate punishment, but on the ongoing health of the community; therefore, both the victim and the perpetrator needed to be rehabilitated. Sampians who had been hurt physically, materially, or emotionally by the criminal or violent actions of another were fully compensated and lovingly cared for by the community. Perpetrators were never institutionalised—that is, placed in a prison—but instead were “relationalised.” They were, each one, placed in the care and under the supervision and tuition of a wise Elder. In this relationship they came to take responsibility for their actions and participated in providing the compensation owed to the victim. They remained in that mentoring relationship until they had been fully rehabilitated and until the victim of their crime had been fully compensated. The perpetrator’s choice was very clear: submit to the rehabilitation process or surrender the right to continue to live in Sampa, and indeed there were some who chose the latter.

  Abele also put in place the Eldership structure. A man or woman would be chosen by each extended family group, and they would serve as an Elder for as long as they were able or until they were replaced by another family nominee. Their role was not so much that of government but of service. They cared for the people in their valley and when necessary consulted with the people who inhabited the villages in the mountains. They helped develop and maintain the markets for their produce, and they saw to it that all the children had the opportunity of attending the village school. It is important to understand that the use of control and power in any context was seen as unnecessary and unhelpful. Abele taught that such behaviours were a response to fear and as the Sampians lived without fear because of the Covenant; control and power did not belong in Sampian culture. The consequence of this governance model was that every person felt connected to those with the responsibility of serving the community as Elders, and more importantly every person contributed to the decision-making process, through each Elder that the extended families nominated. Each saw his or her behaviour as a contribution to the health and success of Sampa, and there was never a need for an authority to enforce them to conform. The Elders led by example both in conformity and generosity. The children were instructed at school and at home on the importance of valuing others above themselves, and strangers who came to live in Sampa were mentored and taught about village life and its culture by the Elders.

  Abele or, for that matter, any of the Mother-Fathers who followed him, did not ever build a place of worship. Their spontaneous acknowledgement of the Great Creator in all aspects of their life as the source of life, love, peace, knowledge, and generosity was a continual, genuine, and heartfelt act of worship.

  Abele laid the foundations upon which, over many generations, the social and economic structures of Sampa would be built. In the Valley, which was ten miles long and four miles wide, the people established gardens, vineyards, orchards, and farms that in time would span twenty-five-thousand acres. The food and the finance generated by these farms went into a common fund and were distributed equally to all who lived in Sampa. To properly care for the whole valley, he oversaw a plan that would one day see four hamlets established along the river, linked together by a network of roads. In this way people could live close to their work and travelling was kept to a minimum. The cottages in each hamlet were surrounded not by fences but by beautiful flower gardens that also produced copious herbs and vegetables. No one ever locked their house; in fact, they did not think of possessions as things that were exclusively theirs. Every material thing was for sharing.

  It was very late on the third night when Marulu finished the first of the four great stories with the promise that over time he would tell him the others. The next day Alofa was very thoughtful indeed as he made his way back to Sampa.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE SECOND GREAT SAMPIAN STORY: GALILDRA THE GREAT

  “In our hearts we know that with a different fate, we, too, could be in the ranks of the dispossessed, stripped of our identities and belonging nowhere. The refugee becomes a sinister symbol of what can quickly happen once personhood is denied and people are transformed into disposable units of contemptible impediments to the greed or power-mongering of others.”

  David Mearns

  Over many years, Alofa and his friends had argued with the Council of Elders for radical change. As each year went by, the young men became more convinced that they were right, and the Elders became more stubborn.

  Indeed, the Elders not only became more stubborn but also increasingly aggressive. Driven by fear of a revolution, they raided homes and destroyed books. Several of the men, including Alofa and his close friends Ofa, Loloma, and Domoni, were on a number of occasions imprisoned and occasionally publicly beaten. Publicly, that is, because it occurred in the village square, but interestingly none of the public turned up. They were mortified and embarrassed that such horrific things should happen in their village. The Elders no longer allowed Alofa and his friends to take the pelts to the trading town of Towin. Alofa’s visits to Muralu became secretive, and every trip he made was fraught with danger. On more than one occasion as he travelled to Towin, he was attacked by a group of youths from his own village; wielding clubs, they were screaming, “Kill the traitor!” It was only Alofa’s bush skills, honed by years as a hunter-gatherer, that enabled him to escape. Such attacks meant that he could never safely travel to Towin by way of the road. Instead he would leave Sampa and travel through the mountain range, emerging from the forest when he was almost at Towin. Such a journey took fourteen hours and would usually begin at four in the morning. Every time he took that journey, he faced the dangers of predatory animals and surprise attacks by men from his own village.

  He learned to understand that these predatory creatures and the gangs of men were driven by the same fear that the Elders in Sampa were driven by. He avoided killing the animals that threatened him or wounding his attackers. He would not do that anymore than he would kill the Elders who endangered his life and the lives of his family and his friends and their families. One hundred years of fear had turned the animals and the Elders and men of the village into killers. It would not happen to him. He refused to fear the things his Elders feared. He refused to hate them for what they were doing to him, his wife, and children. He no longer desired to change these men. He only wanted to leave Sampa with his family, forever.

  It was during one of his secretive visits to Muralu that the old man had told him the second of the Four Great Stories. Like the first, this story further defines the Sampian culture and like all the others explains the origins of the core values that the Sampians held dear. The core value that was born out of Abele’s story was to be “keepers of the Covenant,” and the core value that was born out of Galildra’s story was “the equality of all people.”

  “His name was Galildra,” Muralu began, “which in the Sampian language meant ‘welcoming and compassionate.’ He was born one hundred years after Abele died. Nobody knew who Galildra’s mother or father was. He had been grossly deformed at birth. He had no right arm below his elbow, his left leg was several inches shorter than his right, and he carried a large hump on his back. He had grown up in Sampa being known as the ‘Village Child,’ but only he knew how he had come to be there. He had been born to a family in one of the mountain villages. His parents were shocked and distressed by his deformities and had hidden him in the house. They never took him out, and few people in his own village even knew that he existed.

  “One day, when he was almost one year old and had become more difficult to hide, his father carried him down the mountain and around the end of the valley into the forest and left him there. Three days later he was almost dead from starvation and exposure, when a great tigress came upon him. She was walking with her cubs gambolling by her side, when his weak cry led her to him. She lay by his side and nuzzled him toward her teats, until he hooked on. Then with her two cubs, one on each side of him, he had his first meal f
or many days. Some weeks later a great male tiger lifted him gently by the back of his little cloak and, carrying him ever so carefully, placed him under a beautiful tree on the edge of the valley. That’s where people from the village found him later that morning.

  “He was fed and housed by the whole village and everyone in Sampa looked out for him. Every village woman was his mother and in those early days many of them nursed him at her own breast. He was fiercely independent and although he could not run, he learnt to walk in a strange bent-over sort of way. He learnt to do most things with one hand and although there were many physical things that he could not do as others did them, he never shirked his share of food gathering and gardening.

  “Galildra flourished in Sampa for many reasons, but one of them was the way Sampians understood equality. It was very simple, really. Every man, woman, and child was made by the Great Creator, so every person was of equal value and worthy of honour and understanding. Physical strength or prowess did not enhance one’s value above another’s, because both the stronger and the weaker were equal, and both, in a deep communal sense, were dependent on the other. In a practical sense this belief undergirded the Sampians’ unswerving commitment to gender equality. That men as a general rule were physically stronger than women there was no doubt; that women often dealt better with physical pain and emotional stress was also broadly accepted; and both these realities led to the understanding that recognised strengths and weakness were not measures of worth, but were opportunities to serve each other.

  “Galildra and other children like him were never regarded as ‘special’ but simply as another version of normal, so he was never bullied by his peers, nor was he pitied or molly coddled by adults. The Sampians had a quaint way of understanding the structure of their society. It was not divided into the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich, or the submissive and the powerful. Instead, every adult Sampian saw themselves as both parents in the community, responsible to give love and guidance to others, and as children who in return needed the love and guidance of those they saw as their ‘mothers and fathers.’ No person, regardless of their age or responsibility in the community, ever felt that they were alone or that they were no longer needed. There would always be someone that they would look up to as their mother or father, and there would always be others who would look at them in the same way.

  “The concept of leadership was essentially different from that of the people in any of the mountain villages. There, the most charismatic, popular, privileged or wealthy men usually attained to positions of power. They were called leaders, and led through regulation and control. In Sampa, the word that was used to describe someone who held a position of responsibility was not ‘leader’ but ‘lead servant.’ The Mother-Father, for example, held the most responsible position in the community, but no one ever said that they led or governed the people but rather that they ‘served’ the people. They were never voted into the position but chosen by the Great One of the Forest, who on those occasions was acting on behalf of the Great Creator, and when the time came for them to take up the position, they were affirmed by the people. They were not chosen for their political savvy or their oratory skill, but because of their wisdom and kindness. They did not live in a special house guarded by security and protected by a high fence, but instead they lived in their own house and were easily accessible to all.

  “Sampa was not only a safe and caring community for those who were born there, but also for other people who, like Galildra, had for many different reasons come seeking refuge. Whether you were an immigrant from the mountain villages or a native Sampian, you understood that such generosity of spirit and the total acceptance of every person, regardless of individual differences, was a direct result of being a Covenant people.

  “One hot afternoon when the Village Boy was sitting among his friends in the village square, a massive tiger appeared. All the people fled, but Galildra was unafraid. As the others watched from a safe distance, the crippled boy and the Great One faced one another. There was no sound, but the two were clearly involved in deep and meaningful communication. Then after some time, Galildra walked to the forest edge with the beautiful yet terrifying animal. As they walked the tiger spoke, and although his mouth did not move, Galildra clearly heard the words in his mind. ‘Galildra, the two essential ingredients of a healthy and safe community are an unswerving belief in the equality of persons, and the refusal to entertain any attitude or behaviour which devalues or disenfranchises individuals, or discriminates against persons and groups for any reason. When the time is right you will become the fourth Mother-Father in the history of Sampa. Your life and service, like the lives and service of the other three, will help the people of Sampa understand that the Great Creator is not just an invented deity, but one who loves and nurtures the whole of creation.’

  “The people of Sampa were not privy to this conversation, but they knew what the coming of the tiger meant. Galildra, despite all his disabilities and his foreign origin, had been chosen. He had the Spirit of Abele. When he returned to the village square, there was about him a new air of confidence and humility. He rarely spoke of what he had heard that day, nor did anyone dare ask him. Even the greatest among the Sampians now recognised that Galildra was destined, one day, to be the Mother-Father of Sampa.

  “He had a brilliant mind which he constantly expanded by spending hours listening to the old men and women telling their stories about Sampa and the wider world. Even as a young lad he astounded adults and captivated the other children by telling parables. Parables are stories crafted to convey a deep meaning. Galildra’s stories were about both the animals of the jungle and the people of the land. The lessons that his stories conveyed were often about love and kindness, because he understood these things better than most. As he talked, his eyes would shine and his whole face would emanate an almost luminous glow.

  “As a young man he married a beautiful girl called Marilla, and they had a son they named Mesila who, like his father, astounded people even as a child by the things he said and did. They spoke openly of his wisdom and grace. When the time came to choose a new Mother-Father, the Sampians chose Galildra.They remembered the day when Galildra was still a boy and the Great Tiger had appeared in Sampa. They had known that day that he had been chosen and now that the previous Mother-Father, a very wonderful lady who had served faithfully for fifty years, had died, it was time for him to take the position. He was the ultimate servant and the people wrote songs to celebrate the occasion. One of the songs that were sung about him said, ‘Though he was crooked of body and small in stature, he stood like a giant among his grateful people.’

  “One of Galildra’s significant contributions to Sampian culture was what he did to enrich the marriages and families of Sampa. His belief was strong that healthy marriages and families were the backbone of healthy communities. He spoke often of his own childhood experience and how he had been the beneficiary of the loving families of his community. Under his leadership, marriages were built on honour and respect, husbands and wives were equal partners in the relationship, children were disciplined but not brutalised, and sexual intimacy belonged exclusively to marriage.

  “One of the quaint customs in Sampa that grew out of that time related to courtship and marriage. When a young couple fell in love and expressed their wish to marry, the boy would be invited to live with the girl’s parents for the six months of their engagement. During that time he was treated as a son by the girl’s parents and was expected to fulfil the responsibility of a son. If he was lazy or did not treat the girl and her mother and sisters with the greatest respect, the engagement would be broken off and the boy would return to his own home, where he would be mentored and encouraged to address his failings as a prospective husband. If the young couple continued to love each other, he would return at some time in the future and the process would be repeated. In all other cases, however, when the six months engagement period was completed and if all went well, they would marry an
d set up their own home in the village.

  “Every wedding ceremony was attended by the whole of Sampa and usually lasted three days. For them it was not just the coming together of two people, or even two families, but it was the reenactment of all that was important to them about the Covenant. On the first day of the wedding, crowds of people would meet in the square. As the people sang and danced, a group of older men would go to the bride’s house where the young man had been living with her family, and they would escort him back to the square. The groom would be the guest of honour as they made speeches, celebrated marriage, and feasted together. Then the men would escort the groom to his parents’ house where he would stay until the third marriage day.

  “On the second day the people would gather again, and this time a group of older women would go and collect the bride and once more there would be much celebration, singing, dancing and feasting, after which the bride would be escorted back to her parents’ home. The third day was the marriage day. The people would gather again but this time the bride and groom would be escorted to the square by their families, and the Mother-Father would conduct a ceremony in which the young couple would make their vows to each other. When all the celebrations were completed, the newly married couple would be escorted to their own house.

  “Because Sampa had always welcomed strangers and embraced them unconditionally, there were often serious challenges to the generally accepted Sampian way of life. Although most of those who came as refugees warmly embraced the culture and beliefs of Sampa and soon became active and respected members of their new community, these challenges would come from people who insisted on living as they had always done in the mountain villages from which they had come. They not only continued to cling to their religious beliefs and their polygamous marriage customs, but also demanded the right to practise them freely. Such demands and their challenge to the Sampian lifestyle raised deep concerns among the people and called for great wisdom from Galildra and the Elders.