by Graeme Cann
“‘After I had carried my father to safety I confronted Mordeca, who was armed with a knife. We fought, he prevailed, and I was slain. I cannot fully explain what I experienced at that moment, but if you can picture a collage of colours, brighter, warmer, and more beautiful than any colour on earth, and if you can imagine a choir of voices, from which came melodies no earthly musician could compose, and if you could conceive of a presence that imparted a peace that passes all human understanding, then you will have just begun to catch a tiny part of what I saw and heard and felt tonight.’
“Mesila paused again, but this time it was not his voice that continued the story but that of Galildra.
“‘People of Sampa, my son Mesila gave his life for us all today. See the wound in his chest! Mordeca’s knife was thrust deep into his heart and his life flowed from him. Mordeca celebrated because he thought the victory was his, but as he approached to take my life also, the Great One of the Forest came and breathed life into my son, and he came to life again. The sight was so terrifying to Mordeca that his fearful heart failed him and he died.’
“Now he raised his voice so that those who were present said it became like the roar of a mighty tiger. ‘Soon when I go to be with the Great Creator, Mesila, my son who was dead and is now alive, will succeed me as the Mother-Father of Sampa.’ Then with his good arm he lifted Mesila’s hand high in the air. At first the noise that rose from that great crowd that day was like the sound of distant thunder, then it gradually increased until it had reached a crescendo.
“‘Galildra and Mesila! Galildra and Mesila!’ they chanted, and even as the prisoners were hustled off to the meeting house, they continued to chant the names of their heroes.
“Back at the meeting house, Galildra, Mesila, and the Elders decided the fate of the rebels. The men who followed Mordeca, their families, and all of Mordeca’s family must leave Sampa, cross the river, and establish a new home in the mountains. Their homes, gardens, and pastures would be cared for by the people of Sampa until such time as they became the property of newly- wed couples or new refugees. Those who were being expelled from Sampa would be permitted to take their livestock so that they could begin a new life somewhere else. They were escorted to their houses and supervised as they packed their essential belongings and prepared their families for the journey. The next day three hundred and thirty seven men, women, and children crossed the river in search of another valley which they would one day call home. On the same day the people gathered again, this time to lay at rest the two Elders who had been killed in the attack the day before. Their families mourned their death, and the whole village surrounded them in love and support. This had been the first bloody coup attempt in the history of Sampa, and the first political murders that had ever occurred in the valley.”
Muralu sighed, his body weary from the physical effort of telling the story, and his heart was very heavy. “Do you understand, Alofa? This time in the life of Sampa was the beginning of an era the like of which the Sampians had never seen before. No longer would belief in the Great Creator, in the Covenant, and in the Spirit of Abele be the inheritance of all those born in or welcomed to Sampa. From now on people would make a conscious decision to live under the Covenant and dwell in the Valley without fear of the tiger, or to break the Covenant and plunder the wealth and potential of the forest. This realisation changed Sampa forever, and a once completely united people would increasingly experience the pain of division and discrimination. Now Alofa you must sleep and tomorrow you must stay, for it is important that I tell you the third Great Story of Sampa.”
Sleep did not come easily to Alofa that night. It seemed to him that a veil had been drawn back and he was being exposed to a source of secret knowledge hidden from everyone except Muralu. Till now he had been unable to understand the violence that threatened to destroy Sampa as he knew it. As he listened to the descriptions of life in Sampa a time long ago, he came to believe that such a society would be indestructible. Indeed it had proved to be so when it came to enemies from the outside. It was the enemy within, however, that threatened Sampa’s way of life. If fear was the enemy of peace and unity, he mused, how did it work? How do a people who have experienced all the advantages of living without fear become afraid? What foundational truths and values have to shift for a society to be ruled by fear? And how does fear fundamentally alter the way people living together relate to each other?
As Alofa slept that night he dreamt, and in his dream he saw a gigantic rock. On the rock was written the words “the Covenant,” and thousands of people from many generations were living in its safe and protective shadow. But at the bottom of the rock out of sight of most of the people was a small fissure. Slowly, ever so slowly, the split was moving up the rock.
BOOK TWO
THE PATHWAY OF FEAR
INTRODUCTION
Galildra served Sampa for almost fifty years and after he died he was succeeded by Mesila, his son. There was no greater or more highly acclaimed servant leader in the whole of Sampian history than this Mother-Father. He also served for fifty years and he and the Mother-Fathers who followed him over the next century presided over a safe and prosperous community. Sampians continued to honour the Great Creator and the Covenant. They lived without fear of attacks by tigers and at peace with the people of the mountain villages. Their valley was exceedingly fertile, and their produce was in high demand in the markets of Towin.
The seeds of division that were sown by Mordeca and his followers during the time of Galildra’s leadership did not disappear, however, and from time to time the demand for an army and pressure to enter the rainforest for the purpose of hunting, mining, or timber-gathering would arise again. On the surface it would seem that the very values that undergirded the Sampian culture were at the root of the unrest. They continued to welcome the refugees from the mountains and they steadfastly abided by the conditions of the Covenant. Their generosity meant that the population of Sampa had grown rapidly, and because of the Covenant there was no way to increase the size of the valley. Some of the farmers and business people proposed that Sampa could not continue to welcome people from the mountains unless they cleared some of the forest and developed it into farmland. Those who demanded change were becoming more vocal, and those who saw themselves as the custodians of all that was good believed that to enter the forest would be to break the Covenant, and without the Covenant they would no longer be able to live without fear of the tiger.
Alofa has listened to the first two Great Sampian Stories and as he prepares to listen to the next two, he does so with a deep sense of foreboding.
CHAPTER ONE
THE THIRD GREAT SAMPIAN STORY: “SHE WHO SEES AS NO ONE ELSE SEES”
“Do not be discouraged by people who reject your true purpose. Do not stop because of anxiety; stop because you are done with the mission! Don’t ever be downed by the susurrant call of the masses to stop, halt, or abort your true purpose when you are convinced within your innermost person of how true your purpose is. A true purpose is mostly rejected, spat upon, and seen as an unworthy cause by the masses until they come to a later realisation of how true it is, and then they accept, celebrate, and enjoy it.”
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
As Alofa dreamt of the gigantic rock with the little fissure, an event was being played out in Sampa that, had he been aware of it, would have greatly distressed him. His lifelong friend Loloma had been arrested earlier that evening and charged with sedition. False witnesses recruited by enemies of Kaluba claimed that he was a leader of a group who planned to assassinate the chief of Elders. Loloma was in fact a peaceful man, and was constantly a calming influence amongst those who agitated for change. Like Alofa, he believed that the only option open to them now was to leave Sampa and begin afresh elsewhere. Loloma and Ofa, another boyhood friend of both his and Alofa’s, had already crossed the rainforest in search of another place to establish a new Sampa. They returned excited by what they had found: a secluded valley, almost a
mirror image of their own. It was uninhabited and was served by a great river that flowed along the full length of the valley. He and Ofa were planning another visit with the intention of further exploring the river.
But there was a great deal of discontent among those who lived at Sampa, even amongst those who had no intention of leaving. It was one of these groups of malcontents that had been planning the assassination of Kaluba, who, when they were suspected, offered to expose who the real leader was. Later that evening soldiers arrived at Loloma’s house and in the presence of his wife and children, arrested him and dragged him away to be accused, tried, and convicted. Kaluba himself was both prosecutor and judge. The trial was very brief. Loloma was well known to Kaluba as one of those who challenged him to return to the core values that both he and his father Rubin had rejected, and as a close friend of his grandson Alofa, whom he hated. Loloma was pronounced guilty, handed over to the army, and hung later that night on the gallows in the army barracks.
Early the next morning, whilst Muralu still slept, Alofa left the house to walk the streets of Towin. He had of course walked these streets many times before, but today he pondered what Towin may have looked like in the days of Galildra and Mesila. It had been originally established as a centre of trade because it was on the main thoroughfare to the coast. Traders with their horse-drawn wagons would traverse this road calling at all the towns, purchasing produce and manufactured goods for transport to far distant countries. The trading took place in the market, an area in the centre of Towin, where business people displayed the wares that they had purchased from suppliers in the villages up the river.
Timber and animal pelts were the main products that found their way to the coast from Towin. In the days that Muralu had talked about last night, the people of Sampa sold little for the overseas trade. Instead, they supplied the people of Towin with vegetables, fruit, eggs, grain, meat, milk, cheese, and wine, and because they occupied the only significant fertile valley within fifty miles of Towin, you could say they had a monopoly.
Now, however, it was very different. The villagers in the mountains had been driven further and further back as miners and prospectors, poachers and trappers encroached deeper and deeper into their territory. When the people of the mountain villages resisted, they were overpowered by the heavily armed groups who greedily claimed more of their land. As Alofa walked the streets he noticed the people, and it struck him how cosmopolitan Towin had become.
He saw the stocky southern mountain people with their dark eyes, brown skin, black straight hair, and slightly mongoloid features. Many of these had come to live in Towin because subsistence farming and hunting had become more and more difficult to maintain, as the outsiders had pushed further into their territory. The northern mountain people were there also, taller than the people of the south, with fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Whilst historically they had been hunters and gatherers, they had demonstrated great aptitude for business and also for things academic. Many of the business leaders in Towin came from the north, as did most of those who taught in the schools and provided medical services to the community.
Then there were the labourers, stock handlers, and lorry drivers. Their skin was black, like his own, their hair was dark and curly, and their eyes were as brown as the earth. The men were tall and strongly built, and the women were also tall and very beautiful. They were the children of Abele, and their ancestors had been born and raised in Sampa. He thought of his precious Misha and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to be with her, but he could not return straight away. Muralu would tell the third of the Great Stories of Sampa today, and Alofa knew that right now he was where he had to be.
Muralu was waiting on the veranda of his little cottage. It seemed to Alofa that he had grown a little older overnight and noticeably more frail. He was leaning back in his chair and his eyes were closed. As he became aware that Alofa had arrived, he opened his eyes and weakly smiled. “Today, Alofa, I must begin to tell you of the last of the great Mother-Fathers in the history of Sampa,” he said as the young man sat on the veranda with his back resting against the wall of the cottage. “Her name was Marita, and in the Sampian tongue it means ‘farseeing.’ During her lifetime, however, her name came to mean ‘healer.’
“Marita was born one hundred and fifty years ago. Her mother, Mara, was the great granddaughter of Mesila, and the day Marita was born, she recalled a prophesy made by him and passed on through the generations. Just before he died, Mesila, the son of Galildra, had spoken of the days that lay ahead. He had said that there were to be many days of peace in Sampa, but that they would come to an end. People would rise up against the traditional leadership of the Mother-Fathers and the Council of Elders. They would seek counsel from the ‘children of Mordeca’ who himself had risen up against Galildra and Mesila, and then they would plan to overthrow the leadership of Sampa and take their fertile valley for their own. Once they ruled the valley, they could then enter the rainforest and plunder its unlimited resources. However, Mesila said, before Sampa’s darkest hour came, ‘One who could see as no one had ever seen before’ would be raised up to stand against the powerful forces of evil that would come against her. She would not only save Sampa from a terrible defeat, but she would heal the people and the land.
“Few people had remembered, let alone understood the words of the prophecy. For the nearly one hundred years since Mesila’s death, life in Sampa had been peaceful and prosperous. The two Mother-Fathers who had succeeded him were wise, kind, and benevolent. The Council of Elders had fulfilled their responsibilities well. The rains had continued to fall and the river had continued to flow. The people had lived together peacefully and compassionately. Sampa had continued to open its doors to refugees and the land had been as fertile and productive as ever. As the houses and public buildings became old and unserviceable, they were replaced with more modern buildings. Their farming techniques developed and more of the valley was divided up and cultivated. For most Sampians, life in the valley was still a favoured and almost idyllic existence. But a cloud, invisible to all but the very wisest, hung over Sampa.
“So when Marla looked at the baby in her arms and realised that she had been born blind, she knew immediately that this was the one of whom Mesila had spoken, and she called her Marita. Growing up blind at that particular time in history would have been difficult anywhere else but in Sampa. This compassionate community embraced her from the start. The villagers did not regard her as ‘different’ or ‘special.’ She was a child, and like every other child her greatest needs were for love and protection. For the villagers she was just another person, and the Sampians knew that every person deserved to be understood and accepted. As she grew, however, it was plain to everyone that this was no ordinary child.
“As soon as Marita could walk, she proved to be a very mobile and inquisitive child. The other children became her eyes. They told her about colours, but because she had never seen colours, she learnt to relate each colour to a sound and a feeling. The sound of trickling water in any one of the many streams in the valley made her feel happy and she called it silver. The rustling of the leaves in a gentle breeze made her feel peaceful and she called it green. The crackle of lightning over the mountain range made her feel excited, and she called it red. And the thunder that followed frightened her and she called it black. The sound of the wind spoke of strength and she called it gold. The sound of a windstorm represented a threat to her safety and she called it orange. Purple was the colour of music and it made her think of the Great Creator, and pink was the sound of a baby gurgling happily and she thought of the harmony between the Sampians and the tiger, so she felt grateful. Her mother had told her that the sheets on her bed were white, and all of her life white spoke to her of the warmth and purity of love.
“Her mother made her clothes of silver, white, green, purple, and pink, and she insisted on being dressed in colours that matched her mood. Silver was her favourite colour because she was always happy. In later
life when she became the Mother-Father, she often wore purple and pink and on one momentous occasion of which I will speak later, she wore black and orange.
“If it was true that the other children in the village were Marita’s eyes, it was also true that she was their ears. Marita would tell them what she saw with her ears, and truly she saw what no one else could see. When she sat with her friends by the stream, the trickling of the water made her feel happy. She could ‘see’ why the birds were singing: it was because the stream made them happy. The children laughed as they played in the water, because the stream made them happy too. The cows mooed softly as they came to drink, because they were happy to be able to satisfy their thirst. So it followed, did it not, that water was one of those things humans could not live without and the love and protection of the Great Creator was like the water? True happiness came from drinking in everyday the love and goodness of the Creator. Everything that surrounded her was alive. It was like everything had breath, character, and meaning beyond its mere existence.
“Marita grew into a stunningly beautiful woman. Her skin was the colour of bronze, her lips were full and red, and her shining black hair framed her smiling and compassionate face. She was tall and slim, and carried herself with a beauty and a grace that belied her disability. Like all the Mother-Fathers before her, she was a master storyteller. At the age of twenty she was the principal teacher of children in the village. She would captivate them with her stories and parables, all designed to help them enter a world that physical eyes could not see. She had the most beautiful singing voice that anyone who heard her sing had ever heard. When people spoke of it, they did so in hushed and awe-filled tones. ‘That voice,’ they would say, ‘comes from a world that only she can see. A world so beyond our understanding that it can only be expressed in music so perfect and so exquisite that it opens our ears to the voice of the Great Creator.’