King Peggy

by Peggielene Bartels

  After the borehole ceremony, the Shiloh guests went to visit Elmina Slave Castle, that sacred place of endings and beginnings so important to African Americans. At least some of their ancestors had probably passed in chains through the Door of No Return, the now-famous portal to the beach and waiting ships. In 1998 the Ghanaian government had created the Door of Return program, asking people of African descent all over the world to come back and honor their dead ancestors who had been imprisoned there. These members of the African diaspora, descendants of the hardy 30 percent who survived out of the estimated ten million who had been shipped to the Americas, were called heroes.

  Peggy didn’t join them. She had seen the castles before: every Ghanaian schoolchild had. Now sitting on the airy veranda of the Lagoon Lodge, she thought about the floors of the dungeons, which contained gruesome evidence of the appalling conditions forced upon the captives. The stone floor of the women’s dungeon in Elmina had never been redone, and it still reeked of feces, urine, sweat, and menstrual blood. There had been so much of it, from so many thousands of women imprisoned there over the centuries, that the smell seeped deep into the rock and wouldn’t ever come out. At Cape Coast Slave Castle, a short distance from Elmina, archeologists digging in the main male dungeon had found three feet of compacted human feces where captives had wallowed for months until the slave ships docked to take them away.

  Otuam’s own castle, Tantumquerry, was one of many. The British had dynamited it in the nineteenth century, after slavery had been outlawed in the British Empire, and there were only a couple of walls left. Even so, the people of Otuam avoided the castle hill at night because untranquil spirits were known to walk there.

  So many people are not here in Ghana who should have been because their ancestors were stolen away, Peggy thought. On the other hand, without slavery none of the tens of millions of African Americans living in the United States, who contributed so much to American culture, would exist. What would music be like without jazz, blues, swing, and hip-hop? Sports would consist of short white men bumping into one another and falling down.

  Those Africans captured and enslaved had been the unlucky ones, forced to endure the slave dungeons on the Ghana coast and the heinous Middle Passage to the Americas and, if they survived, a lifetime of backbreaking work in the fields feeling the sting of the whip on their backs. The lucky Africans remained in Africa with their homes and families.

  But by the second half of the twentieth century that was reversing itself. African Americans, despite their continuing challenges, gradually attained access to the best education and jobs. They had clean water running hot and cold right out of their taps and didn’t have to carry it in buckets on their heads, and a significant percentage of their children didn’t die before the age of five. It was the cousins left behind who now struggled to survive. Things had shifted, she realized, as things in the world so often did. The descendants of the unlucky ones had become very lucky indeed.

  As usual, nothing involving her elders ever went smoothly. When Isaiah the Treasurer and Baba Kobena arrived at the morgue Thursday afternoon, at the section reserved for kings, Mr. Aduako asked them for a few cedis to pay for the pillow and the mat they would place under the body during transport in the ambulance. Her elders didn’t have a penny between them, so they had to drive all around Accra in gridlocked, fume-belching traffic to borrow the money from friends. During the several calls to report on the stages of this ridiculous odyssey, Peggy noticed that Baba Kobena and Isaiah seemed to be slurring their words, and she wondered if the friends they visited had been plying them with liquor.

  Peggy received updates while sitting with Nana Kwesi, Papa Warrior, and Ekow on the veranda in Winneba, enjoying the breeze and drinking a Star beer. Finally Baba Kobena told her, “Nana, we have brought the king home and will watch him in the council chamber until his family prepares him tomorrow.”

  Thank you, God, she said silently. Thank you, Mother, and all the ancestors. After two years of being king of Otuam, I have done my sacred duty and brought the late king home.

  But no sooner had she said this than her phone rang again and she heard Tsiami’s raw voice. “Nana, I want to pour libations beside the body of the late king, but Isaiah the Treasurer and Baba have locked the door and won’t let me in.”

  Peggy knew there had been growing resentment between Baba Kobena and Tsiami ever since her last visit to Otuam, when she had discovered Tsiami’s crookedness and Baba Kobena’s honesty and given more responsibility to Baba Kobena. She had felt confirmed in her choice once she learned that it was Tsiami who had been stealing the palace building supplies.

  “Tsiami,” she said sharply, “you can pour the libations just outside the door of the room where they have laid him, just as you pour them outside the stool rooms when you are so drunk you have lost the keys. Naturally, they don’t want the door open with anyone walking in to see the body undressed and on the floor, which would be a dishonor.”

  Tsiami grunted and hung up.

  Peggy pulled her handkerchief from her bra and blotted the perspiration streaming down her neck and onto her shoulders.

  Seconds later, the phone rang again. “Nana,” said the raspy voice of Mama Amma Ansabah, so loud that Peggy had to hold the phone away from her ear. “According to tradition, a woman is supposed to be present when they bring in the body. But those dogs Isaiah the Treasurer and Baba have locked themselves in the room with the late king and won’t open the door for me.”

  Naturally, there was resistance on the council to Mama Amma as a loudmouthed woman who had only lived in Otuam for two years. An unlikely friendship had blossomed between Mama Amma and Tsiami, however, which everyone found quite odd since he had never had any close friends other than his bottles of schnapps and his pineapples. Soon after she had joined the council, Mama Amma and Tsiami had begun drinking beer together under the popo tree in the afternoons when the sun was hot. Sometimes Mama Amma would call Tsiami “a thieving, horny old toad” and poke him in the ribs, and he would grin broadly as she stated, “I’m going to marry a twenty-five-year-old, too.” They seemed to always agree with each other in council meetings, so of course she would be on Tsiami’s side in this dispute.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Peggy advised. “Baba and Isaiah have done the right thing. We can’t have any curious person going into the room because the body is not prepared yet.”

  A few minutes later came a third call. “Nana, this is Kofi Assuman, a nephew of the late king,” said a deep male voice. “I have knocked on the door twice and insulted both Isaiah and Baba twice, but they still won’t let me in to see my uncle.”

  “You will see him on Saturday during the viewing,” Peggy said irritably. “I can’t imagine your insults will make them open the door.” She hung up.

  “What’s the matter now?” Papa Warrior asked, leaning toward her.

  “Everyone is mad because they want to see the body, and Isaiah and Baba won’t let anyone in,” she said.

  Nana Kwesi clucked in disapproval. “To make such a scene the day before the funeral.”

  “Cut off their heads,” Papa Warrior advised her solemnly.

  Children, little children, Peggy thought. Mommy! He stole my crayon! Mommy! She ate my cookie! I seem to be in charge of an African kindergarten. All those years I tried so hard for children, and now I have them, and they are very irritating.

  On Friday morning the red and black striped tents were constructed, dozens of them, all around the palace courtyard forming a long rectangle. As the tent men packed their ladders in their trucks, painters slapped the last strokes of blue paint on the front of the two rows of boys’ quarters, which now matched the palace and created the image of a unified palace complex. Decades earlier, the boys’ quarters had been painted white to match the original color of the palace and over time had faded to a grayish dinge color. Now the sides and back of the quarters remained dinge, as there was no time to paint them, too, before the funeral.

  Tow
nspeople, who had eagerly watched the canopies being tied to the tent poles, helped set out the hundreds of red and black funeral chairs beneath them. Then, when that was done, they sat in them, enjoying the shade of the tents, and chatted with each other about the biggest event Otuam had ever seen, given by their amazing new lady king.

  Peggy and her entourage wouldn’t arrive in Otuam until later in the day. That morning, Pastor Colleton and Nana Kwesi met with the draftsman who was working on the initial plans for the Shiloh Baptist School, which would serve one thousand students drawn from Otuam and nearby communities. While the average class in Ghana had fifty students crammed into a sixteen-by-twenty-foot room, Pastor Colleton wanted to put twenty-five students in the same-sized room. “I want to offer something better than, rather than the same as,” he explained to the draftsman.

  The Shiloh Baptist Church, Otuam branch, would be located in the school complex and would be used for morning services as well as a school auditorium. Given its dual use, it would have to be big enough to hold the one thousand students and dozens of teachers and other school employees. The entire school complex would be some 24,000 square feet. Pastor Colleton, Nana Kwesi, and the draftsman discussed plans for the cafeteria, library, computer lab, administrative offices, dormitories for students from other areas, and teachers’ bungalows, as most teachers would be hired from towns across Ghana and would live on-site.

  After the meeting, Peggy and the Shiloh Baptist group drove to Saltpond to meet with the Honorable Henry Kweku Hayfron, chief executive of the Mfantsiman District, which included Otuam. Pastor Colleton explained that they planned to build a high school in Otuam and wanted to find out what they needed to do with local authorities to get things started.

  Henry Hayfron was delighted that an American church would build a school in his district. “Write me a letter of intent,” he said, “stating that you will fund the construction. We will get you accreditation. We will inspect the facilities and make sure everything meets our requirements.”

  Then he turned to Peggy and said, “Don’t mind my road! We’ve put the Otuam road in our budget to be repaired within the next year.”

  Peggy was thrilled to hear that her road was on the schedule to be repaired. Perhaps the government had chosen that road, out of so many rutted roads in the district, because they had heard about the lady king who was bringing American donors to help her town, and the Ghanaian government liked to help those who helped themselves. She knew, however, that many road projects were held up, sometimes for years, as government officials tried to determine which company would get the lucrative paving contract, so she shouldn’t get her hopes up for a speedy fix.

  Still, one of her fondest daydreams was Nana Kwesi driving her to Otuam in a shiny, air-conditioned SUV, on a road as smooth as marble.

  24

  Early Saturday morning, Nana Kwesi appeared at the Lagoon Lodge in a long red robe with long, full sleeves and gold embroidery around the collar and a red silk scarf around his neck. “I can’t drape a cloth,” he explained to Peggy. “I would be constantly fussing with it and then it would fall off and I would be standing in my underpants at the funeral.”

  Peggy knew that the requirements for royal funeral garments were very strict for kings and their elders, and she hoped the members of the local council of chiefs, who had gazetted her, wouldn’t fine her for Nana Kwesi not wearing a traditional cloth. Though perhaps it wasn’t a bad decision on his part, considering that the council would definitely fine her if her regent was seen standing at the royal funeral in his underpants with his traditional cloth pooling around his ankles as he bent down to find the end of it.

  But Peggy, Papa Warrior, and Ekow could have been fashion models of proper royal funeral attire. They looked resplendent in their fire engine red cloths, the bold color contrasting starkly against their smooth dark brown skin. Papa Warrior and Ekow also wore striking red headbands. Though Papa Warrior’s slender form seemed engulfed by the red wave of cloth, he carried it with princely dignity, as Peggy knew he would. She was more surprised by Ekow’s appearance. The outfit made him look aristocratic, powerful, an ancient and noble figure, the man Peggy hoped he could someday be. He had certainly behaved himself during her stay in Winneba, keeping her room tidy, running errands for her, and sleeping quietly on his mat on the floor.

  Peggy’s van could hardly proceed up Main Street, so filled was it with revelers. The Asafo were marching in funeral costumes with hundreds of tiny strips of cloth—white, orange, purple, red, blue, and green—that fluttered like feathers as they danced. Some of them wore Halloween fright masks and multicolored wigs. Some blew trumpets or banged drums, while others danced with umbrellas. Otuam citizens, wearing traditional black and red funeral garb, danced with the Asafo in the street. Peggy noticed that many of the chickens watching the spectacle were appropriately attired for a royal funeral: they had strips of red cloth tied to their wings.

  Slowly, the van eased past the parade and down Main Street. Ebenezer parked on the side of the palace, and Peggy, Papa Warrior, Nana Kwesi, and Ekow took their place in the royal funeral tent right in front of the building. Most of her elders were there, the queen mother and the little Soul, as well as several kings and queen mothers and some government officials.

  Peggy was upset to see that the caterers hadn’t arrived. The drinks had been delivered, so it wouldn’t be a total disaster, but it was against all royal etiquette to invite a king over and offer him nothing to eat. Nana Kwesi called the caterers in Winneba, who said the food was waiting for him to pick up. Yes, they had known the funeral would be held in Otuam, but nobody had actually asked them to transport it there, and anyway, they didn’t have a truck large enough to do so. Exasperated, Nana Kwesi had to race back to Winneba and hire a truck that was both available immediately and big enough to cart all the food to Otuam. By the time he returned with the food, the visiting kings had been cooling their heels for two hours without anything to eat, a clear breach of royal etiquette. A member of the council of chiefs told a chastened Peggy they would fine her two hundred dollars for the insult.

  While Peggy had met most of the nearby kings and queen mothers during her gazetting ceremony at the council of chiefs, there was one she hadn’t met, Nana Ameyaw, the queen mother of Elmina. Petite and slender, with the figure of a girl and ramrod straight posture, Nana Ameyaw looked a decade younger than her sixty-three years. She had smooth skin and large, compassionate eyes. Her jaw was slung forward, which should have made her plain, yet had quite the opposite effect. Hers was an exquisite face of unexpected beauty in sleek, dark lines.

  “Nana, I was a good friend of your uncle’s,” Nana Ameyaw said politely. “He was like a father to me. I visited him often in the hospital when he was ill, and I was with him when he died. He spoke of you often in his last days, telling me how proud he was of his niece who had made a life for herself in America. I am so happy you are giving him such a dignified burial. I know he is happy, too, and you will receive many blessings.”

  Just then Peggy saw Uncle Moses shuffle up in a black cloth, which was a great relief because she had been afraid he might appear in a woman’s dress, which would have occasioned a huge fine. But then she noticed that he wore gold sandals rather than red or black, another clear breach of royal funeral etiquette. The same man from the council of chiefs took her aside and informed her that this misstep would cost her another hundred dollars. When she protested that Uncle Moses had lost his mind, the man cut her off, saying that she was ultimately responsible for the behavior of her elders. She sighed. The council of chiefs certainly took its duties seriously.

  At one end of the courtyard stood Peggy’s royal umbrella, like a lonely tree, symbolizing the missing king. It had been patched once more to repair the depredations of Kwame Lumpopo. Peggy supposed her nemesis wouldn’t miss this funeral either, and at one point she saw him sauntering into the courtyard in a bright red cloth, glad-handing as only Kwame Lumpopo could. Wisely, he kept away from her.


  The sound system cranked up, playing vibrant African melodies, and groups of women started to dance. Some of them had smeared their faces with mud, which was eerily light on their dark skin. It was customary for men to fire black powder from old rifles at all public events, and now several men knelt in the courtyard and fired up at the trees. When the music stopped, bands of drummers marched around the courtyard, as Inkumsah’s fetish priests danced and writhed on the ground in a trance. A group of child acrobats performed their stunts for the better part of an hour, and then the visiting kings paraded around the courtyard with their elders and drummers, walking under black funeral umbrellas as the crowd cheered.

  Many of the kings from the thirteen little communities surrounding Otuam complimented Peggy on the royal palace, the like of which they had never before seen. They congratulated her on the boreholes and asked if she could build some for them, too, as their people drank stagnant pond water and sometimes got sick. Anyone from outside the villages drinking that water would become immediately and terribly ill, she knew, but apparently most people there had built up immunity to water-borne disease.

  She had already determined that these villages—Dogo, Emuna, Agyankwa, Etsibuedu, Gomoa Fomaya, and the others—would be included in the Shiloh Baptist school district, and that her ambulance, when she got one, would also serve these outlying areas. How could she deny them clean water? Especially Gomoa Fomaya; every time she drove to or from Otuam she saw its people dipping buckets into a roadside pond filled with water red as blood. It had been so easy to dig the Otuam boreholes. Of course, given the widespread prevalence of corruption, she couldn’t just hand over the cash to the kings and their elders. She and Nana Kwesi would have to raise the money and oversee building the boreholes. She promised the kings that she would help them as soon as she could.