Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  At last, towards evening, Waseru heard his name called faintly from the bed. He knelt down and put his ear close to his father’s mouth. The muramati also bent down to listen, for he was to witness his kinsman’s will.

  “It is time for you to go,” the old man gasped. “My wealth is yours, my son. The goats that sleep in the hut of Ngarariga’s mother and the land that she cultivates are for him. The land that Wanjiku cultivates and the goats in her hut are for her sons. Cherish my children as if they were yours, and husband the wealth of my goats. Trust in Irumu, my friend: beware of all who belong to the clan of Ndolia, for they wish ill to our clan, particularly Ndolia’s son Karue, who is a sorcerer. Arrange the marriage of my daughters and my uncircumcised sons. From the suitor of my eldest daughter take thirty goats …” His voice tailed off as a paroxysm shook him and his body was rent by gasps.

  Waseru leapt up, alarmed, and called for Ngarariga. Together they lifted Mahenia from his bed. His skinny body was as light as an empty gourd. They carried him quickly a little way into the glade below the huts. Here, out of sight of the path, they laid him on a level piece of grass well screened by bushes. By his side Waseru cleared a patch of grass and kindled a small fire. Mahenia’s wives gathered logs in silence. Sorrow flattened the features of Ngarariga’s mother, and towards the end a few tears trickled down her cheeks.

  The sun had fallen behind the trees and the air was cold and grey as the dying man’s face. Waseru, conquering his fear of death, bent over his father to tuck the old man’s cloak around his skinny knees, rose quickly, and walked away into the thickening shadows. The others followed, and no one looked back.

  Next morning the fire had gone out in that part of the glade. Waseru and his family kept their eyes averted when they passed along the path, and no one mentioned Mahenia’s name. In the night they had heard a hyena calling to its unclean fellows close at hand, and they knew that Mahenia’s spirit had taken its place among the ancestors of his clan.

  8

  MUTHENGI had little time for sorrow at his grandfather’s death. The minds of warriors were not concerned with such things. His blood ran quicker whenever thoughts of battle flitted into his head, and supple-skinned warriors tossed and swayed together unceasingly in his dreams. At night he would sometimes recount his battle adventures to an excited audience sitting around a fire outside the huts.

  One evening his father passed by in the midst of such a recital, and paused to listen. His stomach felt warm as if with beer when he heard again of his son’s courage and strength. One day, perhaps, he will become the warriors’ leader, Waseru thought, and keep the first share of all captured cattle for himself. It was a pity that the trophies of the last raid were only spears and swords instead of cows.

  He picked up the spear Muthengi had won from his Masai foe, and as he felt along the haft his fingers came to a fault in the smooth iron. He examined this in the firelight and saw that it was a small notch.

  The discovery aroused a puzzling memory in his mind. At first it evaded him, but later in the evening recollection leapt, like a leader in full regalia into the dancers’ circle, on to his tongue.

  “Muthengi,” he called out, “a great thing has happened—it is a sign, perhaps, from God.”

  Everyone fell silent immediately, since he was an elder and must be listened to with respect.

  “Many seasons ago when Matu fell sick,” he continued, “Irumu the mundu-mugu made a prophecy. ‘One day your son Muthengi,’ he said, ‘shall slay a Masai in battle and bring back as his trophy a spear with a notched haft. That shall be known as a sign that he is to win great renown as a warrior, and become a leader.’ Now, bear witness: this spear that Muthengi captured from a Masai has a notched haft. The prophecy is fulfilled!”

  There was a murmur of excitement and wonder, and people were heard to remark that Irumu was indeed a great magician who could see visions of what the future would hold. Muthengi lifted his arrogant chin a little higher, and his lips smiled. Now he was certain that in due season he would become the leader of the warriors, and bring great wealth and honour to his clan.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Raiders

  1

  AFTER the Masai foray Nduini and his warriors were blamed for having failed in their duty to protect the cattle; nor had they retrieved their honour by overtaking the retreating enemy and recapturing the bulk of the stock. The girls taunted them, saying: “You warriors, you ran after the Masai just like chameleons, your bones were soft as fat, you were afraid.” The young men grew so angry that they refused to speak to the girls. They went to live by themselves in a hut in the bush, feeding on two bulls presented to them by Wangombe, whose cattle they had saved.

  But Muthengi and others of the Ngege age-grade were praised for their courage in destroying the detachment of Masai at the Mawé ford. Because of this they grew conceited, and began to grumble at Nduini’s leadership. He was too old for his position, they said; he did not take the initiative, but waited for others to attack. “The goats with a lame leader,” they quoted, “do not reach good grass.”

  A few months after the fight Muthengi, restless for battle, put forward a new idea: to raid the Ndia, who lived two days’ journey to the east. Their leader in war was a man called Kutu. These people had some cattle and a lot of goats; they had lived in peace now for many seasons and their livestock would have multiplied. The idea was eagerly taken up by the young enthusiasts and adopted by several warriors on the council. Nduini himself, anxious to retrieve his reputation, agreed that the proposal had merit, and eight scouts were chosen to go to Ndia and spy out the land. Because Muthengi had first urged the expedition he was included, although this was unusual, for youths of the newest age-grade were not generally entrusted with responsible tasks.

  Early on the morning of their departure the eight scouts gathered at the mundu-mugu’s for the sacrifice of a ram. Irumu, whose beans had foretold success, led them to the river below his homestead and mixed the ram’s stomach contents in running water, together with medicine which would give speed to the warriors’ feet. Then he blew over the scouts a little yellow powder to make them invisible to their enemies. The ram’s meat was roasted on a grid and half of it given to the scouts; and when they had eaten they started off by a forest path to spy upon Ndia.

  They came back on the eighth day, carrying dried cows’ dung in their food-bags to prove that they had indeed approached the Ndia herds. There were about two hundred cattle, they said, at a salt-lick they had visited, and many goats, so sleek that their coats shone like a woman’s head. Irumu mixed the cows’ dung with medicines, tied it up in leaves and buried it by the entrance to his compound, so as to prevent the cattle from moving away from the salt-lick for eight days.

  2

  FOR two days the warriors prepared. They plaited their hair with twine, rubbed it with ochre and tied it up in pigtails. They greased their spears and put on ornaments and rattles. They painted their bodies on the right side with ochre and fat and their right legs with lime; but the left side remained bare so that friend and foe could be distinguished in the fight.

  Early on the third day they gathered below Irumu’s homestead. The mundu-mugu came out dressed in a Colobus cloak and many ornaments, driving before him two he-goats and a ram. A strip of goatskin was tied around the middle finger of each warrior’s right hand and powdered lime marked on his forehead. Irumu mixed lime with saliva in his mouth and spat lightly into the warriors’ faces to bless them. At such times, if a man was destined to be killed, tears would flow from his eyes. Then each warrior drank a sip of the blood of a he-goat mixed with honey and with three separate medicines which caused arrows, spears, and swords to glance aside. As an extra precaution Irumu scooped out the root of an itoka lily, filled it with a rare and especially potent medicine and thrust it down the hole of an ant-bear, thus burying the evil powers of the spears which the men of Ndia would hurl at Nduini’s army.

  At sunrise on the morning of their departure all t
he warriors gathered on a level stretch of pasture and formed a circle bisected by the path that led along the ridge. There were about a hundred young men, dressed for battle in black ostrich-feather head-dresses, heavy painted shields and anklets of Colobus skin. They waited in silence until two njamas came into sight. The first carried a flaming torch in one hand and a black ants’ nest of dried mud—the githembo—in the other. The second bore the great secret war-charm that only the warriors and the mundumugu, who kept it buried under his hut, had ever seen.

  The two njamas took up their positions at the two intersections of the path and the circle of warriors. He who held the githembo set alight to it, threw away the torch, and ran swiftly around outside the circle, while the other njama ran with the charm held aloft in the opposite direction. A third njama jumped into the centre of the circle with a bundle of sticks and hurled them about him at the warriors, who ducked and twisted to avoid being hit. Then the circle wavered and broke, and the men marched off along the path to war. Each one trod, as he departed, upon the githembo’s ashes, and passed beneath the great charm held high above its guardian’s head. Now the vulnerable body of each warrior was wrapped in a hard chrysalis of magic which could not fail to deflect the enemy’s weapons. Now they would burn the villages of the Ndia as they had burnt the githembo and crush the men of Kutu underfoot as they had crushed its ashes, be their enemy as numerous as the swarming ants whose nest they had thus destroyed.

  3

  THE rattles on the warriors’ legs were stuffed with leaves, and the raiders moved so silently through the forest that they barely disturbed the monkeys in the trees.

  They marched in four sections. In the van went a company of seasoned warriors, the Gitangutu. Then came the Butu, for the most part older men and inexperienced boys whose job was to look as formidable as possible and, if the raid was successful, to drive away the booty. On the two flanks marched the Thari and in the rear the njamas, the pick of the army, whose task was to cover the retreat. Nduini’s place was at the head of the Gitangutu, whence he would drop back, after the charge, to lead the njamas.

  The raiders slept two nights in the forest. On the third morning trees showed the wounds of axes, and they knew that cultivation was close. They moved with leopard’s caution, skirting glades where sunlight would strike their weapons. Soon, turning a corner, they came upon a small boy herding goats. He stood for a few seconds rigid as a startled hare at dusk, gazing at them with terror-widened eyes, and then turned and fled down the path, his small cloak flapping like a bird’s broken wing. Two spears flashed together through the air. One, perfectly aimed, transfixed him between the shoulders. He fell without a sound, writhed like a skewered insect, and lay still. The scout pulled out his spear and wiped the blade on a leaf, and the column moved on.

  By noon they were close behind the salt-lick. The cattle were still there, guarded by only ten or fifteen men. With great caution the warriors took up their positions for the charge. They pulled the leaves out of their rattles, gripped their spears, and crouched ready for the charge.

  With a high-pitched yell Nduini leapt from the forest’s shelter and led his men forward over a field of beans. A hundred warriors catapulted after him, as if that shattering shout had released them out of the earth. As they charged they gave great leaps into the air with stiffened legs, covering the length of a man with each jump. The herdsmen turned their heads, saw, and flung themselves upon the cattle, driving them with frantic shouts towards the shambas. They were outnumbered ten to one. Nduini’s men thundered down upon them like a landslide of rocks from the mountain. The spears of the raiders buried their heads in backs, limbs, heads, like swift hawks dropping with outstretched beaks upon their prey. In a few moments all was over; only two herdsmen escaped.

  Hurriedly the Butu rounded up the cattle and drove them into the shelter of the trees. Warriors ranged up and down the cultivated land in search of smaller stock. Women darted, screaming, from their huts, and boys scurried like porcupines into the bush. Herds of goats were sighted, rounded up, and driven away.

  Group by group the raiders reached shelter with their booty, until all were assembled in a glade. Nduini and his njamas strove to.sort out the jumbled army and to start the flocks and herds on their way. Time was their enemy, for frightened livestock could only be driven slowly and with many checks along the narrow overgrown game-paths by which they had come.

  Gradually the glade emptied of its milling mass of animals. The Gitangutu went ahead lest an ambush had been laid, the njamas under Nduini formed ranks in the rear. In the distance they could hear shrill shouts and the summons of Kutu’s war-horn; the Ndia were gathering for the counter-attack.

  But the delay in starting enabled a party of Ndia to reach the path ahead of the raiders. Concealed behind trees and undergrowth, they waited for the leaders of the enemy’s column to appear. Then, at a signal from their leader, they pulled their bows. Suddenly the shadows became full of arrows darting as silently as buffalo flies and settling with deadlier sting on unprotected flesh.

  For a moment the ambushed Gitangutu wavered, throwing up their shields, half turning to run. Then Muthengi, who was near the lead, charged forward, hurling his spear at a flash of brown in the undergrowth. A man cried out, threw up his arms and toppled over. Muthengi drew his sword and crashed through the undergrowth towards the bowmen, followed by his shouting companions. The Ndia loosed a final flight of arrows which rattled harmlessly against advancing shields, threw down their bows, and drew their swords. In and out of the shadows crouching men, red with paint or blood, moved like crabs, in thrust and parry.

  Gradually the Gitangutu drove back the bowmen until the Ndia turned and dodged through the trees, pursued by a hail of flying clubs. The way was clear, and the long line of stock moved slowly forward. At the rear Kutu counter-attacked fiercely, but Nduini and his njamas, fighting with great ferocity and courage, formed a wall of iron which the Ndia could not overthrow to reach their stock beyond. Nduini’s men drew slowly away, until at last Kutu no longer followed. The bulk of the captured stock was safe; the raiders had triumphed.

  4

  NDUINI’s warriors returned chanting a song of victory, driving before them a big herd of sheep, goats and cattle. Workers in the shambas threw down their tools and ran to the path to see them pass. The joyful trilling of the girls was sweet as cane-juice to the young men. Women pranced like wydah-birds in the mating season when they saw that their sons were safe; but there were a few who cried, “Where is my son ?” and, “Why does my husband linger ?” Then the warriors looked straight ahead, and one answered: “He does not leave Ndia,” or “He will not come.” At the tail of the army a group of young men walked slowly, with deep gashes in their legs, arms and ribs.

  The mind of everyone but the bereaved was on the distribution of stock. This was in the hands of Nduini. He rewarded each man according to his rank and to his conduct in the fight. Muthengi received as his share one cow in calf, and two goats. This made him very angry; he considered himself entitled to three cows, the portion of the bravest njamas.

  “Did I not head the Gitangutu’s charge when the leaders wavered and would have fled?” he cried. “Was not my spear the first to kill? Nduini is a mean and evil porcupine ! He is jealous because I am braver than he is, and because other warriors have remarked upon it.”

  “Do you not know that such boastful words are unfit for the mouths of men?” Waseru rebuked him. “Remember that the fluttering bird only wastes its feathers ! Why do you complain when you have a cow and a calf? Your good fortune is indeed great.”

  “It is no good fortune,” Muthengi replied sullenly. “I won the cow by my prowess in war.”

  That day each warrior took some trophy of the raid—a small goat, or a captured weapon—to Irumu, whose magic had protected the survivors from death and brought them victory. The mundu-mugu told them to return in eight days for the purification of all those who had killed men. Until then, warriors who were polluted with
blood might not eat food with their family, for they had touched death and were unclean.

  5

  AFTER Muthengi was circumcised Waseru had paid two he-goats and six gourds of beer to the junior council of elders, all married men, and taken his seat. They met under the big fig-tree at Karatina on the mornings when no market was held, and sat all day to determine guilt and mete out punishment. The penalties for theft followed a regular scale based on the return of the stolen property and a two-goat fine—one to go to the plaintiff and one to the council—for every goat stolen. The difficulty was to fix the guilt. If an accused man, haled before the council, denied his guilt, certain tests were used. A pair of oxhide sandals might be marked with chalk by a mundu-mugu in a special way and the accused might be required to jump over them. If he was in fact a thief he nearly always refused, for a guilty man who took the jump was certain to fall sick. Or a bead might be inserted between the eyeball and the lid of the accused, who was then ordered to shake his head. If he was innocent the bead would fall out, but if he was guilty only tears would come.

  Should both parties persist in their accusations and denials, they might be required to take the oath on the gethathi stone; or the accused man might be ordered to beat a goat to death in the presence of the elders, saying at the same time: “If I lie, may I die as this goat dies; may all my bones be broken if I lie.” A thief always confessed his crime and accepted the lesser evil of a fine rather than face the ordeal of the goat and the certain death that would follow a breach of the oath.

  Waseru’s experience on the council soon taught him the truth of the saying: The hungry person will eat cane protected by magic. Many shambas were guarded by charms which brought injury to anyone who stole the crops. Theft led inevitably to sickness, as when men broke out in sores; this might be accepted as corroborative evidence if the sufferer had been openly accused. Sometimes the magic passed through the actual thief to his wives or children or near kin. Because of their relatives’ crimes, many children came out in running sores; others grew listless and skinny, and suffered from diarrhœa, or from twitching of the limbs.