Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  And he had found a girl who appealed to his fancy. Her name was Hiuko; she was one of Irumu’s daughters.

  Waseru called on the mundu-mugu and spoke, in general terms, of his intention to secure a second wife.

  “You would be wise to do so,” Irumu said. “Every man should take a young wife when he begins to feel the approach of age.”

  “I have a girl in mind,” Waseru ventured.

  “Her father will be fortunate to acquire so dutiful a son-in-law,” Irumu said politely.

  “I have not mentioned the matter to her yet; first I shall speak to her father.”

  Irumu said nothing, but took a deep pinch of snuff and handed the bottle to his companion.

  “She does not know of my intentions,” Waseru repeated, “but I should like to know whether you think she would agree.”

  “Is she a girl from near at hand ?”

  “She is a girl from this homestead, even. My eyes have followed your daughter Hiuko in the fields when she digs, at the river when she draws water, and when she goes to the dance. There are others who work harder in the shamba, and many more beautiful than she; but still I am ready to speak of marriage, if her father agrees.”

  Irumu turned his head aside, and Waseru knew that he was laughing. Anger threatened, and he rose to leave.

  “Do not be offended,” Irumu said. “It is not that I would reject you as a son-in-law; I laughed because she already has another suitor. He has not yet brought beer to me to broach the matter, but I know through Hiuko’s mother that she loves him and that he means to ask for her as his bride.”

  Waseru felt pangs of anger like the stings of hornets stabbing at his heart.

  “Is this suitor a young man ?” he asked.

  “A young man of her own age-grade, one with whom she dances until half the night has gone at the season of full moon.”

  “He is young to marry, then, this suitor; no older than my son, Muthengi. She would do well to consider that her work would be lighter and her position greater if she married an elder; nor would her husband be likely to be killed in battle.”

  Irumu laughed again, and Waseru, who could see no humour in the situation, frowned.

  “Perhaps it would be best,” the mundu-mugu said, “if you were to settle the matter privately with this suitor I speak of; for he is none other than your son.”

  Waseru stared at his friend in amazement, forgetting his jealousy in surprise.

  “Muthengi! But he has said nothing of this to me.”

  “He is waiting, no doubt, until he is old enough to think of marriage; he must serve his seasons as a warrior first. Do not grieve, Waseru. Girls will turn to young men as the bee to sweet clover, the bird to millet, the rain to earth. We are old men now, and girls will no longer look at us with eyes of desire. No doubt I could say to my daughter: ‘You are to marry my friend, Waseru; I have accepted his beer and two fat rams.’ Perhaps she would agree, for she is a dutiful girl. But of what use would that be? Would she not run away and leave you grieving, and should I not then be obliged to return your goats ? She loves another whose blood is full of youth. Your marriage would crumble like dry earth, the moisture of affection being absent; remember that hearts do not lead into each other like the tunnels of moles.”

  Waseru was silent for a little while, applying himself to his horn of snuff.

  “I see that your words are true,” he said at last, “and I see also that I shall soon be paying goats to you for your daughter Hiuko in order that she may sleep in another’s bed. No doubt I shall have to do so, for no man can refuse to give his son the girl he desires, lest he offend the spirit of his father and other ancestors of his clan.”

  “You speak as a man of wisdom,” Irumu said. “Search for your bride among those whose suitors have been killed in war, or whose lovers were impetuous in bed but laggard in paying goats for a girl big with their child. The tree loses its blossom when it bears fruit, and the foolish eyes of young men turn away; then old men, who know that trees flower again in due season, may step in and take what they desire.”

  5

  WHEN the crops had ripened and been reaped food was plentiful again, and there was a season of peace. With the full moon came the dances, and every night the ridges shook with song.

  Muthengi had won fame in dance no less than in battle; his leaps were higher, his voice lustier than any of his fellows. He was surrounded always with soft-voiced maidens whose firm brown skins, smooth as water flowing over rounded stones, shone with the lustre of flower-petals in the light of the flames. When he danced with a girl who stood stiff-kneed on his toes, her hands on his shoulders and his under her elbows, he watched her long, supple neck, her tossing breasts and her deep, laughing eyes with mounting excitement; but discipline was strict and njamas patrolled the ground with bundles of sticks ready to belabour anyone who broke the circle.

  Girls had their own dances, especially one in which they imitated the motions and rhythm of grinding millet between two stones, swaying their bodies in perfect unison to the swinging tune. At such times they would stir the blood of the young men by their lilting words, which praised the brave and pricked with contempt the weakling and the coward.

  SONG OF THE GIRLS

  Maidens, will you trill for a coward, one who

  Fears to strip the bark from a mugaithiu?

  One who dares not bring us the bark of trees, who

  Flees from Laikipia?

  Hard, oh hard to scale the tall Kerinyagga,

  Are they eagles? Why do they climb the mountain?

  They will bring back wealth for their eager sweethearts,

  Ornaments, bracelets.

  We who bear the logs are like warriors, we who

  Bear the greatest loads are the Gitangutu,

  Those whose loads are light as a leaf are Butu,

  Weak as the coward!

  Let us sing to praise the brave fighter; he will

  Reach the mountain Thimbui; he will pass through

  Smoking homesteads, villages black and ruined—

  Trill for the valiant!

  Waiyu, son of black woman, what to call him?

  When he comes we trill for him, call him victor;

  Greet the brave man joyfully; do not tell us:

  Trill for the coward.

  After the dance Muthengi would often walk home with a girl in the cool moonlight, past the whispering canes and the grey shadowy shambas, to her mother’s hut; and there he would creep into its warm smoke-filled depths and lie in her bed till dawn. Then he would remember what he had been told at his circumcision: that the sunbird hovers with quivering wings outside the flower’s mouth, sipping its fragrance, but does not break a way into its honey-store.

  The choice of brides was difficult, for many attractive girls looked at him with favour and his father, although not rich, was regarded as a trustworthy man. Finally he decided on Hiuko, who, although not beautiful—her neck was too short, her legs too skinny for that—was strong and healthy and worked hard in her mother’s shamba. At the dances her eyes followed the leapings of his whip-muscled body with unquestioning devotion. He knew that she admired him above all others and was flattered by his choice; and at night, in her mother’s hut, she responded so eagerly to his caresses that he could hardly wait for marriage to complete the consummation of his love.

  6

  HIS father, although scarcely enthusiastic, did not condemn his choice, so he went to his mother and asked her to brew some beer. Early next morning he set off with Ambui and Ngarariga’s young wife at his heels, each bearing a full gourd. He found Irumu in his compound under the shade of a tree, with his four wives and their daughters and a number of kinsmen gathered around. Muthengi greeted him with deep respect and presently, after an interval of conversation, he said:

  “I have seen your daughter Hiuko at work in the fields; I would like her to cultivate a shamba for me.”

  Irumu looked at his daughter and asked:

  “Are you willing
to cultivate the shamba of the son of Waseru?” and she answered, “Yes, I am willing.”

  Then her mother poured beer into a horn and handed it to Irumu. Looking again at Hiuko he said: “Daughter, if you do not like this man, I will not drink.” But she said, “Drink.” After he had done so he refilled the horn and handed it to Hiuko’s mother, and then to his other wives and to his kinsmen. For the rest of the morning details of the bride-price were discussed. Irumu asked the usual thirty goats and, in addition, four fat rams and fifteen gourds of beer, and ten more goats on the birth of the first child.

  That evening, when the goats were driven in, Muthengi and his father picked out twenty from the flock. With two friends of his own age-grade he drove them to Irumu’s. The mundumugu examined each one carefully as it was brought before him, and after the last had been approved he accepted the payment. On the next evening ten more goats and two rams that had been fattening in the pen in Wanjeri’s hut were driven over. Their paddle-shaped tails, weighed down with fat, dragged behind like heavy logs; their fat-filled dewlaps brushed the ground. Irumu accepted these also, though not without remarking that they were thin as starving rats.

  Next morning all the women of Waseru’s household carried full gourds of beer over to Irumu’s, where the bride’s family and kinsmen were gathered to receive the gifts. One of the fat rams was killed and roasted on a grid; and all day long Irumu’s family and Waseru’s feasted together, and drank. That evening the women of both families, warmed with beer and excited by rejoicing, performed the women’s dance, the Getiro, in the compound. As a sign of great delight Wanjeri poured gruel, presented to her by Hiuko’s mother, over her own head, and over the heads of her husband’s kinswomen. At the end of the day Hiuko’s mother put grass in the mouths of Wanjeri’s empty gourds as a sign of peace between the two clans, and the visitors returned home well content.

  That same day Muthengi went to the muramati of his clan with a small offering of beer and asked permission to take land for cultivation from the forest next to his father’s shamba. The muramati agreed, for that part of the forest belonged to the clan and no one else had laid claim to the land.

  7

  NEXT day a group of young men of Muthengi’s age-grade appeared early in the morning and worked with him all day on the new shamba, breaking ground in readiness for the bride. The women of the household were busy once more pounding cane for beer, the brew known as the beer for the washing down of the meat. Two more beer-drinks followed, both at Waseru’s homestead: the beer for the knowing of the bride’s new home, and the beer for the laying of the stools. At last came the final brew: the beer for asking the bride to cultivate the young man’s garden. In the evening Irumu gave his consent to his daughter’s marriage, and next day Muthengi was free to take her.

  From sunrise that morning he and friends of his age-grade worked at the building of a hut immediately behind his mother’s, in Waseru’s homestead. In the afternoon his mother and her friends thatched it, and before nightfall all was ready. That evening four young men of Muthengi’s age-grade, in full-dress regalia, sprang upon Hiuko from the bush with wild cries as she was leaving her mother’s shamba. She struggled and cried out, as was the custom; but they bore her off to the new hut in her father-in-law’s homestead.

  Here she lay for four days, face-down on the bed, moaning and weeping and chanting melancholy songs which extolled the virtues of the clan from whose friendly shelter she had been snatched away. Her husband did not once approach nor speak to her. Ambui and Ngarariga’s wife brought her cooked food, and friends of her age-grade paid her visits to bring her comfort. But Hiuko wailed and moaned like a neglected spirit, using the words and songs that she had been taught at her circumcision.

  After four days Wanjeri entered her hut for the first time, bringing a calabash of fat. The bride smeared the fat over her head and, attended by Ambui, emerged from the hut to pay a short visit to her own mother. That night she returned and slept for the first time with her husband. The following day he took to Irumu’s the brew of beer for the stealing of the daughter.

  For the next month Hiuko did no cooking, but ate food prepared by her mother-in-law. When a month had elapsed her head was shaved and she paid a final visit to her father’s homestead. Irumu came to the entrance to welcome her with a present of a small she-goat. Many children ran out to greet her, but she held a bunch of leaves over her face. Now was her last chance to break the marriage. If she told her father of deep unhappiness, he might consent to return the bride-price and take his daughter back. But Hiuko had no such sorrows, Irumu smeared fat over her head; her mother gave her a gourd of gruel to take to her husband; and at nightfall she returned to her new home.

  Next morning Wanjeri took her into the forest to gather firewood, and then to the river to pick out three big stones for her hearth. These stones, once chosen, would become so closely bound up with her existence that they could never be abandoned or exchanged. That day Wanjeri gave her also a cooking-pot, a digging-knife and a freshly smoked gourd. Wanjeri cooked the first meal, of the black beans njahé, in the new pot, making pretence to show her daughter-in-law the method. Muthengi and his young wife ate this meal alone. So Hiuko crossed the river of marriage spanned by no bridge of returning; and Muthengi left behind his boyhood and became a full member of his clan, no longer a vassal in his father’s homestead.

  CHAPTER XI

  The Red Strangers

  1

  AFTER the good seasons, a series of grave calamities fell upon the land.

  First, the millet rains failed completely, and then long hot days of biting sun continued far into the season when the bean rains should have come. Irumu gathered the elders and sacrificed a black ram, but the ears of God were sealed against, all entreaties. The land grew parched and powdery until the deepest digging-knife could turn up no moisture. Streams dwindled into listless trickles; the young bean crop wilted and died when it had barely sprouted; even the leaves of sweet potatoes and climbing yams turned yellow with drought.

  A second sacrifice was made, and still God’s anger remained unappeased. Shambas waited for rain like a young bride for her husband, but the millet rains failed a second time. Cattle grew dry as stubble; bones rubbed holes in flesh so that sores came; goats bleated unavailingly in the harsh, withered bush. Throughout the land there was desperate hunger. Grain and beans alike were long since finished, yams and potatoes shrivelled, and the young bananas failed to fill and grow. Boiled leaves, the roots of arum lily and sometimes the stringy flesh of goats who had lain down in hopelessness to die, kept families barely alive. Men and women whose bodies were already weakened by age perished as withered fruit drops from the boughs when strong winds blow.

  The newly-broken forest soil kept its moisture longer than most, so that Wanjeri and Hiuko were able to raise small crops of black beans. But Wanjeri’s small girl-child cried all day, and Matu once again fell sick. He had been circumcised with the age-grade Thunguya (so called because a scented flower much sought after by bees had flowered that year) and had grown into a weedy, spike-limbed youth with a wide, patient face and deepset eyes that were wiser than his years. Suffering had taught him a restraint not always found even in elders, and shyness in the presence of other youths had made him quiet, observant and self-contained.

  2

  THREE young men who took goats to Kaheri’s country in search of food came back with a curious story. A strange man, they said, had come into Kaheri’s from Masai land; but he was not like a Masai at all. His companions carried sticks which made a loud noise like bamboos cracking in a fire, yet they did not break. These sticks were a sort of magic; they seemed to possess some peculiar power of killing at a distance.

  This man, they said, had gone to live with Kaheri. He had built a house with angles; he wore strange clothes and kept his legs covered; and he carried a charm which made a noise like water dripping from a roof. On its surface were two small sticks that moved as slowly as chameleons, and of their own accord
. As soon as this charm was brought into Kaheri’s country the rainclouds had dispersed and none had gathered since. It was therefore believed by many that he was a sorcerer who was keeping away the rain with his charm.

  At first he had caused a great deal of amusement by his freakish liking for the small black bean njahé, the food of pregnant women, and Kaheri’s people called him by a name meaning the eater-of-njahé. But when disquieting news came from Wyaki’s district of the arrival of other strangers of the same kind, the elders began to regard him as less of a joke. It was said that these newcomers had made a big camp near a place called Dagoretti and had killed several warriors who had disputed their right to draw water from a spring belonging to a certain clan. A mundu-mugu had prophesied evil if they were allowed to stay, and so the elders’ council in Kaheri’s district had decided that the eater-of-njahé must be expelled. But Kaheri, the head of the council of war, had opposed them, and without his agreement the warriors could not be called out.

  As the drought continued, the elders became more than ever convinced that the sorcerer’s magic was to blame. They believed that he had won over Kaheri, an ambitious and self-seeking man, by flattery or perhaps by magic. Again they appealed to Kaheri to expel the stranger with his warriors, but again Kaheri refused. In this dilemma they appealed to Karuri, a powerful mundu-mugu living some distance away. He was a man of wealth and great influence on the council of elders, and the warriors of his district always consulted him as to the wisdom or folly of a raid. Karuri pronounced in favour of the elders, and against Kaheri. The sorcerer, he said, must be driven out.

  The warriors of Karuri’s district were called and paraded in full force. At dawn they attacked Kaheri’s homestead, where the sorcerer lived. At first victory seemed certain, but then the sorcerer invoked his magic against the attackers and men fell dead without wounds from spear, sword or arrow. Terrified, Karuri’s men fled. The sorcerer continued to live at Kaheri’s, and drought continued to ravage the land.