Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  WHEN at last he stood on the ridge opposite his own and gazed across at the land belonging to his clan, it seemed as though a light wind dissolved the seasons between the present and the day of his departure as if they had been a wisp of smoke. The sap-heavy, drooping leaves of bananas still darkened the valley bottom, their red cones pointing to earth; weaver-birds bent the reeds in the river-bed and smoke drifted slowly from gleaming thatches towards the ponderous clouds. The tinkle of goat-bells and the voices of children sounded, as of old, from the sharpscented bush, and the three clear notes of the gai-ky-ngu dropped like pebbles into a still pool from a fig-tree’s crown.

  His father’s homestead was in the place where he had left it, and he found his mother in the shamba. She threw down her knife and danced around him, flapping her arms and trilling with delight. Others came running, and soon he was surrounded with laughing, shrill-voiced women and girls, all talking at once, questioning him about his adventures, telling him of their joy at his safe return. They led him home, singing a song in his honour; his mother gave him food and smeared him with castor oil in welcome. Soon Waseru appeared, more dignified but no less delighted, and that night a fat ram was killed in Matu’s honour.

  He found his family little changed, except that Waseru had acquired a new wife. The blood-price to Karue had never been paid. Several people had died after Karue had visited them, and the conclusion that he was a poisoner could no longer be resisted. The elders of his own clan had met together and decided that the case against him was proved; then they had killed a ram and made a public declaration that the clan would make no claim for blood-price should Karue be killed. After that it was only a matter of time. Karue went everywhere armed and guarded by his sons; but one night he was speared in the back. No enquiry into his death was made. A poisoner was like a porcupine, a pest whose only treatment was extermination.

  “I passed many goats and cattle on the path,” Matu remarked. “Can all these be the property of our clan?”

  “They belong, for the most part, to Muthengi,” Waseru replied. “He is now a very rich man.”

  “Can he become so rich on Kichui’s five rupees a month?” Matu asked.

  Waseru laughed, and tipped snuff into his palm. “Courage is found in him who holds a weapon,” he said. “It is true that he receives only five rupees a month directly, but a river has more than one bridge over it. Very frequently the strangers send to Muthengi for youths to go to the work of the hide strips. Muthengi tells njamas to fetch them from their homes. They have no wish to go, and if a young man can pay Muthengi a goat, or perhaps a fat ram, he is left alone, and another is taken in his place. In this way Muthengi has acquired many cattle and three wives, although he is only a young man.”

  “These strangers keep the Masai away, and that is good,” Matu observed, “but although I have lived at Tetu for six seasons I do not yet understand their customs, or why they are here.”

  “I do not understand their law,” Waseru remarked. “Things have become very bad in our country, so bad that I think God will be angry and send another drought. Now that the young men no longer have to defend the country they do nothing all day but walk about in their finery and steal food from the shambas. Worse than that, some of the young men have started to drink beer.”

  “Surely that is not possible!” Matu exclaimed, deeply shocked.

  “For the most part they are checked by shame, and the elders refuse to give it to them. But there have been cases where they have stolen beer. And cattle, even, too. We of the elders’ council were hearing such a case only a few months ago. Nduini—you remember him?—lost two bulls. He sent his sons to investigate, and they found that a group of young men from Wangombe’s clan had driven them away and eaten them in the bush. Nduini brought a case, of course, and the council ordered the youths to repay the two bulls and to pay a fine of ten bulls for each one taken. But their fathers refused to pay. In the old days that would never have happened, but now people who are in the wrong ignore the councils’ judgment and take their cases to the stranger’s court.

  “Muthengi heard of the dispute, and told Nduini to go before the stranger at Tetu. This he did. Then the fathers of the thieves came and told many lies. They claimed that the two bulls had belonged to Wangombe, and had been lent by him to Nduini to herd. Any sensible man would have known this to be a lie, for the fathers could not describe the bulls, nor the circumstances of the handing over. But the stranger grew confused—he does not understand the truth of the saying that a council of law does not jump over a stream—and so he dismissed the case.

  “Then the elders’ council met again, and decided that Nduini had a right to capture the cattle owing to him from Wangombe’s clan. He sent his sons and they drove away four bulls and nine cows. The elders of Wangombe’s clan complained to the stranger, and men with killing-sticks were sent to capture Nduini’s sons. They took the young men to Tetu and have kept them there ever since. I do not understand it at all. Nduini was within his rights; the council had told him what to do. Now many people who have broken the law take their cases to Tetu, because often the strangers support them and because they do not have to pay a goat for fees.

  “Once the authority of the elders’ council was like a big tree; those who had been wronged could find shelter in its shade. Now it is like a dead tree that has lost leaves and branches; and the young men ignore it. How can a country flourish when the tree of justice is dead and the elders’ authority is trodden like ants underfoot?”

  “The laws of the stranger are surely beyond comprehension,” Matu agreed.

  CHAPTER IV

  Road of Snakes

  I

  BEFORE he went to Tetu, Matu had been a nonentity whom the girls despised; now he was a hero. No other young man had lived for six seasons in daily contact with these stupid and yet powerful strangers. Matu was respected for his courage in daring to remain, and for his good fortune in returning alive. He had come back with a very potent charm. People constantly asked to see it, and inspected it with interest and awe. It was the piece of bark with designs upon it. He tried to explain that these were words which could be seen instead of being heard. Few people could believe this, but it was thought that the charm would protect him in his dealings with the strangers and bring success in cases taken before them.

  The girls, he found, no longer ridiculed or ignored him; they gave him inviting glances and spoke in admiration of his looks and bravery. Not only was he a friend of these powerful strangers, but his clan had now become rich. He realised that he could choose a bride with little fear of the girl’s refusal.

  He had been back about a season when a messenger summoned him, one morning, to Muthengi’s homestead. There he found a group of young men sitting under a tree. Presently Muthengi came out to them and said :

  “ The stranger has sent for young men to go to a place near Wangombe’s old homestead by the Sagana river. You, whom I have summoned, are to go there to-morrow; an njama will take you.”

  Muthengi had grown into a man as quiet and cold as a forest pool, and without laughter. His look was arrogant and he had the dignity of an elder, although, as a member of the junior council, he carried no staff. The young men had learnt, of late, to be afraid of him. Then one said :

  “Two seasons ago I was taken for the work of the hide strips; I went very far, and the heavy loads hurt my neck so that I was unable to turn my head. Now I am taking beer to the father of a girl I wish to marry. I cannot go.”

  Others followed him in protest, until everyone had proffered some excuse.

  “To complain is to pound water with the mortar,” Muthengi replied. “ Twenty men must go; there can be no excuses. If any one of you can find another to go in his place, and if he can pay me a fine of a fat ram, he may stay with his father. If he cannot do this, he must obey.”

  A heavy silence fell. Matu could feel hostility towards his brother rising like porcupine’s quills among the young men. One by one they rose, without another wor
d, and stalked away. They knew that they could not resist. Their fathers were unable to pay the fine; and if they disobeyed, Muthengi would send njamas to seize their fathers’ goats.

  Matu had thought himself safe from interference because of his relationship, but Muthengi had changed. It seemed as if the stranger, and not Waseru, was his father. Every day his flocks and herds grew. He had paid goats and beer to the muramati of Wangombe’s clan for land, and his wives were cultivating many shambas.

  Next morning Matu started off with a party of twenty young men. His uncle, Ngarariga, was in charge. They left their spears and swords behind and carried cooked food in leather bags slung over their shoulders.

  They found a great gathering of people by the Sagana river, and an extraordinary number of grass huts. An overseer gave them three huts, and each man received a blanket, an iron cooking-pot and a ration of ground maize-flour and salt. Matu was used to this food, but the others complained; in their homes maize was boiled whole, and here the fine flour made an indigestible paste.

  Their work, it soon appeared, was to build a wide road with many bridges; wide and flat enough for ox-drawn wagons to pass. It was called the road of snakes, for the frog-skinned man in charge had eyes with peculiar lids and a long thin body, and was known as the Snake.

  2

  EARLY in the morning the clamorous call of iron against iron rang up the valley and echoed among the creeper-covered rocks. Sleepy men rolled over in their blankets and broke off lumps of cold porridge from the remains of the evening meal. When they went to work the air was sharp-toothed and the sky a brittle blue, but later on a haze of heat eddied about the hill-side and the sky’s colour deepened like slowly drying blood. Then they looked with longing towards the drowsy shade of trees and banana groves, where small goat-herds dozed and soft-breasted doves slowly digested castor-oil beans; but they had to go on labouring in the sun. Sometimes women working in the shambas offered them sticks of cold refreshing cane or cooked yams, and at midday they paused to eat cold food they had brought with them wrapped in banana leaves. The sun was low in the sky before they shouldered their picks or kerais * and strolled back to camp, often singing a chorus in praise of their strength and virility, to sit around the cooking fires and gossip while the maize-flour porridge simmered in the pot.

  Matu did not dislike the life, although he missed the leisure and friendliness of his home and hot afternoons of pick-axe labour tired his back and shoulders. He learnt many new things. One was that stone, the intractable, could be split and shaped as if it had been timber. At one place on the road they came to a rocky outcrop which could not be avoided. The Snake ordered many fires to be lit on top of the rock, and to be piled high with banana trash and dry branches. They blazed up hotly and then were quickly beaten out, and water poured over the blackened rock. The water sizzled angrily and the rock split with sharp, startling explosions. Into the big fissures which appeared men pushed long iron bars, and these they twisted around until the rock broke into pieces and fell away.

  Such things were of interest to Matu, but others considered them of no importance. The young men grew restive as day succeeded day and still they were made to work with kerai and pick. Why, they asked, should they build a road nobody wanted—and one, moreover, highly dangerous, since it was broad and straight and could be used by enemies from Kaheri’s or Kutu’s as an avenue of attack—at the stranger’s bidding? They were being treated like cattle, who have no choice as to whether they graze near the boma or are driven to the plain; they were being made to do the work of women, digging and carrying soil. In their absence others would be dancing with the girls of their choice, making love to them and going to their fathers with offers of goats and beer. Many tasks that should be done in their homesteads, too, were going undone; land needed clearing, honey collecting, help giving to those of their age-grade or kin who were getting married, starting shambas, or planting bananas or cane.

  At last several of the young men could bear it no longer. They decided to run away.

  They left one night, when the evening meal was over, stealing out of the fire-ringed camp before the moon had risen. Next morning, when the overseer saw that they were gone, he was very angry; but for some time nothing more occurred. Others, encouraged by this success, ran away to their homes.

  One day a band of the stranger’s warriors came driving those who had escaped in front of them like sheep. The young men of Matu’s group were there. Njamas had come to fetch them, they said, and Muthengi had fined each of their fathers a goat. They were very bitter against Muthengi. After that they stayed at the camp, but a man from another district who ran away three times was beaten so severely that he could not work for several days. The young men were indignant, but there was nothing they could do. “ Now we will ask our mothers to sew us aprons,” one remarked, “for we are like women who obey when their husbands say : ‘Bring food and fetch sweet potato tops for my goats’—women who are afraid that they will be beaten if they disobey.”

  3

  ONE day two strange monsters appeared on the road of snakes.

  Matu was on his way to fetch earth in his kerai when he heard shouts and looked around to see a large animal of extraordinary shape racing towards him. Its long neck was outstretched and its feet were drumming on the road. He dropped his kerai with a screech of fright and tumbled down the bank. When he recovered the animal had halted, and he saw that its peculiar shape was due to a man sitting on top of it. The animal was white, with a long tail, and it snorted in a most savage manner through a red-pitted nose. Matu gazed at it in terror; he had never seen anything like it before, even in dreams. At first he thought it might be the monster Ndamathia that lived in the Chania river, but now he saw that it was nothing like a snake. Then a second monster appeared, with another stranger sitting on top of it, one leg hanging down on each side. This person was dressed in a long apron and had much fine hair, unshaven, gathered on top of the head; on closer inspection he recognised a woman’s shape. He wondered why she was so covered up that no one could see whether she was a well developed woman or an ugly skinny one.

  Some time after that another animal came shaped like a small house that moved. It made a loud noise—so many of the strangers’things made noises that he thought they must use some magic connected with sound—and gave out an evil smell, and he could not understand how it went forward, unless it was propelled by spirits. It did not obey its owner so well as the animal which he later learnt to call a horse. It refused to climb a hill above the camp, and ran away backwards. Many people were called, Matu among them, to push it from behind as if it had been an obstinate cow; but although they were giving it help it roared angrily at them all the way up. That night heavy rain fell. The road became ankle-deep in red mud and the roaring object could not move forward. In the end it had to be lifted up and carried, and Matu thought it was dead, for the stranger who came in it spent a lot of time bending over its inside. Eventually it came to life again and went away, but Matu did not consider it nearly so remarkable as the horse. Walking, he thought, would be less trouble.

  4

  AFTER he had worked on the road for four months he was given twelve rupees and told to go home. He was surprised to receive the rupees, as he had not been given any at Tetu. Soon after he got back the stranger who had taken Kichui’s place at Tetu visited Muthengi and said that everyone must pay three rupees, or six if they had two wives. This was a bigger sum than had been demanded the previous season, and it made the elders angry. But Matu was able to pay at once, and the rest of the coins he buried under the floor of the thingira.

  For many months after his return Matu walked about the ridges watching the girls at work in the shambas and talking to them at sunset when they filled their water-gourds at the river, or on their way home from expeditions to the forest to collect firewood or bark for twine. At night he often joined in the small impromptu dances that took place in between the proper seasons. He saw several girls that were beautiful; but often h
e learnt, on discreet enquiry, that the one who had taken his fancy was lazy in the shamba, or sulky-tempered, or pert, or too willing to allow young men to sleep with her. More and more often he found his feet pointed towards the homestead of his sister Ambui, where her husband’s quiet, self-effacing cousin lived.

  Wanja, the daughter of Mturi, was not a girl who was always ready with a quick, apt reply to a boy’s joke, and she was shy in the dances. But, save for the defacement of the scar tissue, she was not ugly; she had the big umbilicus that was a true mark of beauty. She was strong and a hard, steady worker. Her fingers were deft at plaiting fibre bags and at stitching the seams of goatskin cloaks. He knew that she admired him, and was flattered at the attentions of Muthengi’s brother. On several occasions his resolve to ask her to cultivate his shamba failed and his tongue went dry; but at last, one evening, he gathered up his courage and put the question. Wanja giggled and looked at her feet, and answered : “There is plenty of food at my father’s; but when I have finished cultivating his shamba, perhaps I will find time for yours.” A warm flood of joy swept over Matu’s mind, for he knew that his suit was accepted, and that now he might take beer to Ambui’s husband to beg her as his bride.

  5

  THE rains came soon after Matu’s marriage, and then he gave Wanja seed and showed her where to plant it, and how deep. She laughed at him, asking him how he knew the work of women; but he did not rebuke her. She planted maize and sorghum and beans, and also the small white potatoes he had taken from Kichui’s shamba at Tetu. He instructed her how to cultivate the strange vegetables he had tended at Kichui’s, whose seed he had brought. Behind her hut he told her to dig a patch for gourds. His mother had given him the custody of a number of banana trees in the valley, inherited from Waseru’s father; and in between these trees, yam vines grew on the mukongogo trees. He had a section, also, of a cane plantation by the river. He trailed a wild vine on posts around his shambd to protect it from thieves, who would be seized with pains in the back if they passed beneath the long tendrils.