9
IT took four days for all the Masai sheep and cattle to enter the forest, so great were their numbers. At the summit of the steep, tree-clad range, was a wide brown plateau, boggy underfoot, and full of little springs. Here were no trees; only the lonely tall lobelia and a giant heather three times as big as a man. After nightfall Matu saw stars beneath his feet, pricking the still waters of pools in the flat rocks. The cold was greater than anything he had imagined before. When he awoke in the morning he was terrified to find that the water had been bewitched. It had turned into a white brittle stone that bit the hand. It was clear that these mountains were inhabited by strange, evil spirits. He shivered continually with misery and fear, and all the Kikuyu fell as silent as birds at roost. Masai sheep died in hundreds all along the path.
At the top, where rivers rose, they found another stranger’s camp. Here they left the sullen Masai and in the frosty morning turned their backs upon the herds and marched down the trampled, dung-strewn track into the warmth of the valley below.
On their return they camped in a glade among a forest of olives, just above the plain. Here, in the evening, Matu found a small cluster of Kikuyu shambas hidden among the trees. That night he ate well-cooked and flavoured food instead of tasteless, clogging maize flour at the homestead of a man called Kagama, who had come from Kiambu to settle in this wild land.
Matu asked many questions about the country. He learnt that the soil was rich and gave excellent crops of maize, bigger than at Kiambu, although millet and sorghum had been overcome by weeds. There was firewood in great quantities, and timber for houses, and the pasture was excellent for goats. Kagama explained that all the land belonged to strangers, but he did not know who they were. Sometimes one of them would arrive with tents and porters and order the men who were there to cut down trees or dig up stumps; but as a rule no one came to worry them, and they were never called upon to do the hated work of the hide strips.
The column started on its way next morning and at last, weary of loads, reached the shores of the lake Naivasha, that lay in a cup of purple hills. Here Kiberenge left them. An Indian gave Matu a blanket and twenty rupees, and another man told him of a path by which he might return that scaled the mountains behind Naivasha and led to Tetu. Three days later he reached his homestead, footsore and thin, but full of joy to hear the glad trills of his wife and cousins and to see his small son staggering over the fresh-turned shamba to welcome him home.
CHAPTER VI
Emigrants
I
SOME seasons later, Matu’s maize began to grow light of cob and his sorghum short of stem and his beans suffered from a yellowing of the leaf. He took a gourd of beer to Gacheche, now the muramati, and said that he was going to cultivate lower down the ridge, on land that had belonged to his grandfather Mahenia. Gacheche took a pinch of snuff and answered :
“That land has already been claimed by Muthengi.”
“But his wives are not digging there,” Matu said in surprise. “No one can claim land which he does not use, if another wants it. That has always been the law.”
“I know that,” Gacheche said, “for am I not guardian of the land of our clan ? But Muthengi now has many wives and innumerable goats, and he claims that piece of land as pasture for his flocks. If I tell him to take his goats farther away because the land is needed by another of his clan, will he then obey ? And if not, can I, or the council, make him do so ?”
Matu remained silent for a little, struggling with his resentment.
“Had such a thing happened when my father was young I could have taken a case before the council,” he said at last, “and they would have awarded me the land. But Muthengi takes such cases before his friends, the strangers; and if I fight him I shall lose my own goats. I will go, therefore, to cultivate in the forest, although it is very hard work to cut down trees and millet no longer flourishes there because of the cold.”
“Have you not heard that we are not allowed to cultivate in the forest ?” Gacheche asked. “We may not clear the trees for shambas, or even fell them for firewood, any more. While you were away a stranger came from Tetu with soldiers and drove out all those who had cleared shambas inside the forest, as your father Waseru did when he was young. He drew a line, and said : ‘Below this line you may cultivate, but above there is to be forest always, and it belongs to the Serkali. If any man cuts down trees he will be fined fifty goats, and if he does it a second time he will be taken to Tetu.’ Some of our clan refused to go, but the soldiers came and burnt their homesteads. You must, therefore, seek land elsewhere. Perhaps you will have to take a goat and some beer and ask for land from the muramati of another clan.”
“Must I then become a beggar, using the land of others?” Matu said indignantly.
“I do not know what else you can do,” Gacheche replied. “Muthengi has taken nearly all the land of our clan, and our numbers have increased. Even now the fallow is insufficient for the goats and many have been taken a long way off for pasture. But I will speak to Muthengi, and perhaps, as you are his own brother, he will relent.”
2
MATU’S heart was bitter, and he was puzzled as to what he should do. Everywhere he heard complaints against Muthengi’s rapacity and his monopoly of land. As he brooded over his troubles, his mind turned again and again to the country he had passed through with Kiberenge when they had driven the Masai of Laikipia over the Mau. He thought of the deep soil, untouched beneath red-stemmed oat grasses, and the black forest stretching into unfathomed distance. Here axe and fire could creep unchecked up long tree-deep ridges; here a man could clear a shamba and his wife could cultivate with no one to stand in his way; here was grazing enough for all the livestock of his clan. And here goats were far cheaper than at Tetu or Karatina.
Matu thought a great deal about this land, and about moving his homestead there; but he put off a decision from day to day. He could not bear to leave his clan. Waseru was getting old, and now sat on the aramati’s council. Matu often conducted business transactions for him and helped Wanjeri with the shamba. The old people would not understand his departure; they would be saddened by their loss. His ancestors, too, would grow angry, seeing that one who should give them fat and beer was no longer there to carry out his duties. And what was a man, Matu reflected, without his clan? He was like a finger severed from the hand or a rock broken off from a hillside. Who would help him to break his shamba and build new huts ? With whom would his sons be circumcised ? Who would pay the blood-price, if by some act of his a man was killed ? Or avenge his own life if he was murdered ? If his crops should fail and his goats die, no one would be bound to give him food and shelter.
He decided that the break would be too final and too deep and he made up his mind to ask Muthengi directly for land. His own brother, he felt certain, could not refuse such a request. But Muthengi was angry because his cattle were dying, and because two of his wives and several children had fallen sick.
“Why do you come to me ?” he demanded. “You have many goats and skins brought to you in payment for your magic; why do you not take land from Irumu’s ridge, or from Wangombe’s ? Those clans have more than they need; but I have not enough to feed my own goats. I cannot spare any.”
Matu rose without a word and stalked home through the shambas, trembling with rage. That night he could not bear to speak a word to his wife. When his anger died a heavy weight remained in his heart. It was as though his own brother had thrust a spear into his breast. Sometimes he thought he must be dreaming, for surely no grandson of Mahenia could have spoken such words. Now it seemed that Muthengi was like a great kite whose wings obscured the sun, and that all the people of the district were tormented by his shadow.
The following evening he broke his long silence to address his wife:
“Prepare yourself, daughter of Mturi, for a long journey,” he said. “God has spoken to me in a dream. I am to leave these ridges, for surely an evil spirit has gained control of my brother Muthen
gi’s body. Gather together all your pots and skins, gourds and calabashes, and exchange all your grain and other foodstuffs at the market for rupees; for when this moon is dead and the new moon is eight days old, you must be ready to start upon a long journey.”
3
THE path climbed steeply from Tetu over the blue mountains of Nyandarua, beneath Sattima’s clouded peak. It was a broad track made by the feet of the Masai who had used it, since time began, to raid over the mountains, and by the cattle they had driven back before them when the blood had dried on their spears. Few Kikuyu had been along it; to them it was an artery down whose channel death had poured. But now that the Masai were gone they had lost no time in making use of it. Over the mountain lay Naivasha, where the railway ran; and from Naivasha a man could travel now to far strange lands, to the sea whence the strangers had come or to a great lake of crocodiles where a race of naked people lived.
Matu led the way at sunrise up the path. It was the track by which he had returned from Naivasha; it was cold, but he knew that it was safe. Behind came Wanja, her back heaped high with water-gourds, heavy grinding-stones, a roll of goatskins, a sack of maize seed, a winnowing platter, and bananas and cooked food. Her son Karanja trotted by her side. Wanja could not manage everything, and Ngarariga had lent them a sturdy circumcised daughter as a carrier. She bore the baby in a sling on her back and took charge of the cooking-pots and more woven sacks of grain and beans. The goats had been left, for the time being, with Ngarariga. Matu drove two he-goats in front of him in case they should be needed for sacrifice, and carried on his belt a small leather sack full of coins. He had sold all his skins and many live goats and had brought with him a capital of more than two hundred rupees. Over his shoulder was slung his bag of medicines. Once he would not have travelled without sword and spear, but now he carried only a panga* in his hand.
In a little while they came to the bamboos. They plunged into a deep moss-green tunnel where the air itself seemed like a distillation of greenery; it hung motionless, as thick as liquid honey. On either hand the slender curved bamboos rose like rigid tapering fingers to clasp each other overhead. The roof was a tracery of grass-white stems and feathery branches, and the floor a mat of fallen sword-shaped leaves. The little party plodded wearily up the slippery path, disturbed by strange noises from the bamboos, which groaned and creaked like old men in the midst of painful death.
It grew colder as they mounted, and the sun seemed farther away. Once, at a turn of the path, they caught a glimpse of Kerinyagga with a narrow band of pure white cloud lying across it, like a long flight of egrets locked together wing to wing. The great mountain was shrinking now, as the form of a brother shrinks into the distance when he walks away to war. Towards evening they emerged from the tunnel as suddenly as they had entered it and stood upon a rolling plateau where the grass grew in waist-high tufts. They slept little that night, because of the cold and the spirits that could be heard crying amongst the bamboos. The clear liquid whistles of a bird woke them in the mist-swirled dawn, and after a little food they moved on over the moorland through a cold dew. On each side of the path were giant heaths, and the air was sharp and tangy in the nostrils. To the right arose the peak of Sattima, frowning with its forest brows. Often they crossed small hurrying streams, for they had come to the birthplace of the rivers, and the ground was soggy underfoot.
Next day they slid down a steep slope through a sweet-scented forest of junipers and tall mukurue trees. They emerged on to a flat plateau, densely coated with tall grass, and plodded wearily across it, slipping in the black greasy mud. At the end of the fourth day they saw a great cleft lying in the purple haze of evening far below their feet. The waters of Lake Naivasha sucked the last blue from the sky and held it there until the swift darkness stole all colour from the day.
That night they reached Naivasha, and Matu decided upon a great adventure. He would travel, with his wife and Ngarariga’s daughter, in the wagon pulled by the fire-swallowing beast which was known as Karamati.
4
IT needed all his courage to carry through the confusing negotiations necessary before he and his two women could clamber into one of Karamati’s wagons and sit, European fashion, on wooden planks amid a close-packed, chattering crowd. He had not realised that the women also would have to take up this awkward posture, and before they could do so the household goods had to be taken off their backs. People jostled them in an ill-mannered, insulting way, and Matu grew hot, angry and afraid. He had never seen so many people of such different kinds. Some of the men were dressed in cloth, like Europeans. He saw outlandish foreign women wrapped in coloured cloth, their hair cut and combed into elaborate patterns as if they had been young men. He was shocked and fascinated at the same time. Suddenly something hit them in the back and threw them forward. Shrill screams came from the women and Wanja’s eyes began to roll with terror. When they sat up they saw that the earth was moving away. They covered their faces with their hands and waited rigidly for the end. The seat beneath them began to sway, and then to jerk like the limbs of a dying cow. Wanja moaned softly in her agony of soul. There was a loud, rushing, clanking noise in her ears: the sound made by spirits coming to seize her by the neck. Then she heard Matu’s voice shouting at her above the tumult:
“Daughter of Mturi, have you no sense at all? Do you want to disgrace me in front of all these people? Take your hands away from your face and hold on to your water-gourds.”
She obeyed, but the earth was still going away and the trees were running by one after another, like sheep hurrying behind their leader. Her loads were rolling about over her feet. When she had brought them under control she realised that she was not going to die, but that by some unheard-of magic the wagon in which she sat was whirling through the air like a bird in flight.
Matu’s terror had been almost as sharp as hers, and now a new fear overcame him. Squeezed against him on either side were two young men, neither of them Kikuyu. They had a musky smell which offended his nostrils. What if one of them, or one of the many people who had touched him, was unclean, and had passed on a thahu ? Or what if one was a sorcerer who would lay a curse upon him ?
He sweated with anxiety; but at the same time he could not help feeling excited. This Karamati could take him to the fabulous distant waters, up mountains, over the tops of rivers, anywhere he liked, to the very farthest point in the world. He could go to find the country of the strangers, where Karamati had been born. All the time it shook like a warrior going into battle, and roared in his ears. It was indeed a mighty monster. Clouds of sparks flew by, as if a great smith, taller than a camphor tree, were striking on an anvil bigger than a hill.
They passed Nakuru and came to the place where he had camped with the Masai, which was called Njoro. Here they clambered out of the wagon and friendly travellers handed down their household goods. Slowly and methodically the women, too overcome at their safe delivery to speak, began to load their burdens on to their backs.
When the wagon had gone on Matu stood quite still for a few moments and gazed after it, his wide quiet face expressionless, but a light of triumph in his eyes. Then he turned and looked about him, feeling suddenly uncertain and forlorn. On one side stretched the flat plain, long grass bending in ripples before the wind; on the other rose the Mau. He led the way slowly in that direction, feeling weak and afraid. Now his father’s well-built homestead hidden among trees, the comforting faces of his kinsfolk, were gone. Now his very life was like a ripe fruit hanging from an ownerless bush, that any man could pluck and crush between his teeth. Behind him pressed the silent treeless plain, empty and immense, and before him the unfamiliar forest, full of spirits whose demands and fancies he would not know how to meet.
“Hurry, you foolish women,” he said irritably to his companions as they adjusted their leather straps. “Do you want night to overtake you on the path, and lions to eat you ?”
5
THEY slept that night in Kagama’s homestead, on a forest-c
lad hill high above the plain.
The land belonged to a stranger, Kagama said, who had given him a shamba for his wives. Sometimes this man sent for him and told him to join with others in felling big trees and hauling them away with oxen, or in making fences for cows, or in some other work; and then he was given rupees. There was so much empty land that to take a shamba from the forest was as if a fly should eat its fill of a fat ram.
One day he heard that the owner of all this land had come. He found him in a camp near the river Njoro, and asked for land to cultivate and grazing for his goats. The stranger agreed, and showed him a place in a bend of the river where the ground was fairly flat and the forest not quite so thick as elsewhere. He found that he did not have to pay any goats.
The next day, with a light heart, he started to make himself a home.
First, with Kagama’s help, he built a temporary shelter of grass, thatched with branches, where he could live until he was ready to build a hut. Wanja went to the river to get three stones for the fire. Nothing had distressed her more than being forced to leave behind her own. She knew that no good would come of it; but she had not been able to carry three big stones over the mountain path. So she took new ones from the Njoro river, and a burning brand from a neighbour, and her new fire was lit.
Red Strangers Page 26