by Aluta Nite
Some ethnic groups believed in things and issues that others did not care for. For example some tribes carried out circumcision on both girls and boys while some did it only on boys. Some tribes removed the six lower teeth while others removed only two and some sharpened them to triangle shape instead of removing any.
Some tribes decorated their faces, chests and stomachs through cutting and rubbing herbs that left mounds of skin growth that was considered beautiful while others simply cut the ear lobes big enough to hold reels or spools. There were many variations in cultures and traditions.
The common things among the communities were crop farming, cattle rearing, going to church on Sundays and sharing markets on certain days of the week.
During circumcision period that tended to be once every two years during the months of August or December curiosity was palpable. Pupils and students were on school holidays then. There was a lot of drama around the villages even among those who did not believe in performing the act.
It was done very early in the morning to the designated boys who stayed together while nursing their wounds. And in the course of healing, they matched along the roads smeared with ashes, limestone or chalk while singing and dancing and barely wearing any meaningful clothes apart from loin cloths below the groin as they were still recuperating.
Their sound on the roads, as they passed on their way towards the river brought the whole neighboring villages out to observe quietly. At the same time observers stood far enough without provoking them so as not to invite the wrath of the youth who were in pain to start charging at the onlookers.
Children hid behind their parents or older siblings. Onlookers were ready to run away at any short notice. The circumcised youth looked fierce, dirty and red eyed like they had not slept for days. They carried clubs, twigs and canes. Some of them wore pieces of animal skins on their torsos and heads. They were all bare footed.
Their songs were very emotional and moving and soon villagers all over started humming and singing the same songs in their everyday lives and children sang them at school or during schools music competitions and festivals.
Other songs aped by villagers, pupils and students were those sang by mourners during funerals especially the deaths of matriarchs, patriarchs and mentors.
Beside this event that was considered very big every time it took place, there were other issues that also took place among the villagers. Once in a while like once in five years, some strange thing used to happen.
Its occurrence was always early night and it always started from the north of the villages moving southwards at great speed with diminuendos, crescendos and diminuendos again. How it used to start and end is a mystery.
In the middle of a meal or conversation or anything else, musical instruments of the percussion family like drums of whatever nature were heard afar. As time went on, the sounds got closer and closer not because the wind was blowing southwards, but because the echoes heard by neighboring villages consecutively were accentuated by picking up their own percussion semblance of instruments and continuing the ritual. And this went on well into the night.
In other wards what came from the north ended southwards to far, faraway lands. Villagers beat pails, basins, saucepans, utensils, real drums, machetes, hoes, mortars, tables, stools, chairs and anything that could produce a sound as loudly as possible.
When children asked their parents as to what was going on, they were told that the tribes and villages to the north were chasing and sending away their bad spirits to drown in the river far off and the other villages did not want to be hosts to the bad spirits therefore they also had to participate in the drama to spare themselves from being dominated by the bad spirits.
Of course it never made sense to children but children did it because it was the norm. The bad spirits were being escorted by drumming and sent to drown in the river and never to return and the river was southwards.
How One Boy Got Injured
Shenzi was a lone boy child in a family of many girls. He was also the last born. He trusted nobody except his mother and he hanged on her apron strings for years and years even when people felt that he could be somehow independent like other children of his age. His mother tried pushing away many a times without much success. His siblings could almost do nothing about it because he would not listen to them.
As a result, he never got the chance to do things together with his siblings leave alone being left with them. He therefore grew up ignorant in many ways as far as survival in the kitchen in particular was concern. As he continued to grow, he got to know where food came from because he used to have his own small farm of ten feet by ten feet behind his father’s house where he grew potatoes, flowers and a few other things.
He went to the family farm with his mother or father to gather some harvests and take them home. He was also sent to the shops or went with his mother to do some ingredient purchases. But that is the furthest he went in touching ingredients and crops because once food was delivered to the family store or kitchen, he had nothing to do with it.
He played alone or with other young boys and waited to be summoned when cooked food was ready to be eaten. His sisters did the cooking as was by design for womenfolk to do all the house chores including food preparation and cooking. His sisters therefore also chased him away whenever he peeped at them while they were busy cooking telling him that it was bad manners for a man to know the secret goings on in the kitchen.
The situation at home did not help much in that his father would scream his heart out when he came into the house from work and found his male counter parts in the kitchen. He himself did not even know how to make a simple cup of tea. He had a famous tale that he repeated often of how one time he was in the house alone and he was feeling very hungry therefore he headed to the kitchen to make a well needed cup of tea for himself.
He did make the cup of tea, but he could not take it because it was awfully-tasting and he had to pour it out. With such a story near his son repeatedly and his attitude on men going near or inside the kitchen, his son developed a negative attitude towards the kitchen. He had to learn the hard way.
Due to visits to his maternal grandma and paternal grandpa, he had to get involved in kitchen matters as was the norm in the two homes. He was learning everything from scratch. Initially he was given delicacies prepared by the grannies just like all grannies do to their grandchildren, but with time he was left to fend for himself when they were not home or busy.
He had enjoyed eating roasted eggs done on the three stone tripod burners whenever his grannies had ample time to prepare such but little did he comprehend the care needed in accomplishing the task.
Next time he visited grandma and was alone while grandma was away, he dared to attempt to roast two eggs for himself. He had failed to observe the type of heat his grannies used and the positioning of the eggs. He therefore lit a huge fire and when it was glowing, he placed the eggs in the middle of it all with a ladle.
Soon, the eggs burst and scattered all over him burning him badly on the head, face, neck, hands and legs. His clothes protected his body but he still felt some burning through the clothes especially on the chest, stomach and thighs. The end result is that he ate no egg, but acquired pain, misery and his desire for this particular delicacy remained unquenchable.
What he needed to have done was to let the fire burn down to embers and then place the eggs just nearby, but not inside or place the eggs in hot ashes. And he had to be patient because it takes long to have eggs cook that way. But that is the surest way so as not to have to suffer the way he did because he was in haste to eat soonest and failed to learn and follow the right channels.
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