Nyumbani Tales

by Charles R. Saunders

  For “Ishigbi,” I chose a theme of duality: twins, who are considered to be accursed in many African societies, and the vastly different traditions of West and East Africa. It’s a story of contrasting cultures, as well as a suppressed connection from the past.

  Other authors who had stories in Hecate’s Cauldron, which was published in 1982, include Andre Norton, C.J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee and Jane Yolen. Heady company, indeed.

  By the way, the anthology contained 13 stories ...

  The trees grew stark and pale in the Spirit Grove, their ash-colored boles reflecting dim moonlight, their single tufts of leaves spreading like crowns of black spikes in the night sky. Here dwelt the Ancestors of the city of Aduwura. In silence, the Ancestors slept beneath the pale palm trees until Odomankoma, God of Death, permitted them to live again. In silence, the Ancestors slept as the feet of the defiler stalked purposefully between the trees.

  The defiler was not of Aduwura, or any other Akan city. Akan women were stout; this one was long and lean as a cheetah. Akan women wore bright-patterned garments that swathed their entire bodies; this one was naked save for a brief skin loincloth and a leather neck-thong from which a pair of baboon skulls hung over flat, sagging breasts. Akan women wove their hair into scores of tiny plaits; this one’s shaved scalp glistened in the moonlight. Akan woman spoke softly in the grove, as did Akan men; this one muttered maledictions in a low, feral snarl ...

  When the defiler reached her destination – a shallow, green-scummed pond in the midst of the trees – she halted and laid down the large skin bag she had carried over one bony shoulder. Reaching into the opening of the bag, she extricated a calabash and an iron fang of a dagger with a dully gleaming blade.

  The defiler laid the dagger aside and plunged the calabash into the stagnant pond, filling the vessel halfway to its brim. Carefully, she removed the algae scum, dipping the end of her loincloth into the water until the surface was clear. Despite her advanced age, the defiler’s movements were fluid. But her face was a seamed mask of malice, disfigured by burn scars.

  Once again, her hand curled around the hilt of the dagger. Eyes closed, she sat still. Then a high-pitched, trilling whine came from her pursed lips. The call was answered ...

  It was a dik-dik that that answered the summons of the defiler: an antelope the size of a small dog, with a delicately tapered muzzle and tiny, pointed horns. The dik-dik, sacred to the Ancestors, advanced reluctantly toward the defiler. The trilling whine continued until the antelope came within the woman’s reach.

  Abruptly, her eyes opened, the trilling ceased, and the trembling dik-dik tensed to make a single, prodigious bound to safety. But the defiler’s hand moved with cobra quickness, and the dagger sliced through the dik-dik’s neck.

  The animal’s head flew into the pond. Swiftly, the defiler seized its small, convulsing body. Holding its severed neck directly over the calabash, the defiler allowed the antelope’s blood to pour into the water until wine-dark liquid lapped its brim. Then she discarded the carcass, tossing it into the pond. The splash seemed ... muted.

  The defiler then chanted an incantation, strange syllables spilling from her lips. Although she did not touch the calabash, the water began to swirl. The dark surface reflected the moonlight with mirror brightness. Images began to form in the blood-water, remaining stable despite the stirring of the surface. The defiler raised her reddened blade.

  Blood had been spilled in the Spirit Grove. Yet the Ancestors still slept. And Odomankoma remained silent ...

  ADUWURA THROBBED WITH the exuberance of the Yam Festival. The sounds of revelry overwhelmed the low murmur of the nearby Ogopo River. Masked dancers cavorted through the streets in celebration of the planting of new crops – and anticipation of the blessing of Onyame the Sky-God and Mawu-Lesa, twin deities of the sun and moon.

  Drums pulsed a beat of rhythmic joy; maize-beer and palm-wine were quaffed with uncaring abandon; songs were sung with bleary enthusiasm; love was made with reckless passion. For the Yam Festival was a time of renewal for the Akan – a time when the cares of the past rain could be momentarily forgotten.

  In the house of Ekupanin, the akuapem or sub-chief of Aduwura, the Festival was observed with more decorum. Beneath the roof of woven straw, the akuapem entertained the important personages – the people-with name – of his city. The wide gyaase, or inner yard, was filled with clan heads, weapons traders, and diviners, all bedecked in their finest robes of patterned adinkra cloth. Light from several fire-pits flashed sun-like against golden ornaments weighting black arms left bare by the adinkra. Ekupanin sat on a double-curved stool; the others rested cross-legged on mats of rattan.

  The reason Ekupanin’s guests were quieter than the revelers outside was that they were listening to a drum-poem played by Kwomo, son of the akuapem. The intricate patterns of beats were as easily understood by the Akan as their spoken language. The poem was a tribute to the Sky-God: a retelling of the departure of Onyame from the earth to the heavens.

  Kwomo was a skilful drummer. As he filled the gyaase with the pulses of his drum-phrases, the assembled dignitaries of Aduwura paid less heed to their gossip and gourds of maize-beer. Yet the attention of Kwomo’s father was focused elsewhere. Ekupanin, a burly man whose body was slowly surrendering to fat, stared intently at Kipchoge, the healer.

  Aware of the akuapem’s gaze, Kipchoge refused to meet it. Kipchoge, the sub-chief mused. It was a name as exotic as the man. Among the short, stocky Akan, Kipchoge stood out like a heron among guinea-fowl. His lean, angular frame seemed lost amid the folds of his adinkra. His ascetic features appeared pinched and narrow next to the broad faces of the Akan. And his skin was the color of polished mahogany, not the ebony and umber of the people of the Forest Kingdoms.

  Kipchoge was a man of the east, where the plains stretched as far as the eye could see and the mountains brushed the sky. Long before the birth of Ekupanin, Kipchoge had come to Aduwura. Ekupanin’s father had discovered the stranger lying naked and senseless near the Spirit Grove. The Akan were a hospitable people; they nursed the stranger back to health, taught him their speech, found use for his uncanny skills as a healer, and finally accepted him as an Akan whose soul would one day sleep in the grove near which he was found.

  Eventually, the Easterner had married Ekupanin’s aunt, Salifah. She sat at the healer’s side in the gyaase, along with Adjei, their son.

  Adjei was an asufo – a soldier in the army of the Ashonti, overlords of the Akan. He had come home from the nearby asufo garrison to be with his parents during the Festival. Rather than adinkra, Adjei wore the leopard-spotted armor and snarling helmet of his trade. With the height of his father and face of his mother, Adjei cut a commanding figure as he sat at rigid attention.

  Ekupanin frowned at the sight of asufo armor. Long ago, the Akan had dominated the Ashonti. Two centuries past, the lesser clan had conquered, and now the entire forest kingdom bore the Ashonti name. For many Akan, the old wound was still sore. Now, though, Ekupanin shared the concern of Adjei and Salifah for Kipchoge.

  Though the only indication of age the healer showed was the white, woolly hair that thatched his skull, Kipchoge appeared many rains older this night. There was a tremor in his hands. From time to time, his body would slump forward, then jerk into an erect posture as though he were fighting sleep ... or worse. He held his hand against the bridge of his nose.

  Yet neither sub-chief nor wife nor son attempted to aid the healer. To do so before Onyame had heard the entire drum-poem was unthinkable.

  With a final eloquent flourish, Kwomo completed his tribute to the Sky-God. Before the sound of the last drumbeat died, Kipchoge suddenly clutched both hands to his face, shrieked in agony, and toppled forward, sprawling across the rattan mat.

  Instantly, Salifah and Adjei bent to aid the healer. Ekupanin rose ponderously from his stool and strode quickly to the fallen Kipchoge. Close behind the akuapem came Kofi the diviner.

  “Kipchoge!” Salifah cried into th
e fallen man’s ear.

  The healer remained inert, giving no sign of having heard his wife’s call.

  “Help me turn him over,” she ordered the men.

  Anxiety marked her round, ebony face as Adjei and Kofi bent to roll Kipchoge onto his back.

  The healer lay slack and unmoving, his hands still covering his face. Gently, Salifah moved her husband’s hands aside ... and gasped at the expression on his face. Kipchoge’s eyes were shut tight, and his lips were peeled back from his face in a grimace of pain. The small crowd that had gathered around the healer and his family echoed Salifah’s gasp.

  Salifah touched her husband’s face ... and with a sharp cry of dismay, she pulled back her hand as if she had just touched a coal from the fire pits.

  Adjei grasped his mother by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

  “What is it?” he demanded. “What is wrong with the Old One?”

  Salifah rubbed her thumb across the bottoms of her fingers, as if wiping some liquid substance.

  “I felt blood on his face,” she replied in a frightened whisper. “I felt blood ... but there is nothing there!”

  IN THE SPIRIT GROVE, the defiler withdrew her blade from the water in the calabash. Slowly, the image of Kipchoge’s anguished face disappeared in a welter of ripples.

  The defiler smiled. She poured the blood-water back into the pond; she no longer had need of it. Still sitting, she began to rock back and forth, the baboon skulls bumping against her bony chest. Again she called, this time in a sibilant whisper like the swish of a serpent through dry grass.

  There was no wind, yet the trunks of the pale trees soon swayed in rhythm to the rocking of the defiler. The spiky crowns of leaves rustled as though they were shaking out the souls of the Ancestors of Aduwura. The defiler’s hissing chant continued unabated.

  Odomankoma remained silent.

  But the Ancestors no longer slept ...

  KIPCHOGE OPENED HIS eyes slowly. A thin furrow of pain bisected his face from forehead to lips. Automatically, he reached up to wipe away blood no one could see.

  A ring of concerned faces peered down at him: his wife, his son, the akuapem Ekupanin, and Kofi the diviner. At once, Kipchoge was aware that he was no longer in Ekupanin’s gyaase.

  “Where am I?” Kipchoge asked, wincing at a new flare of pain between his eyes.

  “You are in the abosonnan,” Kofi replied.

  “The god-shrine? Why did you bring me to the god-shrine?” the healer demanded. The eastern accent that always underlay his speech was markedly pronounced.

  “Do you not remember what happened?” cried Salifah. “You were listening to the drum-poem, looking as though you were coming down with dengue. Then you screamed, clutched your face and collapsed.”

  A shudder shook Kipchoge’s lean frame. Salifah cried out in alarm, for it seemed her husband was about to lose consciousness again. With a visible effort, however, he calmed himself.

  “Salifah touched your face and felt blood that could not be seen,” Kofi said. “That is why we brought you to the abosonnan. This is obviously a matter of ohoni – witchcraft. You will be protected in the god-shrine.”

  Kipchoge held his hands in front of his eyes. On his right hand, he could feel blood trickling down his palm. On his left, he felt nothing. On neither hand did he see blood ...

  Suddenly, the healer sat bolt upright, limbs trembling, eyes bulging in fear.

  “She has found me,” he croaked almost inaudibly. “Even after so many rains, she has still found me ...”

  “Who has found you, Kipchoge?” Salifah demanded sharply.

  “Yes,” Ekupanin added, speaking for the first time. “I think it is time you gave us some answers, Kipchoge.”

  “Answers!” shouted Salifah, her apprehension momentarily overcome by anger. “Can’t you see my husband is ill? Would you slay him with words before his sickness does?”

  “Ohoni is more than a matter of sickness,” Ekupanin replied imperturbably. “Only when Kofi knows more about what struck your husband down will he be able to heal the healer.”

  Both Salifah and Adjei opened their mouths to speak, but before they could, Kipchoge held up a shaking hand, indicating that they should remain silent. Then he leaned back to a supine position, though his eyes remained alert, restless – and afraid.

  “You will have your answers, Ekupanin,” he said. “The answers your father sought, but never gained. You will have answers I denied even my own family, though the questions remained unspoken.”

  Salifah and Adjei exchanged a troubled glance. Never before had Kipchoge indicated that he knew of their unrequited curiosity concerning his origin and his unsurpassed skill as a healer.

  “After your father found me by the Spirit Grove, Ekupanin, I said I did not know where I came from. Later, when I learned more of your language, I ‘remembered’ pieces of my past, but not its entirety ... like fragments of a shattered pot that do not all fit together again. That was the first – and only – lie I ever told to my adopted people.

  “Now, look to the shrine,” Kipchoge commanded.

  All eyes turned to the triple dais at the center of the abosonnan. Dimly illuminated by a single fire-pit, the daises held objects sacred to three deities. On the center dais rested a large, circular shield of gold worked in curious glyphs and designs. This was the afrafokonmu – the Washer of Souls, symbol of Onyame the Sky-God.

  Flanking the Washer of Souls were two ebony carvings, each about a foot-and-a-half high. They were stylized human forms, the bodies of which were cylinders with two stubby protuberances signifying arms. The heads, of a piece with the rest of the carvings, were large, flat discs. The features, mere lines cut into the black wood, conveyed a distinct impression of peace and serenity. On the legless torso of one, a suggestion of breasts was carved; on the other, male genitals. Between them stretched a long chain of wooden links that joined the two images at the arms. These were representations of Mawu-Lesa, twin deities of the sun and moon.

  “Among you Akan, boy-girl twins are regarded as a blessing, for they are living images of Mawu-Lesa. But for the Gikuyu, the people of my birth, such twins are cursed. I was one of such a pair ...”

  Again, troubled glances were exchanged over Kipchoge’s head. The healer had spoken of his homeland as an endless golden plain where the sun smiled and great herds of animals roamed. To the Akan, in their forest-and sea-girt enclave, such a country seemed unlikely at best. Never before had Kipchoge spoken of a darker side to his homeland.

  “The Elders would have slain my sister and me outright the moment we were pulled from our mother’s womb,” Kipchoge continued. “For the Gikuyu believe boy-girl twins are born mganga – witches. But before the knife of death reached our throats, the priest of Mungu, the God-Above-Gods, saw a sign – an omen.

  “At the moment of our birth, two crested cranes had flown over our village. Cranes are sacred to the Gikuyu; the priest divined that to slay us would earn the Gikuyu Mungu’s wrath. Yet the Gikuyu could not keep us with them, for we were cursed. So they sent us to the Mahali-ya-Ukoma – the Place of Lepers.

  “The lepers raised us – my sister Ishigbi and I. But as we grew, the rotting disease did not strike us, and the lepers feared us because we were mgangas. They, too, drove us from their midst. We were barely old enough to fend for ourselves.

  “Together, Ishigbi and I wandered through lands dangerous even for armed warriors. Yet we two children passed unharmed. Finally, we came to the shores of the Great Nyanza, a lake as large as the Gulf of Otongi that lies north of here.

  “There, we met a crested crane that turned into a man. He was a mganga – indeed, the chief of all mgangas. Kambui was his name. He said he had been waiting for us. He said the cranes that had flown over the village at our birth were mgangas who had foretold our coming. Kambui asked us to come with him to live among other mgangas, and learn their ways. We, who had been cast out by lepers, agreed.

  “And so we dwelt among our own k
ind. The mgangas lived on an island in the Nyanza. So great was their mchawi – magic – that only a mganga could see the island. Ishigbi and I saw it. We grew and we learned. We learned how to cal animals and make them do as we told them. We learned how to change our shapes to animal form. We learned how to kill from afar, to cause diseases, to control the spirits of the dead ...

  “We learned our lessons well, Ishigbi and I. Kambui said we would one day rival his own mchawi-skill. Yet I hated mchawi ... hated being a mganga. Why I hated it, I did not know then, and do not know now. But my sister pursued the knowledge the way Simba the lion pursues prey, for she hated those who had cast us out, and she desired vengeance. I didn’t. So I kept my studies of the other magic – dawa, the healing magic – secret even from her.

  “Still, I was found out, by Kambui himself. To all the mgangas on the island he denounced me, and ordered me banished from their midst. Ishigbi was banished with me, for Kambui considered her tainted by the sharing of my blood.

  “When the mganga set us free on the mainland, my sister tried to kill me. She blamed me for our latest banishment. She was right, but I still did not want to die. My practice of dawa had weakened my mchawi; Ishigbi was much stronger than I. Still, I escaped by taking the form of a crane. I flew like a hunted thing, for Ishigbi pursued me in the form of an eagle.

  “Then Mungu caused a thunderstorm, even though it was the dry season. Mungu’s Spear, the lightning, knocked Ishigbi out of the sky. I flew on, not looking back. Day after day I flew, passing over lands unlike any I had ever seen before. I tired; I hungered. Yet ever onward I flew. For Ishigbi was a powerful mganga. Even Mungu’s Spear might not have finished her.