‘You must eat some meat, grandmother,’ said the brothers, and they each picked out chunks of the meat and fed them to her. Bite by bite, the old woman ate the entire dish of food. Then she leaned back against the wall of the hut and her eyes closed again. The young men washed the dishes and sat beside her. Night fell. The old woman rose from her seat and withdrew into the hut. The two brothers spread mats near the fire and slept there.
In the morning they built up the fire again and set some meal to boil. When the old woman came out of the hut, she found her breakfast already prepared. She sat down, and again the young men fed her. When she had finished the dish she belched loudly in appreciation.
‘Ha! children!’ she said. ‘You have been very kind to me. You have shown me kindness that I did not receive even from my kinsmen. I must make some return to you. Tell me why you have come to the land of Do.’
‘Ah, grandmother,’ they said. ‘You need make no return. You are our elder, we owe you our help. But we cannot refuse your help, if you wish to give it. We have come to hunt the buffalo of Do, for in our homes we are poor.’
‘Many men have hunted the buffalo, and they are dead,’ said the old woman. ‘If you wish to escape their fate you will need my help. I shall give it to you. In the hut you shall find three eggs and a spindle. You must use these items when hunting the buffalo. Do not shoot an arrow at the buffalo; the arrow will not harm it. Shoot the spindle at the buffalo. Then you must flee, using the eggs to delay the buffalo as it pursues you.’
The brothers found the items she spoke of. They placed the eggs and the spindle in their hunting bags and took up their bows.
‘There is one more thing,’ said the old woman. ‘If you kill the buffalo, the king will offer you a reward. You are young men; he will offer you a wife and give you your choice of the maidens in the village. You must not choose the beautiful maidens he will show you. There is a hunchbacked girl covered with warts. You must choose her. She will be the mother of an empire.’
They thanked the old woman again and proceeded towards the village. When they came to the edge of the fields they circled around until they found a trail, and there they entered the bush. They walked very carefully, listening attentively for any sound of the buffalo. They heard nothing, but soon they saw a flash of light among the shrubs and grass, and then they saw the buffalo with its horns of gold and tail of silver.
The elder brother, Dan Mansa Wulanba, was paralysed at the sight. He could not move. But the younger brother pulled the spindle from the quiver and set it to his bow. He drew the string and released the shaft. It struck the buffalo in the shoulder. The beast bellowed so loudly that the two men fell down, and then it leaped into the air. As it came down it tossed its head and sniffed, to find its enemy. The two brothers backed away, and then, when it had spotted them, they turned and ran. As they ran, the younger brother took an egg from his bag and threw it behind him. They glanced back and saw that where the egg fell a pond had appeared and was spreading. The buffalo charged into the water, but it could not continue its gallop; it had to swim across the pond, and by the time it reached the further bank the brothers had pulled far ahead. But the buffalo ran more quickly than they. It soon caught up with them. Again, the younger brother threw an egg. This time a thick hedge of spiny bushes appeared, and the buffalo was caught among the tough stems. But it trampled its way through. Soon it was close behind, and the third egg was thrown. A small mountain appeared, and the buffalo was forced to climb up and over the hill.
By the time the buffalo reappeared, the two brothers had reached the edge of the fields. They turned there, to await the buffalo, and soon saw that they were out of danger: the beast was staggering, half-blind. When it reached the fields, it fell dead.
‘My brother!’ exclaimed Dan Mansa Wulanba, the elder. ‘You have done a great deed! Your courage is surpassing! You have slain the buffalo!’ In this way he became his younger brother’s praise-singer, or jeli. He became the ancestor of the Jabate clan of singers, who are bound by hereditary links to the Traore clan, descendants of the younger brother.
They discussed what to do next, and decided it would be best to bring tokens to the village. They cut off the silver tail from the buffalo, and broke off the golden horns. One brother left his sandal, the other the leather sheath to his knife. Then they went into the village and sat down at the edge of the market square.
At the end of the day, a villager who had ventured out to look at his fields found the dead buffalo. He came running back and the word spread. Soon the ruler, Dumogo-nya-mogo, came out with his advisers, and made his way across the fields to inspect the carcass of the buffalo. When he returned, his advisers announced that the buffalo was dead and a reward would be given to the person who had killed it. Soon, men were jostling each other to claim the reward. But they all failed the test the king set them: he asked them to put on the sandal he had found by the buffalo, or to produce the knife to fit the leather sheath. No one had such a knife; no one’s foot fitted the sandal exactly. Soon all the claimants had been dismissed and the advisers were left wondering who might have killed the buffalo.
‘There are two young men in the market square,’ said one. ‘They are not from Do. Perhaps they know something of this affair.’ They called the two brothers. The sandal fitted one of the brothers perfectly, and he had its mate. The other brother could show the knife that fitted the sheath. Then the brothers opened their hunting bags and brought out the silver tail and the golden horns.
‘Ah! These are the killers of the buffalo!’ cried all the people, and the ruler told them he would give them a reward: their choice of the most beautiful maidens of the village. The maidens were assembled and brought before the brothers, and both young men were tempted. But they remembered the last words of the old woman who had helped them so greatly, and so they refused the beautiful maidens. They asked instead about an ugly maiden with a crooked back, and she was brought out: Sogolon Conde, known as Sogolon Kuduma, Sogolon of the warts. The people of the village were astounded and muttered in amazement, and some in disgust, as the two young men took the maiden and led her from the village.
The elder brother tried to lie with the maiden that night, but she repelled him. Neither young man could approach her, and so when they returned to their home in the Manden, in Narena, they were puzzled what they were to do with her. But the ruler of Narena, Nare Famagan Cenyi the Handsome, had consulted a diviner who told him that two young men would bring a strange woman to Narena and he must marry this woman, for her son would found an empire. When he heard that two brothers had come with a strange woman, he sent for them. He offered them a different woman in exchange; it is said that she was Nana Triban, sister of Famagan Cenyi and a powerful sorceress. They agreed, and left Sogolon Kuduma with Nare Famagan.
Different stories are told of the wedding night of those two. Some say that the man was able to sleep with her only after he held a knife to her throat, or that her pubic hair stretched into great porcupine quills that held him off. Some also say that his knife had magic powers, and that when he laid it on her skin the warts fell away and her back straightened, so that she became beautiful. They also say that after the marriage was consummated, Sogolon wished to observe the dancing in the square, and so she stretched her neck so that her head went out of the chamber, across the courtyard, and over the wall so she could see what was being done.
Whatever the truth, Sogolon Conde became pregnant. By coincidence, another wife of Nare Famagan also became pregnant at that time: Sasuma Berete. The two women came to term at the same time. It is not certain who gave birth first. It is said that Sogolon gave birth and an old woman went to bring the news to Nare Famagan. But along the way she met some people seated around a bowl of food, and they invited her to join them. She did so, and did not rise until all the food was eaten. By that time, Sasuma Berete had also given birth, and the messenger had reached Nare Famagan, who declared the son of Sasuma Berete, named Dankaran Tuman, to be the first born. The
old woman protested that Sogolon’s son had been born first, but Nare Famagan would not listen to her. He declared the news that had reached his ears first was the news that counted. In this way Sogolon’s son became the second-born. He was named Sunjata.
Sasuma Berete was uneasy about her son’s claim to primacy, and determined to remove Sunjata from the succession. She consulted diviners and magic-workers, and they cast a spell on Sunjata so that he was crippled in his legs. He could not walk; he crawled everywhere like an animal. His condition was a humiliation to his mother that not even the birth of several other children could erase. Everywhere, she heard people talking about the worthless son of Sogolon, how he could do nothing like other children and was little better than a beast. Years passed, and still Sunjata crawled around the compound.
It was the time of year when women prepared a special meal, seasoned with the leaves of the baobab tree. The children went swarming over the trees to pluck the leaves and bring them to their mothers. Sogolon had no children to bring her the baobab leaves: Sunjata could not climb, and the others were too young. She swallowed her pride and went to Sasuma Berete, her co-wife, to ask her for some baobab leaves. Sasuma Berete said she could not spare any, and asked Sogolon, ‘Surely your son can bring you the leaves?’
Sogolon returned quickly to her hut, walking almost blindly because of the tears of rage in her eyes. She almost tripped over Sunjata as she came to her fireplace. ‘Oh, will you not rise up?’ she exclaimed. Sunjata saw her pain and sorrow, and resolve filled his heart. ‘I shall rise,’ he said to his mother. ‘Tell the blacksmiths to forge me iron bars, and with them I shall stand up.’
Sogolon went to the blacksmiths, and for the wife of Nare Famagan they forged two strong iron bars. She brought them to Sunjata, who seized one in each hand and heaved against them. They snapped in two, like twigs. Sadly, Sogolon brought the fragments back to the smiths who marvelled at the breaks and then set about forging iron bars that were three times as strong. The smiths themselves brought the bars to Sunjata, but again the bars broke when he put his weight upon them.
‘Iron bars will not serve,’ he said. ‘Mother, fetch me a staff of jonba wood.’
Sogolon went into the bush and found a jonba tree. Before she laid her small axe to the tree, she swore an oath. ‘If I have been faithful to my husband, if I have been a dutiful wife, if I have borne the troubles put upon me as one should, then let this staff help my son to rise.’ Then she cut a staff and brought it to Sunjata. He set both hands upon it and pulled. Then, hand over hand, he drew himself up against the staff, so that his body and then his legs straightened beneath him. Finally he was standing erect, with only one hand upon the wood. He took a step, and then another step. Watching, Sogolon was overcome with joy. She sang, for her heart was full, and some of the songs are still remembered. ‘Today is a great day,’ she sang. ‘There has never been a day like today.’ As she sang, Sunjata walked out of the compound and down the path to the baobab tree. She followed, still singing out her joy, and as she did so the other women in the neighbourhood came, saw and joined her in wonder.
Sunjata came to the baobab tree. He stretched his arms round its trunk, and somehow seized the entire tree (a baobab tree can be five metres in diameter). He shook it and uprooted it. The children up in the branches fell to the ground, and from this incident comes a praise-name for Sunjata: ‘bone-breaking Jata’. Then he carried the tree back into his mother’s compound.
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘now the other women will have to ask you for their baobab leaves.’
Sunjata took to hunting, and became a great hunter who kept the entire town supplied with meat. But he did nothing to challenge the standing of Dankaran Tuman, whom he considered his older brother. Dankaran would receive the second share of meat, after that of his father, and his mother the third. But Sasuma Berete was not reassured, and Dankaran Tuman shared her uneasiness. Nare Famagan the handsome died after some time, and Dankaran Tuman was named ruler in his place. Sunjata did not change his behaviour: Dankaran Tuman received the part of the hunter’s kill that went to the ruler, and others were served later.
Dankaran Tuman resolved to be rid of his brother. He sent an ox to the nine witches of the Manden, asking that they do away with Sunjata. But Sunjata heard about this; his distribution of meat throughout the town had made him many friends. He went to the nine witches, whose leader is said to have been Nana Triban, his father’s sister, given to the hunter brothers who killed the buffalo of Do. He gave them nine buffaloes, one for each witch, and they agreed that they would refuse the gift from Dankaran Tuman and accept Sunjata’s offering.
But the signs were clear, and on the advice of all around him Sunjata decided to go into exile. His mother and her other children accompanied them, and before them went the old woman singer Tumu Maniya, singing the song of the bow: ‘Pick up your bow, Jata, pick up your bow and go.’ (Some people say the song was composed when Sunjata bent the iron bars while trying to rise.)
He went through the lands of the Manden, but wherever he stopped, a messenger from Dankaran Tuman soon followed and bribed the ruler or gave orders, so that Sunjata was told he was unwelcome. He travelled further and further until he left the Manden entirely and came to Mema, which was ruled by Farin Tunkara. There he and his family settled, and there he took service with the king as a warrior and a hunter.
In the Manden, affairs were not calmed by Sunjata’s departure. Soon, the kingdom was threatened by a powerful neighbour: Sumanguru (sometimes called Sumaworo), the ruler of the Sossos, was exerting his might. Sumanguru was a man of extraordinary powers. It was said he was the child of two, or even three mothers: the pregnancy would move from one mother to another, one day at a time, and it lasted far longer than the usual period. The baby was born only after one mother, Sunsun or Dabi, realized that at night her child was leaving the womb to play in the dark. On the advice of a diviner, she left a mortar lying on the ground; the fetus mistook it for the womb and curled up in it and so was discovered at daybreak. Sumanguru was the man who had brought musical instruments into the world. One of them cost him his sister: the balafon. He heard the spirits of the wild playing it and asked them to sell it to him, but he could not pay their price at the time: they wanted the life of a family member, and his parents were dead and his sister had been given away in marriage. But his sister learned of his situation, and once her child Fakoli had been weaned she went of her own accord to the spirits, and they gave Sumanguru the balafon. He kept it in a secret chamber along with other items of magical power.
Hoping to appease Sumanguru, Dankaran Tuman sent him one of his sisters as a bride, and with her he sent Jankuma Doka, the singer. When they came to Sosso, Jankuma Doka somehow sensed the presence of the secret chamber and was drawn to it. Sumanguru at that time was off hunting. Jankuma Doka came in, sat before the balafon, and began to play it. From afar, Sumanguru sensed the intrusion into his secret chamber and returned immediately, prepared to kill whoever it was who had entered. As he approached, Jankuma Doka began a song:
‘Sumanguru, the first and native king,
Sumanguru with the hat of human skin
Sumanguru with the shirt of human skin
Sumanguru with the trousers of human skin
Sumanguru with the shoes of human skin.’
Hearing the song of praise, Sumanguru was appeased. ‘It is sweet’, he said, ‘to be praised by another,’ and so he spared Jankuma Doka’s life. But to keep him in his service, he cut the singer’s ankle tendons, and he renamed him: Bala Faseke Kuyate. The descendants of Bala Faseke Kuyate preserve the balafon of Sumanguru in Niagassola, in Guinea.
But in other regards, Sumanguru was not satisfied with the offering made by Dankaran Tuman. He invaded and easily conquered the Manden; Dankaran Tuman fled into the forests of Guinea, where he and the people who accompanied him became known as the Kissi because they called their new home Kissidugu (place of safety).
Sumanguru established his rule over the Manden
, and the people were very unhappy. Every aspect of their lives was controlled, they could not speak freely, and Sumanguru imposed heavy taxes. The people of the Manden wondered what to do: who could save them? And some remembered Sunjata, the hunter, who had gone into exile. But where had he gone? They did not know.
A group went to seek him, among them the singer, Tumu Maniya. They took with them typical plants of the Manden: leaves from the shea tree, spices. In each town they came to they laid out their wares, and because the people outside the Manden did not know what they were, they passed them by. So it went until they came to Mema.
They laid out their Manden spices in the market and sat waiting. Sunjata’s sister came to the market, for since their mother was old she no longer went out to supply the household. Sogolon Kulunkan, the daughter, looked over the wares on display, and was amazed to see plants that she recognized, plants from her home. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed. ‘These are from the Manden!’ She quickly bought the supplies and invited the travellers to come and eat with them at home. When they reached the compound, however, she realized they had no meat to cook for the meal. But Sogolon Kulunkan was the true daughter of Sogolon Conde, and she had inherited powers from her mother. She knew her brothers were hunting in the bush, and she knew through her magic sight that they had each killed a large antelope. She drew the livers and hearts from the two kills and brought them to her fireside, so she could cook them as a meal for the guests.
African Myths of Origin (Penguin Classics) Page 40
