by Peter Kimani
Eventually, Wanje told everyone to quiet down. “We are not here to lament. We did not come to our fathers to express our helplessness. We are here to draw strength from them. To seek inspiration from them so that we may overcome. Just like our ancestors overcame the Wareno, just as they overcame the Waarabu. We shall overcome the Waingereza. And so, on these hallowed grounds, we shall take the oath to defend our land to the last man, to the last woman, to the last child, to our last breath.”
* * *
McDonald received reports of the ceremony in the kaya, but he did not know what to do. First, he deployed forty policemen to swoop into three villages and arrest all the men. The policemen went through the first village, but the search only yielded women and children. All the elders and young men had left, and the women did not volunteer any information. Most did not understand English, and the policemen’s gestures to illustrate they were looking for men, not women, ended up as a lewd display and groping of women’s breasts.
The police went to the second village; the result was the same: all the men had left. In the third village, a young policeman tugged at the breast of a young woman he found baking mandazi by the roadside. The woman squeaked her protest and shook off his hand. In the brief tussle, the pan tossed oil on the open fire and a fresh inferno leaped into the air and burned down the nearby huts. The fire spread quite quickly and an entire village was razed. Since there were no men around to defend the village, the policemen went on with their mission and trekked to the next village.
McDonald was alarmed by the reports from the policemen, and it didn’t help matters when he confirmed that the two missing engineers had not been abducted at all. They had eloped with local girls, which would strain his relations with the villagers even more. He realized what he needed to do to stop the building rebellion from developing into full-blown warfare: he had to swiftly pacify the community. It was a military tactic that found traction with the local expression, Kuuma na kupuliza. Blowing hot and cold. The community’s spiritual warfare needed a spiritual response. He sought out the English preacher from the Church Mission Society.
* * *
McDonald had no trouble locating Reverend Turnbull in Mombasa. With his baggy corduroy trousers squeezed into ill-fitting socks, a thick collar on his neck, a wide-brimmed hat over the flowing gown, and an umbrella tucked under his armpit, Reverend Turnbull looked like a scarecrow. He was in a field with his servant, Tsuma, a scrawny, light-skinned lad who carried the reverend’s tent and its accessories.
In their early days, when the reverend did not speak Swahili or any other local language, Tsuma had acted as his interpreter and had translated Richard Turnbull’s name as “the lizard that turns into a bull.” The name stuck, and only changed to Cow Man when Reverend Turnbull started artificially inseminating the local zebu cows to produce better milk-producing breeds.
This cross between agricultural extension officer and veterinary services was a way he used to interact with the locals, introducing them to Christianity in the process. One of the local debates was whether the reverend’s pants had been chewed on by a cow to acquire their crumpled feel, or were made from the innards of a ruminant, since his life appeared to revolve around livestock.
McDonald did not divulge everything to Reverend Turnbull. He lied and said that he wanted to enlist his support in negotiating freedom for the missing British engineers. The reverend agreed to accompany him to the kaya; he had no problem helping his compatriots.
But Reverend Turnbull soon realized he did not fully understand their mission when they encountered Nyundo dragging along two rams, one black and one white, near the edge of the forest. That encounter was something Nyundo later shared with his many followers under the mnazi with remarkable accuracy, yet few believed him. They accused him of spicing up his narratives—kuongeza chumvi, as they called it—doubting that what he was narrating could have actually transpired.
Nyundo said that McDonald—Bwana Mkubwa, as he called him—had asked him to meet him on the fringes of the kaya. Nyundo honored the appointment and dutifully appeared dragging two rams as McDonald had instructed him. Sipping his favorite cup of chai, chanting his leitmotif, Ushaona bwana, Nyundo explained that Reverend Turnbull had appeared perturbed at the sight of the rams.
“Ushaona bwana?” Nyundo recounted. “There I am with my two rams, the black ram on my right, the white one on the left. I am dragging them with ropes of reasonable length, and I’m happy to see Bwana Mkubwa and I shout my greetings excitedly. Then Cow Man starts pointing at the rams, as one would point accusingly at a thief.” Nyundo sipped his cup and said, winking as he did so, “I was a bit worried because I couldn’t quite follow what Cow Man was saying about the rams. I hoped he wasn’t asking to be given one. I certainly couldn’t have trusted leaving Cow Man alone with a ram in a secluded part of the forest”—this last comment referring to the reverend’s methods of inseminating the local cows by thrusting his polyethylene-covered arm inside them.
Nyundo roared with laughter and called for more chai from the roadside vendor. “And although I couldn’t understand most of their words, I could see Bwana Mkubwa and the Cow Man were having a serious argument about the rams.”
Nyundo’s observations were, in fact, accurate. Reverend Turnbull was furious with McDonald for taking animals for what he considered a heathen ritual to appease pagan gods. “The supreme sacrifice was laid by Jesus on the Cross for all our sins,” he had protested. What followed was a detail that Nyundo told with relish, soothed by his fresh cup of chai.
Finding Reverend Turnbull’s temper rising and threatening to boil over, McDonald had modified the story and offered that the rams were actually the ransom demanded by the kaya elders.
Nyundo took a swig of his chai, belched, then flashed a smile. “Ushaona bwana? I don’t understand their language, but I can tell the Cow Man is unhappy with the presence of the rams, me, or both. He seems to be particularly unhappy with the colors of the rams, or something close to that. By this time, I have slackened my pace considerably. I am looking for an escape route, just in case I have to make a hasty retreat. You know, I don’t want blood of the feuding whites to spill on me when they fight. But before I can say kahawa thungu, I hear: thwaaaaack!”
“Kofi?” asked a young man seated at Nyundo’s knee.
“Yes, kofi. A proper slap on the face.”
“Who is slapping whom?”
“Sikiza, sikiza. Listen. I’m the one telling the story. It is the Cow Man slapping Bwana Mkubwa.”
“Really?” said another listener. “I thought Bwana Mkubwa carries a gun, and the preacher only carries a Bible . . .”
“Yes, tell us. Which is mightier between the two, the Bible or the gun?”
“Listen, listen, my fellow people,” Nyundo pleaded. “I’m telling you what I saw with these two eyes of mine . . .” Another cup of chai was delivered. Nyundo sipped. It was too hot and scorched his lip. He swore and everybody laughed. He licked his lip then shouted at the vendor, “Those plans of yours to cut off my tongue won’t succeed!” He blew into his cup and sipped carefully, broke into a grin, and went on: “Ushaona bwana? Wazungu are very interesting people. These white people come all the way from their land, cross the ocean when they are good friends and everything. But the moment they land here, they fight it out like dogs! Wenyewe kwa wenyewe. One against another. Can you imagine that? Wenyewe kwa wenyewe.”
“Did you just watch and do nothing?” an older listener asked.
“Weeee, have you not heard the proverb: When two brothers fight, take a jembe and go till the land?” Nyundo replied. “I was about to flee for my safety when I heard Bwana Mkubwa calling out for help.”
“Had he been overpowered by the preacher?” asked the older man.
“Listen, listen, my good man. The preacher, who had started the fight, was fleeing from the scene of the crime. Bwana Mkubwa clung to his coattails. But Cow Man just shook off the coat and Bwana Mkubwa was left holding it. He grabbed Cow Man
by the scruff of the neck, but the shirt came off too. He ran after him and held his pants. But Cow Man was willing to let go of those as well and run the way he was born. That’s when Bwana Mkubwa called me to help restrain him.”
“Did you?”
“Listen, my good man. You are asking too many questions. Now listen: when Bwana Mkubwa gives a command, you are most likely to obey. So I did. I dropped the ropes holding the rams and rushed to secure the Cow Man. I feared losing the rams, but they did not flee. They had stopped bleating to stare at the man who was behaving like one of them. We dressed Cow Man and dragged him along until his clothes threatened to tear. That’s when Cow Man decided to behave himself . . .”
Many of Nyundo’s fans only half-believed the story, but it was all, in fact, true. Initially, Reverend Turnbull had decided the best way to salvage his reputation was to disassociate himself from McDonald and attempted to flee from the scene. There was no way a minister of the gospel would be part of a heathen ritual, no matter the cause. But as McDonald and his servant Nyundo dragged him along, Reverend Turnbull suddenly realized this was a God-sent opportunity to defend his Christian faith. He would preach to those heathens and challenge their ungodly ways. And so he decided to play along and carry on with McDonald’s suspect mission.
“I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ and I’m here to bear testimony that he is Lord and Savior,” Reverend Turnbull announced to the kaya elders, through a translator, when they arrived.
“Then you are in the right place, preacher. You are in the abode of our gods, the truly living gods,” one elder returned.
“Those are idols you are talking about. There is no other god than Him,” Reverend Turnbull snapped.
The kaya elder gave a laugh that sounded like cracking wood, sharp and dry, then turned to face Reverend Turnbull for the first time. “Do not be like the fool who quarreled with the river about the direction of its flow, and jumped in to disprove the obvious, and drowned.”
Reverend Turnbull kept quiet. McDonald shuffled and cleared his throat.
“Do you want to say something, my friend?” the kaya elder asked McDonald.
“Not at all,” McDonald said uneasily.
“All right then. What can I do for you?”
“We are here to atone for our sins and seek forgiveness from you,” McDonald explained in a clear voice. “We have brought you some goats.”
“It is good you have come,” the elder said quietly. “There is a small problem, though: you have trespassed our holy ground. No foreigner is allowed into the kaya. You have done it twice.”
“I perfectly understand,” McDonald said. Reverend Turnbull shot him a quizzical look. McDonald couldn’t tell if the preacher was troubled by the insinuation that he had accepted that the forest was a holy place.
“Very well. Very well,” said the elder quietly. “I shall receive your sacrifice. And since our people say we should never talk to a hungry man, we shall offer you something to eat.”
Two elders received the rams and led them away. The white ram was slaughtered and its blood was collected in a calabash. Some entrails were cleaned and beads of droppings were added into the mix. This was stirred into a fine paste. One kaya elder took a fly whisk and dipped it in the calabash and splashed its contents around the clear enclosure, chanting a song that was later picked by other elderly men who emerged from different corners of the sacred grove. They were nine in all, each representing a village, and had been freshly enthroned to join the kaya eldership. They wore bark clothes and hats made from colobus monkey skin. Their feet jangled when they walked to the beat of the soft drumming above their chants.
The carcass of the ram was unfurled, now spread-eagled with its skin pinned to the ground using wooden pegs. Small intestines were disentangled from the maze of spongy offal and stretched out. The tubular skin was knotted around the fig tree, serving as a protective charm against adversity. A fire was lit at the foot of the fig tree and meat placed for a slow roast. Ceremonial herbs and shrubs were thrown in and the smoke was dispersed using the fly whisk, sending it toward the top of the fig tree. The nine elders guided the youths, all of them animal naked, in swearing to protect their land and invoking their forebears to destroy them should they falter in their commitment.
McDonald sat stonily and stared ahead. Reverend Turnbull, overcome by this open idol worship, moved a few steps away and sunk to his knees. Initially, those assembled thought he was coughing from smoke inhalation. But he was actually praying and speaking in tongues.
That was the day Nyundo, who had been hired for the afternoon to beat his drum and lead the goats to the kaya, switched sides and declared he would work for the kaya elders and the community. He would use his drum to mobilize the community. The motivation for his actions, true to his character, remained debatable, although some whispered he had been emboldened by the Indian workers’ act of defiance against McDonald at Fort Jesus, and now the kaya showdown in which the elders had carried the day.
* * *
McDonald agonized over what to do next. He had attempted unsuccessfully to recruit local elders to serve as his chiefs. The same elders had humiliated him into dragging rams into the kaya, yet remained adamant that local youths would not work on the railway even if they were paid. This was because the elders saw the construction of the railway as a continuation of the slave trade. Not only was the railway cutting through the tracks used by slave traders, its shape also imitated a snake, just as local seer Me Katilili had predicted. Me Katilili was a direct descendant from the lineage of the great seer, Kajuma wa Kajuma, who long foretold the onset of men with soft hair and long faces who would scour the land with men yoked like cattle, a prophecy that many saw fulfilled with the arrival of Arab slave traders. Me Katilili had warned about a long silvery snake that would slither across the land, swallowing crops, man, and beasts to fill its large belly.
The kaya had become the centerpiece of the local resistance. And now, that very kaya which McDonald had initially thought he’d be able to count on, with the help of the elders, to mobilize the community for his own gain, was being used as a force against him and British interests.
McDonald shuddered at the thought of what he knew he had to do. He had done it in India, but there was no telling how things would turn out in East Africa. If his plans backfired, he would possibly be on the next ship back to England. What the natives needed is what his trainers at Sandhurst called short, sharp shock.
* * *
McDonald returned to the kaya under the cover of darkness, accompanied by fifteen policemen. The mangrove and the palm trees appeared conjoined, while thorns, thistles, and dry leaves covered the ground. To add to the eerie feeling about the forest was the sound of crickets and birds that fluttered around the massive trees.
It became so dark inside the forest, the policemen started grumbling and threatening to turn back. But most froze at the thought because they couldn’t even remember how they got there. The farther they walked, the louder the troop’s grumblings grew, but they continued on, feet blistered and hands lacerated by the thorns they had to clear to make their way. Only McDonald carried a gun, the rest had batons, coils of wire, and heavy equipment.
Eventually, the British troops came to a wide opening in the forest. There were several hundred young men, animal naked, bodies smeared with clay. They had clods of clay on their heads as well, which they later peeled off and threw into the bonfire. Smack in the middle were a dozen elderly men, hunched over a boiling pot.
The policemen secured the perimeter of the kaya quite quickly and ringed it with dynamite. Then they retreated to a safe distance and waited for McDonald to act. When he did, a flash of lightning lit the dark forest, followed by a clap of thunder. Those who survived would tell their children and their children’s children that they had never heard a louder blast. Others said they had never imagined that humans could possess such power as to cause lightning and thunder and literally uproot trees and hurl them into the air. Nyundo, who wi
tnessed it from a corner in the kaya, was so traumatized by the destruction that he lost his voice, so there was no one to marvel about the enormous power of mzungu, or even debate whether it was the cannon or the dynamite that caused the greater damage or made the louder blast. What was most evident was the deafening silence from the community, its fighting spirit momentarily crushed.
9
There was a big bang on the day Babu set foot in Nakuru in 1900. A cloak of darkness spread across the blue skies just as the morning sun was peeking through the clouds, just as the wild dogs were lifting their legs to urinate and shake off the heat of the night, just as the wazee in the villages were spreading their ox hides to bask in the sun, or smearing on shea butter to smooth out their wrinkles. Babu noticed the sudden change in the sky. He thought it was a rain cloud that would soon pass, but the oppressive heat did not offer any signs of rain. So many strange things had happened of late that his past knowledge appeared to bear little use to his current circumstances. He had walked from the desert where the sun penetrated from the head to the soles of the feet, to rain forests where torches were needed to illuminate the way—all in a matter of days. He and other railway workers had been on the road—if one might call the trek through the bush, valleys, rivers, and mountains that—for nearly three years. He did not keep a calendar, only slips of payroll that came every month. He had thirty-four slips the size of a palm, whose scribbling needed a palm reader to decipher. He could hardly tell where the sun rose or set. Even when he bowed in prayer, he relied on his faith that he was facing the right direction.
They were organized into gangs of two dozen men comprising African and Indian artisans, technicians, engineers, menial laborers, and carriers under the supervision of a British officer. The division of labor was strictly racial: the menial laborers and carriers were African; Indians did the technical work, the British supervised them all. Babu’s supervisor was Superintendent Patterson, a man with halting speech and rickety legs. But it was McDonald who handled workers’ wages. Every evening, Patterson, with his uneven gait, would confirm the yards covered by every worker and McDonald would enter the details in his small black book. He would calculate the yards not covered from those assigned, and work out the rupees that would be docked off a worker’s pay slip. The figure would then be multiplied by three so that the surcharge would be way above the corresponding wage for the day. Initially, workmen grumbled that this was plain theft, which was true in the case of Babu. McDonald secretly chopped a percentage of Babu’s wages in ways he could not detect. This was his retaliation for the trouble Babu had given him, and also his way of ensuring Babu kept out of mischief. A hungry man, McDonald reasoned, would be too absorbed by matters of survival to think of organizing others and foment labor unrest.
