Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

He did not glance round at Ambui, but he could hear her light footfall on the path behind him, and he knew that moonlight was flowing in a silver film over the smooth greased skin of her bare arms and shoulders, and that her eyes were soft as a gazelle’s. Mahenia’s homestead was dark and silent, save for a faint rustling in the thatched roofs that lay white as mushrooms under the moon. No one stirred when Ambui quietly pulled aside the woven door of Wanjiku’s hut. Muthengi looked quickly round him and encircled her waist with his arm, fumbling at the cord that secured her apron. The blood was pounding in his ears like a mortar. She tried to pull his hand away, but suddenly the strength of a lion flooded his limbs and he tightened his grip. Her hands plucked unavailingly at his arm. She was trembling, but whether with terror or desire he did not know. He pushed her forward into the hut and pulled the door to behind him.

  7

  THEY danced every night until the moon rose too late for dances and misty shadows no longer leaped behind them on the sweet-scented grass. Muthengi’s springs grew higher and lighter; when he came to earth his feet beat on the ground with the hollow sound of a porcupine’s stamp. Although he could no longer dance with Ambui nor touch her in public—that would have been indecent, now that they were lovers—all the time his song and his dance were for her, the long-necked and slender; he could feel her eyes glowing like hot charcoal upon him. A wild recklessness filled him, an exaltation that he had never known before. Strange fancies flew unbidden into his head, like weird-plumaged birds darting into a tree that was sometimes as tall as a mountain and at other times as small as a toadstool. For the first time he became conscious that his body had a life of its own; he could feel it itching and twitching quite independently, as though it were an animal and had nothing to do with him. Once he gazed at his hand in amazement, as if seeing it for the first time. He immediately realised that the hand was calling for the haft of a spear, as Ambui’s body now called for his after the dances, and he knew that the time had come for him to enter the warriors’ ranks.

  One matter was as bitter to him as the taste of the fruit ngaita, the medicine used against tapeworm: he, the most skilful dancer, the leader in song, was without rattles on his shapely legs, whilst other boys, worthless francolins fit only to scuttle away under his feet, came to the dance with these clattering ornaments strapped to their thighs by strips of hide decorated with beads and shells. In particular Irumu’s son Kabero, a vain, impertinent boy, aroused in Muthengi’s heart feelings of intense disdain and envy. Kabero was a slight, insignificant little creature to look at; but because his father was a rich man and could afford to give him expensive ornaments, he strutted about like a fat pigeon. His wit was nimble and his words darted like bee-eaters in and out of people’s ears.

  Muthengi knew him to be stupid and vain, so it was all the more annoying when girls sought his companionship and giggled at his sallies. No doubt they were fascinated by Kabero’s handsome rattles, by his expensively beaded belts and flashy bangles—girls were all fools, as easily dazzled as moles. Once Muthengi lost his temper with Ambui because she went off into gusts of laughter at some whispered remark of Kabero’s which Muthengi knew to be a thrust at him; and he beat her over the shoulders until she cried. That night she stayed in the forest homestead and refused to come to the dance. The rhythm seemed slow and ragged to Muthengi and when he jumped into the centre of the ring he danced so listlessly that a group of girls, friends of Kabero’s, laughed and taunted him with insults.

  “You sing of your manhood,” one of the girls called out, “but now we see that manhood only makes you tired. When we are circumcised we shall seek out warriors whose penis is not made of words.”

  “Perhaps Muthengi is a hyena, a hermaphrodite who copulates with himself,” Kabero shouted. His sally was greeted with a roar of laughter, and a flood of fury surged up in Muthengi’s throat. There was no more deadly insult than to be called a hyena, and to be openly taunted with the charge of self-abuse was almost as bad. He put his head down and charged blindly at Kabero, his arms whirling like flails. Several boys seized his arms and held him; three or four others came to his aid. Girls ran, screaming, out of danger. Several of the older boys started to belabour writhing backs with bundles of smouldering brushwood snatched from the fire. Kabero watched from the shadow of a bush, his teeth gleaming white as doves’ eggs in the moonlight. It was delightful to know that the swaggering, conceited bully Muthengi was at the bottom of the struggling heap. But soon three young warriors came striding along the path towards their own dance, and stepped aside to put an end to the brawl.

  8

  ALL that night Muthengi’s mind was filled with dark ideas concerning the vengeance he wanted to take upon Kabero. His legs were aching with bruises and a swollen cut over his eye throbbed steadily. It was all Kabero’s fault. Kabero was trying to outwit, to torment, perhaps to kill him. Kabero, with his rich, powerful father, his rattles, and all his finery. Shortly before dawn a plan came into his head, and then at last he slept.

  The following evening he walked down to join the group of boys who were painting themselves for the dance. When no eyes were on him he slipped away and hid himself in a clump of bushes by the path leading to Irumu’s homestead, a heavy club-headed stick ready by his side. The stars were hard as spear-points before he heard the sound for which he waited: the clattering of rattles approaching down the path. He waited until Kabero had almost passed him and then, with a low-pitched shout, flung himself on to the back of his enemy. Kabero flattened out without a sound. Muthengi lifted his club and thrashed the prostrate boy with all his strength; then he threw the club aside and kicked until his toes were bruised; but Kabero was limp and silent on the ground.

  Muthengi dropped to his knees and unfastened the straps that fixed the rattles to Kabero’s thighs and ankles. Although the pounding blood was clouding his eyes so that he could barely see, he managed to fasten the rattles to his own legs. Still Kabero did not stir. Panic began to curdle Muthengi’s mind. He ran down the path towards the dance at his topmost speed, the rattles clattering wildly on his legs. He had expected that their long-coveted music would be sweet in his ears, but instead the sound was full of menace, like the curses from a thousand sorcerers’ tongues.

  Next morning the sky was thick and overcast and all through the forenoon, while he hoed the forest shamba, Muthengi’s consternation grew. Why should the sun not shine to-day of all days, unless it was ashamed to look upon the evil that had been done? At last he could bear the suspense and guilt no longer. He wandered off, like a sick animal, to find a dark and lonely place to hide. Here Waseru found him, squatting on his heels by the stream.

  “ You, my son, speak to me,” Waseru said. His voice was high, and Muthengi saw that his arms were shaking with anger. “Is there truth in what they are saying in the homesteads of Irumu’s clan? Have you poured shame over the heads of the men of your clan? Have you indeed struck down one of your own age-grade as if he had been a wild pig, and drawn his blood ?”

  Muthengi’s shame was such that he could not raise his eyes to his father’s face. Waseru’s self-control dropped from him like a lizard’s tail; he spoke as no father should ever speak to his son.

  “Answer, you boy,” he shouted. “Tell me, are you indeed my son, or some monster sent to humiliate my clan?”

  Still Muthengi was unable to speak.

  “ Your silence has tongues,” Waseru said, his voice quivering with anger. “ I know now that you are a thief, and one who has drawn the blood of an elder’s son.”

  He lifted his arm and slapped Muthengi twice across the face with an open palm as hard as he was able. The blows sent the boy reeling, and as his shoulders hit the ground a red wave of anger surged over him like the bore of a river in spate. He leapt to his feet and shouted:

  “Yes, I am a thief, and how can I be otherwise, when my father denies me what all fathers give their sons ? Kabero has rattles on his legs and finery when he goes to dances, while I have nothing—nothing ! Now I am a
grown man, strong as a warrior, why am I not circumcised? Why do you treat me as if I were a boy like Matu, when I am a man?”

  “How can you speak thus to your father?” Waseru cried. “How can a boy who knows nothing of good behaviour talk of circumcision?” His anger burst out from his blood; he wrenched a whippy branch from the bush and started to belabour his son over the head and shoulders. Muthengi covered his face with his arms and stood his ground until his father’s anger wore itself out. Then Waseru threw the stick away and walked back without another word to the homestead.

  Muthengi stayed alone in the forest until sunset. When he came home, driven by cold and hunger, he went straight to the thingira and drew Kabero’s rattles out of the folds of an ox-hide. The skin of a freshly-slain he-goat was pegged out to dry in the compound. Waseru had already made a sacrifice, pouring blood and fat to appease the spirits of his ancestors for the serious crime of having struck his own son. For the son and the grandfather were as one person; Muthengi and Mahenia were mystically the same. In time Muthengi would himself have sons, who would perpetuate the spirit of Waseru; and to beat him was to insult a person who would one day be in the position of Waseru’s own father.

  Muthengi laid the rattles at his father’s feet without a word. Waseru was plaiting thin peeled sticks to make the walls of a new granary. Without looking at Muthengi he said :

  “Tomorrow I shall return the rattles to Irumu. I shall have to pay five goats, perhaps more. Kabero is injured in the head. Five goats gone as if a hyena had taken them, because of the foolishness of one of my clan, a thief.”

  Still Muthengi said nothing, but he did not go away.

  “I shall speak to Irumu to-morrow,” Waseru went on. “We shall discuss the amount of compensation. It is hard to talk of circumcision when I must pay all my goats away in fines.”

  Still Muthengi stood still, his eyes on the ground, his tongue silent.

  “I shall see Irumu to-morrow,” Waseru repeated. “ This is no case for the council of elders; private matters are not taken to the public meeting-place. It may be that we shall discuss other matters also, and that after the millet harvest a circumcision ceremony will be held.”

  CHAPTER VII

  The Circumcision

  1

  WHEN young millet dusted the earth with green the candidates for circumcision banded together to practise, in twos and threes, the steps of the traditional kuhura; and when the grain was knee-high they started to dance.

  Muthengi adorned himself under the expert eye of his uncle, Ngarariga, who, as a young man, naturally knew more of the latest fashion than Waseru. His chest, back and legs were coated with lime in traditional zig-zag patterns which, it was said, had been shown to the first Kikuyu man when he talked with God upon the peak of Kerinyagga. His thick, fuzzy hair was shaved and the shining pate painted with lime and decorated with a strip of monkey fur. Waseru had traded honey and tobacco at the market for a rattle like Kabero’s, and a servalcat skin which hung down over the buttocks like a woman’s apron. Muthengi wore a cape of black and white Colobus monkey pelt, and strips of colobus fur were tied below his knees and ankles. Waseru had shaped him a wooden shield cut from a muringa tree, and on it he painted in red and white, with lime and ochre, a dog’s-tooth design belonging to his tribal group, one which his father had painted on his own shield when he, as a young man, had danced before his circumcision.

  For three months the candidates roamed the countryside in their finery, pausing to sing and to dance the kuhura whenever they reached an open and convenient space. They danced on the outskirts of markets, and women applauded loudly with trills. They danced before the homesteads of rich men of their father’s age-grade, whose wives brought them out food on platters. Wherever they went people greeted them with shouts of welcome and gave them hospitality, for they were privileged people: the young men soon to gain full membership of the tribe, the youths whose bravery would repulse attack and whose fertility would ensure the future of the race.

  At last the millet was gathered in and a meeting of fathers was held to fix the circumcision day. The ceremony would set Waseru’s feet, no less than those of his son, upon a new path. Now he must cease to be a warrior, a young man, to wear his hair in greased and ochred plaits. His head must be shaved, and with the shorn hair he must bury his youth and gaiety, the privilege of dancing with the warriors, the duty of springing to arms when the war-horn sounded. He must pay two goats to join the senior elders’ council whose members ordered ceremonies, judged cases, and kept the peace; he would be privileged, for the first time, to drink beer. Into his keeping would pass many closely guarded secrets, and as a sign of his rank he would carry a polished mungirima staff and a fan of leaves and wear spiral metal ornaments in his ears.

  2

  THE fathers’ meeting elected Irumu as master of ceremonies, the mathanjuki. He fixed his eyes upon the sun, calling to memory the position of the moon—a young moon threw harmful influences over such an event—and said:

  “My son Kabero shall be circumcised in eight days. On the day before, the mambura festival shall be held by the sacred fig-tree on the slope above the stream at Wathakumu. Let all whose sons and daughters are candidates see that the youths and maidens are prepared.”

  The next few days were busy with preparations for great feasts to be held at Irumu’s, to be presided over by the mathanjuki and his senior wife, the circumcision-mother. Gourds of beer, millet gruel, and bunches of bananas were brought to the homestead, together with communally purchased fattened he-goats. For each candidate a sponsor was chosen, and for ever afterwards this man and his wives would stand in the relationship of parents to the boy concerned. Waseru chose for Muthengi the muramati’s son Gacheche, a steady-going, reliable man likely to be a faithful ally in case of trouble. Over the entrance to Irumu’s homestead an arch of poles and branches was built, surmounted with a bundle of sugar-canes. No one could enter the homestead without walking through this arch, and it was so constructed that if a sorcerer should pass beneath it, his medicines would immediately lose their evil power.

  In a hut built for the candidates in the bush, nervous tension grew as taut as the head of a drum. The boys roamed the bush with dry throats and burning eyes, knowing that the last days of childhood were falling away one by one, like stones dropped into a deep pool. A new life, bright as a sword and wide as the sky, was opening in front of them. Very soon they would be men, with all the powers and joys of war and killing, of sex and procreation, laid open to their grasping.

  On the third day, and every day after that, Irumu came to instruct them in things that must be known to men; and at the same time his wife, the circumcision-mother, fulfilled the same office for the girls.

  3

  IRUMU taught them the history of their people and the behaviour which each tribal group must observe or shun. He recited the long list of things which brought thahu, and explained how the sickness which followed could only be averted by the slaughter of a goat. He talked of the virtues with which a man should be invested, of how he should be at all times dignified and quiet, disdaining to raise his voice in anger like a child, or to display the foolish emotions of impatience, rowdiness or fright. To assert a claim or an opinion stridently was to insult the listener by assuming him to be unjust or stupid. While quick to avenge a deliberate slight, he should be ready always to forgive an injury that did not arise from malice. If a man offended him and, realising his error, proffered in silence a bead torn from his cloak, or a small ornament from his person, the gift should be at once accepted as a sign of pardon.

  Above all, the virtue most to be cultivated was that of industry, for without industry no person could become rich. A man should be industrious in husbandry, clearing bush and breaking new land, protecting crops from wild animals, caring for livestock so that it would increase. He should be industrious in war, keeping his body trained to hardships and his weapons keen and bright. He should be industrious in observance of the law and in respect fo
r custom, so that the continuity of the tribe might flow from generation to generation and the spirits of ancestors be at peace.

  The duties of manhood, Irumu continued, were many; but supreme among them were the defence of the country and the procreation of children. If ever there came a generation who failed to carry out these duties, the Kikuyu people would perish like a plant which bears no seed and which is choked by weeds of greater strength. Warfare was like an axe, of which courage was the iron head and cunning the wooden handle. Just as the head of an axe was useless without a handle to wield it, so bravery was of no avail without strategy and wit; but as a handle without a head could fell no trees, so a cunning plan would fail unless it was joined to an army of fearless men obedient to their leader.

  4

  AS to the other responsibility, Irumu continued, it was the duty of every man to beget as large a number of children as the fertility of his wives would permit, so that his clan might multiply and his ancestors continue their earthly existence in another shape. In marriage the woman’s duty was to obey her husband at all times, to cultivate the land, and to cook and brew; but the husband, also, had duties towards his wife. He must find her land to cultivate, break it for seed, provide her with a dwelling, see that she was well clad and protect her from magic. Should he fail in these duties his wife might return to her father, and if the council upheld her complaints the undutiful husband would lose entirely the bride-price that he had paid.

  He must satisfy, also, her sexual desires, or else his wife would leave him for another man. In this she would very likely be upheld by the council; moreover, a man clumsy in love would be derided by his contemporaries and become the constant butt of jokes. Such technique, like all others, had to be learnt; and Irumu gave the candidates detailed instructions. After a child was born no man must lie with his, wife until she had ceased to suckle the baby, four seasons after its birth, for no woman’s strength could suffice to nourish at one time a child in the womb and a child at the breast. If a man lay with his wife too early, and her milk fell upon him, he would fall sick and sterility would afflict his cows and she-goats. Nor must he lie with her when the thahu of death lay on the homestead, nor when a cow was about to calve (lest the woman beget a calf instead of a human baby), nor when food was cooking in the pot, nor on many other prescribed occasions.