Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  He warned them further that union between unmarried boys and girls was forbidden. If a child was born out of wedlock both would suffer disgrace and ridicule; all the youths must avoid the girl at dances, lest her milk contaminate them. Each girl to be circumcised with them would be given an underapron by her mother, who would say: “Remember now that this apron is for your protection, as a boy’s shield is for his. Keep it tied always around your waist. If a young man tries to remove it he is an evil youth to be avoided, for you are the wealth of your father and he who would plunder you is like a thief.” No youth must force his love upon one who was unwilling, but he might lie with the girl of his fancy in her bed and do all that was necessary to excite her passions and satisfy his own provided that he did not untie the apron that her mother had given her. In this way young men would learn how to bring pleasure to women and would gauge also the depth of their love before goats were paid; for it was wise to remember, Irumu said, the truth of the saying: “It is only when the spear is forged that it has notches.”

  Lastly, he adjured them, the ceremony in which they were about to take part would unite all those who were circumcised together with a tie that nothing in their future lives could break.

  “Such men,” Irumu said, “will be as brothers. Each youth must give help to anyone of his circumcision-age who is in need; and he must do none of his fellows an injury. If a man of your circumcision-age comes to your homestead, you must welcome him as you would welcome a son of your own mother; and should he wish to lie with his circumcision-brother’s wife, you must yield him your place in her bed. A man may be compared to a strand of silk within a spider’s web. No thread can hang alone; each is linked with its fellows to make a whole. Thus some threads link a man to his father, to his father’s clan and to his ancestors; and others bind him to his circumcision-brothers. Different ties unite him to the elders who rule the country and administer the law. All these threads came together to form a web, and that web is the Kikuyu people. So long as all the threads hold together, the web is strong and serves its purpose; but whenever a strand snaps, the web is weakened. Therefore, although the strength of every man comes from his unity with his people, yet also the people draws its strength from every individual. So a man must fulfil his obligations as readily as he uses his privileges; so he must fight with courage and labour with devotion; so he must beget children and respect the elders; and in all things he must act with justice and obey the law.”

  5

  ON the flattened crest of a soft-sloping ridge stood a small fig-tree whose trunk forked not far above the ground; and here, on the seventh day, a great crowd assembled for the mambura. Warriors whose heavy pig-tails pulled back their heads until their chins were tilted forward rubbed shoulders with quiet, shaven-headed elders and with chattering women so excited that they could not keep still. Loud-voiced njamas kept the spectators back by brandishing long canes. Soon the clattering of rattles was heard and the candidates appeared in a body, painted and hung about with ornaments, resplendent in tall head-dresses made of feathers.

  In the circle kept clear by the njamas they started to dance. As the sun mounted the sky the pace quickened until the ground shook beneath stamping feet and the air vibrated with rhythmic song. Women applauded with continuous trills, sometimes bursting into song in praise of sons and clans. Within the same circle, but in a separate group, Ambui and the girl candidates danced, hung about with beads and shells like the boys, and with rattles on their legs.

  When signs of exhaustion began to appear, the sponsors came forward and gave to each candidate a stick to which the tail of a Colobus monkey was tied. The dance resumed its frenzy and then, at a sign from Irumu, the boys drew back a little from the sacred fig-tree and one by one hurled their sticks between the forked branches. With a shout they fell upon the tree as if it had been an enemy. Like monkeys they clambered into its branches and tore down handfulls of twigs and leaves which they handed to their mothers, sisters and aunts, who leaped like klipspringers around the tree. Instead of stakes the girls threw rough belts of bark which were picked up by a small girl at the other side of the tree and broken in two, lest a sorcerer should use them to injure the owners.

  That evening a great feast was held at Irumu’s homestead for the parents and relations of the candidates. Gourd after gourd of hot, sour beer was drunk, platters loaded with food were handed round, and loud-voiced rejoicing proceeded far into the night.

  6

  MUTHENGI and his fellows danced until late in front of their temporary hut. When their parents came to call them before dawn they were waiting, taut-nerved, for the great ordeal. First their fathers blessed them by sprinkling beer over their bodies with a branch of the mukenya bush. Then, taking a mouthful of the beer, they spat out with the liquid all the insults and disrespect that, unwittingly or in angry moments, they had offered to their sons since birth. The procession set out in the darkness, singing with great bravado, to the river that ran below Irumu’s homestead. On the bank they halted while all their clothes, their ornaments, their rattles, and everything that they wore were stripped from them. Then, naked in the pale starlight, they ran swiftly into the river and waded out until the water clasped their waists. Although its grip was icy they felt nothing, for inside them a great fire burnt, and their heads were dizzy as if with honey-beer. They splashed water over their bodies with stiffened arms, chanting in unison the circumcision song. The sound echoed down the valley to scare shy duikers from night-shrouded shambas and waken the startled birds.

  Dawn had blunted the fine points of the stars when they marched in single file up the hillside, singing with a rhythm steady as the beat of a tranquil heart. Behind them pressed a crowd of eager spectators. Everyone halted on an open pasture on the crest of the ridge, and presently shouts and trills heralded the arrival of the girls. They took up their position a little way off. Suddenly the first arm of sunlight touched the bush-cloaked hillside across the river, and every shrub and tree sprang into the sharp outline of light and shade. The grave-faced Gacheche stepped out of the crowd and took his stand behind his ward. Muthengi sat down on the ground with his legs stretched out in front. Gacheche handed him the bunch of leaves torn from the fig-tree on the previous day and he seated himself upon them in a position where they would catch the blood. His face was taut and set, as expressionless as a mask. Ranged in a line beside him were the other boys and, after a gap, the girl candidates, who were seated between the supporting legs of their women sponsors.

  A few moments later a shout went up from the spectators and the boys’ circumcisor came into view. He was an old, wizened man, famous for his skill in operations. He was dressed in full regalia, with many rattles on his shrivelled legs, his face framed in a tall head-dress of ostrich plumes. A deep expectant silence fell upon the crowd. The candidates gazed steadily ahead, seeing nothing. The circumcisor walked slowly up to the first boy and drew a knife from a leather bag on his arm. Without further preliminaries he bent over, cut the foreskin with a few deft slashes, and pinned it back with a thin skewer. Blood spurted, but the boy did not wince; his face, closely watched by peering spectators for a twitch of pain, remained impassive. His sponsor quickly threw the boy’s cloak over his head and body, and the circumcisor passed on.

  Muthengi’s turn came quickly and by no sign did he betray the pain of the knife. But the boy after him was less brave. His face contorted as the knife slashed and a low whimper escaped his throat. A deep derisive groan went up from the crowd. One of the warriors laughed loudly and called out an insult. He was silenced by a njama, and a cloak was thrown quickly over the boy’s head. But no cloak could hide his humiliation, or protect him from the future ridicule of his fellows. He had publicly displayed cowardice and his shame would pursue him for the rest of his life.

  At the same time an old woman operated upon the girls. The arms and legs of the candidates were pinned down by their sponsors so that they could not move, but they, like the boys, bore without flinching the pai
n that seared their nerves when the circumcisor, with a flick of the knife, amputated the clitoris and then, with two more slashes, the lips of flesh on either side. A convulsive shiver passed through Ambui’s body when she felt the knife, but she did not cry out nor lose control of the muscles of her face. Blood spurted from the wound, and the woman circumcisor quickly plugged it with a small strip of greased leather. Then a crowd of chattering women gathered round to praise her loudly for her courage. Now they welcomed her unreservedly into Waseru’s clan and she, a stranger, was no longer without kin.

  7

  THE ceremonies that followed lasted many days. The boys retreated into a shelter specially built for them, and the girls to their mothers’ huts; but fathers and sponsors met at Irumu’s on the morning after the operation to drink the beer for the eating of the fat ram. Next day came the beer for the shaving of the candidates, and a ceremonial shaving was performed under the direction of the circumcision-mother. The boys’ heads were scraped as smooth as eggshells, care being taken to burn every scrap of hair as a precaution against witchcraft, and Irumu blessed the youths by sprinkling on their heads and navels a mixture of the stomach contents of a goat and honey-beer.

  He had barely finished when the peel of bells was heard approaching, and two men came into sight. One, an elder, wore an iron bell fixed to each leg and a ring of smaller bells around his ankles. Behind walked a tall youth carrying a long yellow gourd, encircled with strings of shells and covered with pictures and designs. A shout of welcome went up when the crowd saw the old man, for the bells proclaimed him to be a wandering troubadour, and the object in the young man’s hand was the gechande, a rattle inscribed with a key to the verses of the troubadour’s song. Irumu spat upon his hand and offered it to the troubadour, thus signifying his trust; for by giving to another a fragment of his body, the spittle, he placed himself at the stranger’s mercy. The visitors were given meat and beer and then the troubadour took his rattle and started to sing. Many of the verses were meaningless to his listeners, yet the rhythm held them enthralled. The words were mainly traditional; each troubadour spent many years in learning them from a fellow-singer. Other verses were topical, invented by the minstrel as he roamed the country over, singing at markets and circumcision feasts, carrying news and stories over the ridges from one end of the land to another, and back again. The elders shook their heads when this troubadour sang of the coming of locusts, in great brown swarms, to devour the millet, and of how the leader of warriors Kaheri had called out his men to resist them, but in vain. Because boys had helped to fight the insect invaders, the troubadour sang that the new circumcision-age had been called Ngege, meaning locusts; and it was by this name that Muthengi’s age became known.

  On the last day of feasting the beer for the breaking of the branches was drunk. Next morning the arch of shrubs and sugar-cane fixed over the entrance to Irumu’s homestead was destroyed. That same day the boys returned to their fathers’ homesteads and their temporary hut was burnt down by the elders. Muthengi’s sponsor led him home, and his parents came out to greet him. Waseru marked his nose, chest and feet with white chalk and Wanjeri smeared him all over with castor oil. A small goat was presented to him as a compounded fine for all the occasions when Waseru had spoken roughly to him as a boy. That night he slept in the thingira, for he had become a man.

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Notched Spear

  1

  WHEN Muthengi’s wound was healed he begged from his mother a gourd of beer and from his father a small goat. Now that he was a warrior a set of weapons must be made, and for this he must buy iron at the market. As soon as Wanjeri had made a small brew of beer she carried it over to a smith who lived near the iron workings on the Chania river, and Muthengi broached the matter of a sword and spear.

  The smith was a squat man with broad shoulders and a sullen look. There were many bangles on his arms and fine chains of his own making on his ankles. He started by asking such a ridiculous amount of iron and charcoal for the job that Mutheng knew he was trying to cheat. Bargaining went on until the sun was overhead, and at last Muthengi succeeded in beating him down to a reasonable amount. He felt well satisfied; no doubt about it, he was a shrewd man of business as well as a fearless warrior.

  “I wish to have the weapons,” he demanded, “before the moon, which was full two days ago, is dead.”

  Before the smith could answer, Wanjeri, who had been sitting quietly against a wall of the hut apparently asleep, intervened. Her voice was shrill and indignant.

  “On no account agree to such a ridiculous bargain!” she commanded her son. “Do you not see that this smith is taking advantage of your youth and ignorance?”

  Muthengi was furious at her interruption; but because she was his mother he could not speak sharply to her. The smith looked at her sourly and asked:

  “Can it be that among your clan women sit on the council of justice while men suckle infants?”

  “Can it be that in your forge the iron for five spears makes only one?” Wanjeri retorted.

  The smith’s looks grew even more sullen, for he hesitated to insult an elder’s wife. Muthengi’s nervousness increased. All that he had heard of the potency of smiths’ curses came into his head.

  “I shall bring half the quantity you mention,” he announced, “and you shall make the spear first. If there is sufficient iron over, the sword shall be forged at once. If not, I will bring more.”

  The smith agreed reluctantly to the compromise and sealed the contract by accepting the beer. In the next few days Muthengi exchanged a small goat from his father’s flock for several lumps of iron and then, with Waseru’s help, felled a mukoiigo tree from the forest, chopped it into lengths and burnt it into charcoal in a roughly built clay kiln. Another brew of beer was made, and on the appointed morning he set out for the smith’s dwelling followed by Wanjeri with a full gourd of beer; Ambui, crouching like a frog under a heavy load of charcoal; and his circumcision-mother, who bore lumps of iron ore wrapped in banana leaves.

  2

  THE smith’s forge was a round hut without walls. In the centre was a hollow where a small fire of charcoal glowed, kept hot by the smith’s son, who worked the bellows. He raised each arm in turn to fill two goatskin lungs whose ends were united in a single clay nozzle. The bellows’ song was like the breathing of a sick sheep. The visitors sat down outside the forge to watch the forging, for Wanjeri had warned her son to see the whole process . performed under his eye. Smiths were notoriously sharp; if they were not closely supervised they would claim that the iron had been poorly smelted, that half of it was sand and that fresh supplies were needed.

  No member of Muthengi’s tribal group might work in iron, and he observed the process a little nervously. Iron was a dangerous and unpredictable thing : half alive, half dead. On haft or handle it lay inert and rigid, but under the hand of a smith it would grow supple and steal colour from the heart of the fire. Iron alone could burn without destruction, and he had heard it talking angrily with water. Just as it could command life or death within itself at will, so could it wield powers of life and death over its users. A thrust of the spear could drive life from the body, yet as man’s servant the knife tilled the soil and gave him sustenance. Smiths, who knew the secret of controlling iron, possessed a magic derived from its mysterious power which they could direct against their enemies. They were men with whom it was best not to quarrel.

  By evening the spear was finished. Its haft was smooth and slender and its grooved blade wide and sharp. Muthengi weighed it in his hand, balanced it above his head and made as if to hurl it many times before he was satisfied. A spear was like a wife; it must wear for many seasons and do its work well. There was iron enough over for a sword, so he arranged to bring another gourd of beer the following day for its forging. He led the three women home in silence, but his heart was singing with the joy of handling, for the first time, his own spear.

  3

  NOW that he was a young man a
great change came over Muthengi’s life. He was concerned no longer with his father’s goats. His task was to herd the cattle of richer men, to protect them from lions and raids, and to keep himself in constant readiness for battle if ever the horn of war should sound over the ridges.

  Senior warriors, seasoned in battle, held the office of njama. These men formed the council of war, which was in charge of the defence of the district and which alone could send parties of warriors out to raid. The chief of this council, elected by his fellows, was a warrior called Nduini. He was known as a steady, upright man of common sense, a careful general, and one who never lost his head. There were some who said that his caution was greater than his courage. The newly-circumcised considered that age had deprived him of his dash and that a younger man should take his place; but youths of the newest age grades could not sit on the council of war.

  Only the richer men owned cattle. Their herds were driven to the edge of the plain for grazing—unless, of course, the Masai were reported within a day’s journey of the Amboni river. The cattle must also be driven frequently to a salt-lick, of which there were three within reach: Iruri, Gethwini and Wamurogi (so called because it was near the homestead of a poisoner who, after conviction for several murders, had been tied up in banana leaves and burnt to death). The largest salt-lick, Iruri, lay at the foot of the hill Niana, where the green hilly forests of the Kikuyu flattened out into the brown treeless plain of the nomad Masai. Iruri was a somewhat risky place to take the cattle, but of late there had been no Masai on the plain and Kikuyu stock were grazing right down to the Amboni, which lay definitely within the Masai sphere. The council of war aimed at keeping half the available force of warriors on guard over the cattle and half off duty in their homes, ready to assemble at the sound of the war-horn to repulse a raid.