by Robi, Carol
“I don’t remember her being such a child when I saw her,” father says with hidden meaning, and I then know he’s talking about Matinde and not her younger sister, who’s name I don’t even know.
“She isn’t his youngest daughter,” I inform father.
“Oh.. I didn’t know.. oh yes, there’s that other one. The timid one. Is she out now?”
“She is.”
“Oh.. I could have sworn she looked to be in her ninth cycle when we attended my sister’s wedding,” father says thoughtfully, attempting to recall.
“She still looks like a child,” I reassure him. “And acts even more like one,” I can’t help but add hotly.
Father’s eyes study me deeply. I’m not too sure what he’s thinking about.
“I thought you said she’s yet a child. I assume by that you mean her body?” I nod.
“You’re paying an awful lot of attention to a child.”
“It’s not like that, father. She’s princess Matinde’s sister.”
“Ok.. now I get it,” father says, winking at me, his easy smiling face back on. “You’re warming up to the rest of the family.”
“I guess,” I say shrugging.
“You guess? I thought you liked the Bagumbe princess!”
“I do, but.. It’s not definite with princess Matinde yet,” I say, confusing the older man some more.
“Just what isn’t definite, son? I don’t understand you? She’s from an agreeable family, is quite something to look at, and seems to keep you on your toes with her wits,” father reasons with me.
“It’s.. it’s just not enough,” I say, not knowing what else to say to explain myself.
His eyes are heavy and hooded as they study me, and we remain silent for a long while.
“Why isn’t it..”
“Father!”
“Don’t get defensive, son. I just wish to better understand you.”
“She’s perfect for me,” I say listlessly.
“And isn’t that good enough?”
“It should be,” I say.
“Then what is it that has you on the fence?”
“I’m not sure, father. It’s- it feels almost predestined. I feel- like a yoked ox. Someone has put a yoke on me, and is forcing me to wed her..”
“Nobody is forcing you to wed her,” father quickly puts in. “There’s about a hundred unattached maidens in Nyabasi alone, and five times as many in all the four brother kingdoms combined. There’re many to choose from..”
“And yet princess Matinde is the most suitable of them all!”
“That she is,” father says after pausing for a while. “But you know I wouldn’t object if you settle your eyes on another.”
“I know, father. I know. I just wish there was yet another that my eyes would fall upon, just as suitable. It’s highly likely that after two or three more meretis, I might just ask you to visit your brother king to the west and negotiate for my marriage proposal to his daughter, princess Matinde.”
“Then we shall wait until the time comes. As for now, you go ahead and warm yourself up by dancing with those young ripe maidens over there.”
We both laugh heartily at this as I rise, glad that I might go and flirt, rather than spend anymore time talking about my responsibilities of marrying young and providing the kingdom with a promise of stable continuity by begetting sons.
Chapter 10
The dry summer is upon us, with it the warm winds blowing from the great west lake, Raego. The grass has started warming up in colour, as well as thinning away, as its leaves seek to hide themselves from the sun that is now only going to get warmer and warmer. Our farms are beginning to yellow now, the endless fields of cereal and cassava changing colour from a sea of green to that of the pale yellow sands on the shores of the pride lake. All are waiting in anticipation for what the warm weather brings, what it means to us.
The dry summer has always been my favourite season of all. It’s the season I spent my childhood outside, weaving alongside my mother, as she and my sister-in-laws sung heartily away. We would weave mats or baskets, or smoothen snakeskins and shred them into skirts that we Bakoria people typically wear around our waists. After weaving all there is to weave, we’d set out with pottery and cleaning out gourd plants so as to make new gourds to store water, drinks or seeds in. Mother would show me how to cut the gourds in half longitudinally so as to make what we call a calabash. Calabashes have wide openings, and are great to drink milk, soup or porridge from. It’s also from calabashes that we drink wine and millet mead from, or use to scoop water from water pots and tanks.
I enjoy what comes next a lot, which is decorating the new gourds and calabashes with dark paints and using hot wires to engrave them. My second eldest sister-in-law, my brother Wambura’s wife, used to be a Bairege. Which means she’s especially good with such handcrafts. It’s from her that I’ve learnt to make the most delicate of patterns on calabashes, and have perfected the art of mixing different paints to produce the various colours I wish.
This dry summer season starts differently though, for my eyes fly open to a painful back pain and a stickiness between my legs.
I leave my bed and walk out of the inner room of the house I share with my two sisters. It’s still dark outside, so I opt to remain by the outer room, and stroke the fire back alive, despite the heat in here. It’s not as cold as the past days have been. I light a torch, and putting my hand between my feet, I retrieve it and hold it against the torch.
My assumptions were right- I have started bleeding for the goddess. She’s started demanding children from me.
The thought depresses me, but I do not waste time in feeling around the corner of this outer room for my bleeding pot. My fingers find it, tracing the engravings on it’s side that let me know it’s mine, and I hold it to me as I walk out, keeping one hand in between my legs the whole time so as to stop the blood drops from staining the river stone floor.
We were trained on what we ought to do when this happens during our initiation period. Each time the goddess causes me to bleed as a demand for children, I’m to sit on my bleeding pot on the porch of my house. Any man that sees me there knows not to demand of anything from me. I’m not to rise from the pot until all bleeding stops. I’m to sit there all day, and before the fire on the outer room of my house all night. My family is to bring food to me, and carry out all my chores while I’m so divinely laboured.
When my mother wakes this morning and goes to the kitchen, she’s surprised to see that I haven’t lit the fire. It’s most probably why she knows to come check on me on this other end of the kingstead.
Her eyes widen with surprise, and then pride, when she sees my small figure sitting on the wide black pot. By the time she makes it to right outside the maiden house, her face is covered by a wide smile.
“Mother, my queen,” I say to her, bowing my head.
“Daughter, my princess,” she hastily says. “You’ve truly become a woman,” she adds proudly.
“It would seem so, mother,” I tell her.
She then catches sight of my still bloody hands, and reaches for the gourds of water arranged beside our washing basin and moves to clean my hands for me. I stretch my fingers, looking away as she washes the blood off.
“Are you in pain?” She asks.
“No,” I lie.
“Eating will help ease it,” she tells me, looking past the lie. “It always helps me and your sisters.”
“Then I should like to try it, mama,” I say.
The girls inside must have heard us, though we speak low, for soon their heads are peeping from behind the door. I turn around so as to catch the baffled faces of my sisters.
“She bleeds!” Weigesa exclaims happily.
“She does,” mother answers proudly.
“So you are indeed a woman,” Matinde says cruelly, but I see a twinkle of pride in her eyes. “I’m happy for you, sister,” she adds kindly, surprising all of us. “Let’s now hope your breasts reme
mber to grow..” she starts to spoil her moment of kindness.
“Matinde!” Mother and Weigesa now exclaim simultaneously. But Matinde just looks on amused. I’m not as offended by Matinde’s words today as they seem to think. There is a pain far worse now that won’t go away, from my lower back. Mother must have seen me wince right then.
“I’ll get you something to warm your stomach,” she says, before rushing away.
“And I’ll soak your soiled beddings with extracts from the foam tree,” Weigesa tells me kindly, before rushing back inside.
“And I’ll see to it that the whole family remains fed,” Matinde says sullenly, stepping out of our maiden house.
One never really realizes just how long a day is until they have nothing to do. Sitting out here, far removed from the main busy area of our home, that is the area between the kitchen, the royal gooti, and our animal sheds, all I have to keep me entertained is myself.
At first I start to sing. I sing all songs I know for all our seasons, and then the songs we sing at our holy feasts, the Mbura and the Mereti. I then sing various songs I know for different occasions, whose words I can remember. Like the songs for children’s naming ceremonies, or wedding songs, working songs and war songs, victory songs and prayer songs. I run out of a voice to sing, before I run out of songs.
The night is even worse than the day. I sit all night on the pot, before the warm fire in the outer room of our maiden gooti. Its licking flames are my only entertainment. I can’t sing now as my sisters are sleeping.
What kind of punishment is this, goddess? I think to myself. Why must I go through it? Why we women, and not men? I cannot begin to fathom a lifetime spent like this. I’m already looking forward to the day I shall be an old woman unable to bleed at least once before every new moon as I now will have to.
However my bleeding soon comes to an end. A total of three days and two nights, something that seems to displease my mother, but is very welcomed to me. She fears that I bleed too light, and in too few days. In our initiation, we’d been informed that the longer a woman bleeds, the more fertility the goddess blesses her with. I’m fine enough with the way things are, as I do not want to be like Chacha’s wife- pregnant with a new child as soon as I’ve delivered another. I doubt I’d make a good mother, for I know I’d make a terrible wife. So the fewer children I have, the better. I’ll just need to birth my husband at least two sons and one daughter, and then I’ll be done.
My husband? Now that’s a thought to shrivel up my insides.
As our crops keep warming up in colour in our farms, and our grass is once again a warm yellow and delicious to our livestock, the topic on all my peers minds is the beginning of what we young people call the party season.
All the girls in my saro have spent the lengthy long rains season shining the gemstones on their necklaces and making themselves more snakeskin skirts in preparation for the season. I’m the only one that feels strongly against it. I never thought I’d ever say this before, but I miss the long rains season already.
I must say I’m very happy with my new skills. I have perfected the art of hiding away in plain sight. The afternoons at Pride Lake are back on. I manage to convince my peers that we arrive early at the lake, and thereby have the chance to mingle with the warriors that arrive earliest. What they don’t know is that this affords me time to arrive at the lake before everyone else and hide away in the water, to avoid others looking at me and judging me because I’m growing much slower than all other girls my age. I’m unable to convince them to be the last to leave, however, as we all have chores to do back home- helping with the children and the last meal for our families.
I spend most of those afternoons immersed in water, hiding away by one of the many large rocks in the lakes, while my peers swim around it, or sit on it and the neighbouring ones, basking under the sun and flirting away with the young muras around.
When the night parties begin, I find that hiding away behind stacks of gourds of millet mead and banana wine and watching as the party unrolls makes the whole event bearable.
Soon the number of parties dwindle again, as families begin their preparations for the main harvests. I help around home with the repairing of our silos, in preparation to store our harvest this season. The hard work doesn’t stop when the stretching fields of millet in the kingdom turn a warm golden brown, and the harvesting begins. Back breaking work sees to it that the various silos are filled with grains and cassava. We unmarried girls, maidens and children, are protected from any hard work that will roughen our hands before we are married. We are thereby relegated to drying the millet and cassavas over weaved mats, while our parents and relatives all labour away in the farms. The rest of the time is spent in the kitchens cooking for the labouring family, or looking after the young ones.
The main harvesting period is a very busy time for us Bakoria people, but we revel in the work for we know that the rest of the season is to be spent in cheerful humour and happy feasts.
This is to be my fourteenth mereti, and it is a beautiful one indeed. I put on the costume of a blossomed cotton flower to thank the gods for the budding cotton fruit that was my costume during the Mbura festival, a feast we held for the gods to bless our sown crops after the main planting season.
The difference between the main planting season and the other one during the short rains is not only measured with the abundance of our harvested produce, but also by the variations of it. This is the season when not only food crops but also cash crops such as cotton and glue-sap bushes are grown, which when harvested, are to be traded with neighbouring kingdoms.
It’s also important for me to mention that this shall be my first time to be allowed to attend the international markets. The largest is the one my father’s kingdom hosts fifteen days after the Mereti festival. The Western Bagumbe Market is a four days’ sight in itself, held on the western front of my father’s kingdom, and is attended by the wealthiest of merchants in the region.
Until now, all I’ve heard are stories about it, narrated by my father and brothers, and even my mother, when I eventually coax it out of her. My sisters have been tight lipped about their experiences there each time I asked, clearly wanting me to find out by myself when I’d come of age. I am finally of age now, having crossed over from childhood into maidenhood upon my initiation.
My peers have been talking about it for days, and for once I’m on the same side with them. This is something I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while.
My brothers and their wives roll up the extra food harvest and cash crops and tie them into carriages in preparation for the journey. Being that the royal home is the westernmost section of the kingdom, arising from the Bakoria tradition than the king is the first line of defence against enemies. It is also from this tradition that were my father not past forty five, he’d lead his army to war, in the first attack line. My brother, Chacha, currently holds that honor, in place for my father. The idea causes me to shudder each time, for the last thing I want to imagine is my brother in the first line against an enemy attack. His chances of survival in the first line of attack are very low, and Chacha is the closest person to me after my parents.
I ride in the back of one of my father’s carts, the one bearing all the dried game meat my brothers and nephews have been hunting in the Northern Plainlands, before the harvesting season begun. The Migo people are particularly fond of wild game meat, but not great trekkers or hunters to get it themselves. In exchange, they give us the iron their land is richly filled with, the iron we need to make steel for our weapons and cartwheels.
We also trade our farm produces with our richer Northern neighbours, the Maigi and the Moreno, who give us gold, gemstones and horses in exchange. The Maigi and Moreno leave in very arid areas adjacent to the northern desert. They are very wealthy kingdoms, with mines of various gemstones and much coveted and lucrative markets with long distant traders from the far North and East past the great desert. It is from those foreigners that
they get the horses we Bakoria people love to cross-breed with our better seasoned wild zebras that our warriors capture from the vast Northern Plainlands.
I have heard descriptions of our various neighbours that speak other languages different from ours, look different from us, behave differently and even have different gods. I’ve heard of the Migo people, the gentle stocky people that will never grow taller than I currently am. A calm hard working people that live off fishing and wild berries, and spend their days mining their rich iron ores in their ancestral land that my people have promised to protect from invasion by other more ambitious kingdoms, for the price of abundant supply of iron each dry summer season. A people so gentle, that had it not been for the four brother kingdoms’ protection, they’d never have maintained their ancestral homeland. Not this long. Not with the revolutionisation of warfare, the violent turn the world has taken these past few generations, according to the conversations I overhear in the royal gooti when I serve food and drink to the kingdom’s high council meetings.
Other kingdoms in the region have been trying to move into Migo lands ever since the Migo begun trading the very much coveted metal. They are however under our protection, and our army is the most revered army in the region. No one dares attack the Migo anymore, for no one is stupid enough to go against the Bakoria army.
I do meet the Migo people, gentle people speaking a slow, long vowelled language, that are easy smiling and not particularly wary of coming in close proximity to us longer limbed Bakoria.
The Maigi people are a great shock to me, even though I’d been forewarned about them. They come in, riding in carriages, with servants by the dozen beside their merchants. We Bakoria people cannot help it but sneer at them, for no self respecting Bakoria pays people to work for them. That’s what ones family is for, and why maidens pray every morning to the goddess of fertility until they are married and have birthed enough children to continue the kingdom, further the family name, and help out with all the chores at home. Not employ people to do your chores for you!
