Matigari
Page 1
NGUGI wa Thiong’o was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1938. He was educated at the Alliance High School, Kikuyu, at Maker ere University, Uganda and at the University of Leeds.
His novel, Weep Nol, Child, was published in 1964 and this was followed by The River Between (1965), A Grain of Wheat (1967), and Petals of Blood (1977). Devil on the Cross (1980), was conceived and written during the author’s one-year detention in prison, in Kenya, where he was held without trial after the performance by peasants and workers of his play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want). This was his first novel to be published in his own language, Gikuyu, and then translated into English and many other languages. Matigari was published in Gikuyu in Kenya in 1986 and this is the only English translation. The author has also written collections of short stories, plays and numerous essays.
Ngugi is an active campaigner for the African language and form, and he writes, travels and lectures extensively on this theme. His work is known throughout the world and has made a powerful impact both at home and overseas.
Wangui wa Goro is a social critic, interpreter, writer and translator, with strong interest in the development of African languages. She writes and recites poetry. In 1989 she published her work of non-fiction on Mekatilili (Vita Books), and she has translated all of Ngugl’s children’s books into English.
MATIGARI
© Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1987 © English language translation Wangui wa Goro First published in Gikuyu by Heinemann Kenya Ltd 1987
CONTENTS
Ngugi
PART ONE Ngaruro wa Kiriro Wiping Your Tears Away
PART TWO Macaria ma na Kihooto Seeker of Truth and Justice
PART THREE Guthera na Muriuki The Pure and the Resurrected
The Pure and the Resurrected 129This novel is dedicated to ait those who love a good story; and to all those who research and write on African orature; and to all those committed to the development of literature in the languages of all the African peoples.
A NOTE ON THE ENGLISH EDITION
This novel is based partly on an oral story about a man looking for a cure for an illness. He is told of old man Ndiiro, who can cure his illness, but he does not know how to get to him. So he undertakes a journey of search. He meets different people on the way and to each he sings the same description of old man Ndiiro:
Tell me where lives old man Ndiiro Who, when he shakes his foot, jingles.
And the bells ring out his name: Ndiiro,
And again: Ndiiro.
Helped on by the different people, he eventually reaches his destination, where he finds the necessary cure. The story is simple and direct, and it dispenses with fixed time and place. For effect, it depends on the rhythmic restatement of the motif of search; and for suspense, on the urgency of the man’s need for a cure. As the story progresses, old man Ndiiro, whom we never actually meet, looms large and dominant, a force, a god, a destiny.
Written largely in exile in the quietness of my one-bedroom flat in Noel Road, Islington, London, in 1983, the novel has had its prophetic moments.
On page 151 there is a fictional radio news bulletin about the United States rejecting recent proposals by the Soviet Union for the elimination of all nuclear weapons on earth. This was some years before the summit between Gorbachev and Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland.
There are a number of references to resurrection and to the Second Coming of Christ, with people actually believing that Jesus Christ has appeared and is roaming the country. Well, in 1988 thousands in Kenya were flocking to the mass prayer- meetings of a ‘Prophetess’ at Kawangware, near Nairobi,
expecting to see a miracle. They did see one. One day it was claimed that Jesus had appeared to the thousands present. He was even photographed. He was last seen in the streets of the City hitching a lift...
The references to resurrection have had interesting consequences for the novel. For a short period in 1987, Matigari, the fictional hero of the novel, was himself resurrected as a subversive political character. The novel was published in the Gikuyu-language original in Kenya in October 1986. By January 1987, intelligence reports had it that peasants in Central Kenya were whispering and talking about a man called Matigari who was roaming the whole country making demands about truth and justice. There were orders for his immediate arrest, but the police discovered that Matigari was only a fictional character in a book of the same name. In February 1987, the police raided all the bookshops and seized every copy of the novel.
Matigari, the fictional hero, and the novel, his only habitation, have been effectively banned in Kenya. With the publication of this English edition, they have joined their author in exile.
TO THE READER/LISTENER
This story is imaginary.
The actions are imaginary.
The characters are imaginary.
The country is imaginary — it has no name even. Reader/listener: may the story take place in the country of your choice!
The story has no fixed time.
Yesterday, the day before yesterday, last week . . .
Last year , . ,
Or ten years ago?
Reader/listener: may the action take place in the time of your choice!
And it has no fixed space.
Here or there . . .
This or that village . . .
This or that region.
Reader/listener: may you place the action in the space of your choice!
And again, it does not demarcate time in terms of seconds Or minutes Or hours Or days.
Reader/listener: may you allocate the duration of any of the actions according to your choice!
So say yes, and I’ll tell you a story!
Once upon a time, in a country with no name . . .
PART ONE
Ngaruro wa Kiriro
Wiping Your Tears Away
1
He held an AK47 in his right hand. His left hand was raised to shield his face while he looked across the river, as he had often done over many years, across many hills and valleys, in the four corners of the globe. It was all over now, but he knew he still had to be careful.
A riderless horse galloped past him. It stopped, looked back at him for a while and then disappeared into the woods. It reminded him of the horses that Settler Williams and his friends had often ridden as they went to hunt foxes accompanied by packs of well-fed dogs. It felt like so long ago; and yet.,,
How the settlers had loved shedding blood!... They would dress in red, and the rider who got to the fox first would cut off its tail in triumph; then he would smear the blood of the fox on the face of a woman... Yes, it felt like a long time back... Well, there was no night so long that it did not end with dawn ... He hoped that the last of the colonial problems had disappeared with the descent of Settler Williams into hell.
The sun was just rising, but the land was cloaked in fog. He could not see far and wide around him. He was middle-aged, tall and well-built. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, strapped under his chin, its top decorated with a thin band covered in heads of many colours. His leopard coat, which had now lost most of its original fur, fell on corduroy trousers to his knees. The boots he wore were covered in patches.
He walked along the banks of the-river. Then suddenly he saw what he was looking for: a huge mugumo, a fig tree, right in the middle of a cluster of other trees. It was remarkable for its very wide trunk, and its four roots were visible, with one jutting out from the middle, and three others sticking out at the sides. He smiled to himself as he stood his AK4-7 against the tree and drew his sword from where it was hidden beneath his coat. He began digging the ground next to the central root. He covered the bottom of the hole with dry leaves. He now took the AK47, wrapped it in a plastic sheet and carefully laid it in the hole. He washed the sword in the r
iver, put it back in its sheath and then placed it in the hole beside the rifle.
Round his waist he wore a cartridge belt decorated with red, blue and green beads and from which hung a pistol in a holster. He slowly unfastened the belt, counted the bullets, rolled it up carefully and then placed it next to the sword and the AK47 rifle. He looked at these things for a while, perhaps bidding them goodbye. He covered them with dry soil. He rubbed off all traces of his footsteps and then covered the spot with dry leaves so skilfully that nobody would have suspected there was a hole there.
He went down to the river and bent to wash his face and hands. So chilly! It reminded him of the other waters in the past which had been just as cold. He remembered how, then, they had sung throughout the night in the open air.
If only it were dawn,
If only it were dawn,
So that I can share the cold waters with the early bird.
The water had numbed their skin, so that none of them felt the pain as the knife cut into the flesh. Before this moment, they were mere boys, but by the time they unclenched their fists, they were men. Their blood mingled with the soil, and they became patriots, ready for the armed struggle to come.
He rose, turned and one more time looked at the spot where he had buried his weapons, murmuring to himself, ‘It’s good that I have now laid down my arms. ’ He tore a strip of bark from a tree and girded himself with it, once again murmuring, instead, I have now girded myself with a belt of peace. I shall go back to my house and rebuild my home, ’ He crossed the river and came out of the forest.
2
He climbed up and down yet other hills and mountains; crossed many other valleys and rivers; trekked through many fields and plains: moving with determination towards the heart of the country. The sun shone brightly. He took off his coat, carried it over his right shoulder and strode on, the sun shining directly into his face. But he still did not waver or look back. Black-eyed susans and other weeds clung to his clothes as though welcoming him back to the fields. He was sweating. So much heat! So much dust! What trials one had to endure on this earthly journey! But there was no arrival without the effort of moving feet.
He tried, to visualise his home. In his mind’s eye he could see the hedges and the rich fields so clearly. Just another climb, the final climb, and then he would be home — his home on top of the hill!
His feet felt heavy. He decided to rest for a while. He laid his coat on the ground and sat on it in the shade, leaning back against the tree. He removed his hat, placed it on his left knee and wiped his brow with his right hand. His hair was a fine mixture of black and grey. His brow had creased with fatigue. He yawned drowsily. How could it be so oppressively hot so early?
He dozed off. His thoughts took flight. How can I return home all alone? How can I cross the threshold of my house all alone? What makes a home? It is the men, women and children — the entire family. I must rise up now and go to all the public places, blowing the horn of patriotic service and the trumpet of patriotic victory, and call up my people - my parents, my wives, my children. We shall all gather, go home together, light the fire together and build our home together. Those who eat alone, die alone. Could I have forgotten so soon the song we used to sing?
Great love I saw there,
Among the women and the children.
We shared even the single bean That fell upon the ground.
He started and woke up. He put on his hat and picked up his coat, which he once again carried over his right shoulder.
An irresistible urge to go and just peep at his house gnawed at him, but he fought against it. He had made up his mind. He would first go in search of his people; at least first find out where they lived, what they ate and drank and what they wore. So many traps, oh so many temptations, in the way of the traveller on this earth!
3
He crossed one more field, went through a cluster of young wattle trees and came to a tarmac road. He stopped and looked first to the right, then to the left. Parked on the other side of the road was a black Mercedes-Benz, with its aerial up. A voice drifted to where he stood: “ ... This is the Voice of Truth... All gatherings of more than five people have been banned by a decree of His Excellen
... This is the Voice of Truth. The Minister for Truth and Justice has said that this is a workers’ government. All workers should disassociate themselves from those who are disrupting industrial peace by demanding increases in wages. Such workers were no better than the soldiers who had disrupted the peace with their attempted mutiny...
Government bans the Opposition Party,., His Excellency Ole Excellence has said that, this is a people’s government. The people do not want opposition parlies, as they only cause disorder in the country.
4
He walked along the road, past the Mercedes but bits and pieces of news still floated after him.. United States told Russia that... Soviet Union told USA... China and India... Astronauts ... Cosmonauts... and now for motor racing.. Why could not everybody gird themselves with a belt of peace so that all wars and conflicts on earth would end? In the Mercedes was a black man with a bottle of beer and a black woman with a soft drink.
His thoughts soon drifted from the news to the cars which drove past him. Some had only Europeans in them, others Asians, and others Africans. Long, long before, he had been Settler Williams’s chauffcur. How things and times changed! Who could ever have believed that one day Africans would be driving their own cars? Now all that remained for them to do was to manufacture their own cars, trains, aeroplanes and ships. His thoughts strayed back to his family. Where would he start looking for them?
He came to a police station a few yards from the road. Should I ask for my people at this place? No. I shall do all the searching myself. Further along the road, he caught up with two policemen with an Alsatian dog, by the gate of a small council clinic. He walked past them towards the hill under which ran the railway tunnel. His thoughts now turned to the railway and the tunnel. He shivered. How many lives had been claimed by the railway and the tunnel at the time they were built? He remembered the explosions of dynamite and the screams of the workers whenever the walls caved in, often burying them alive. And the groans as some were flattened by the heavy rollers came back to him so vividly that for a time he thought he could still hear the blood-curdling cries of the dying. After the railway was completed, it had started swallowing up the tea leaves, the coffee, the cotton, the sisal, the wheat - in fact all the produce from all the land that Settler Williams and his like had stolen from the people.
The man stood on top of the hill and looked down. The town spread across the plain below. Hills engulfed the plain on all sides, forming a kind of protective wall around it. His glance moved beyond the hills to the distant horizon, and then back to the town below. How it had grown!
The two policemen with the dog now caught up with him. He watched them go down on the bend of the road towards the town.
He now heard the distant siren at the factory, calling out the workers for the ten o’clock break. I wonder if the break is still the five minutes it used to be - just enough time to go to the toilet and relieve yourself quickly or for a few puffs of a cigarette? He
thoughs of all the sirens in all the years gone by. He thought of all those who had lost their limbs, of all those whose bodies and minds and hearts had been battered and broken over the centuries while labouring with their hands. And today? What of today? Some of the words and phrases he had heard on the radio came back... People’s government.. The image of the black Mercedes flashed across his mind; then t hat of the two policemen and the dog... the clinic... Had anything really changed between then and now? I cannot get to know the answer until I get home. And I will not go home until I have found my people. Where shall I start to look for them? The factory siren wailed again, and his mind became clear as if relieved of a heavy weight. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
The people working in the factory came from all parts of the country. A factory was really the workers’ meeting place. Any patriot looking for his people ought to start where people worked.
He walked towards the factory, guided by the smoke issuing from its chimneys. He walked past the post office, the railway station and the rail goods shed.
The black Mercedes he had seen earlier drove past him.
Once again, he caught up with the two policemen. They were now standing at the side of the road near the gate of the factory. Then they moved behind a cluster of wild bushes.
He walked towards the gate.
5
A bill-board with red bold lettering hung on the pillars above the iron gates:
ANGI.O-AMERICAN LEATHER AND PLASTIC WORKS PRIVATE PROPERTY No WAY
A wire fence ran around the vast compound. The factory building itself was inside a wall of metal sheeting, while barbed wire fenced the workers’ quarters.
A red tractor was coming from the factory. It carted three trailer-loads of rubbish. The guard emerged from behind a post and lifted the barrier to let it through. It headed towards a signpost further up the road: ‘GREEN MARKET, 200 yards’. He drew nearer the gate.