The Strange War Read online

his wife had cooked and disappeared. A short time later the moaning stopped.

  At night when Arobanai crept out of her hut to meet Kelemoke, she saw Sefu sitting and singing with the men at the the Molimo fire. A child of the forest like all the others.

  Arobanai had experienced such things many times. They argued, they complained, they threatened each other. But the children of the forest needed each other. Alone, without the others, no one could survive. That’s why there was always a solution, a way out. Whoever had a complaint stepped up to the middle of the camp and started protesting, cursing, or forcefully stating his or her case. But often enough, the camp members who were asked for support didn’t turn against those who were in the wrong but against those who made the most noise. A good camp was a peaceful camp. A loud quarreling camp was also a hungry camp. Often just loud, general laughter decided a dispute. But a person who had been shamed was quickly forgiven. Arobanai remembered when Aunt Kondabate had fought with her husband. In her anger, she had started to tear off leaves from the roof of her hut. That was her right. After all, she had built the hut. Her husband had just looked on silently. Then she tore off more leaves from the hut. At this point her husband should have stepped in and made up with her, because when a wife tore down a hut, that was the end of the marriage. But Kondabate’s husband said nothing, and so she continued to tear down the hut leaf by leaf. Tears had already started pouring down her cheeks, but the man had remained firm. After a while he only said, “Kondabate will get pretty cold tonight.” Then she had to keep on tearing down the hut. What else could she do? She couldn’t allow herself to be put to shame. Finally there weren’t any more leaves, and, weeping, she started to pull on the poles. Now everybody was watching, spellbound, because when she had pulled the last poles out of the ground, she would have to tie up her bundle and go back to her parents’ camp. Kondabate’s husband was also close to tears because he loved her dearly and certainly didn’t want a divorce. But if he had now given in he would have had to endure the laughter of his teasing friends for days. Everybody could see the gears turning around in his mind. Finally he calmly said, “You don’t have to tear down the poles, it’s only the leaves that are dirty!”

  “Huh?” Kondabate shouted in amazement. But then she understood, and relieved she said, “Yes, these leaves are full of bugs.” And together the two of them went to the river to wash the leaves. Then they hung them back on the hut. Never before had anyone washed leaves. But Kamaikan, Arobanai’s mother, took a few leaves from the roof of her hut and mumbled, “These bugs are really a nuisance!” And she too went to the river to wash leaves, as though that were the usual thing to do. And for a few more days, women went to the river and washed a few bug-ridden leaves, hiding their grins.

  The days, like the river Lelo, flowed by easily. The forest made gifts to its children: nuts and roots, berries and fruit, mushrooms and meat. The young men showed off the animals they had killed and flirted with the girls. The old people wandered around close to the camp, but usually they sat in the shade and talked about their long-forgotten deeds. The children played near the river, climbed up the young trees in little groups until the trees began to sway and bend down to the water. Then they all jumped off, and whoever wasn’t quick enough got thoroughly shaken up by the rebounding tree. The men made little bows with blunt arrows for the little boys, and then the little girls and boys played hunting with a tired, placid frog. The women showed the girls how to build a little hut, and then, with great seriousness, the little girl cooked a meal of mud and nuts for her young friend. Then they went into the hut and played children making, the way they had seen their parents do it. In their games, they tried everything they would have to be able to do when they grew up, and without realizing it, the games would become the serious stuff of life. The children called all adults, “mother” or “father”, every old person, “grandfather” or “grandmother”, and someone could always be found, who would allow himself to be the hunted buffalo or a leopard that would jump out and ambush them and then eat them up while everybody laughed and giggled.

  But the pole with the food basket that was always full next to the fire in the middle of the camp reminded them every day that a big feast was taking place, that the forest itself was being asked to remember its children and to be happy with them.

  In these days, Kidaya was blessed with the blood. She proudly shared that information with her girl friends. And only a few days later it was Arobanai’s turn. Now, in addition to the the Molimo, there would be also be an Elima celebration. Aunt Kondabate built an addition to her hut, and the girls and their girl friends moved into it. From Kondabate they learned new songs here, songs that only women sing.

  Some guests arrived. They were an old couple who normally lived with a hunting group in the north, people said. First they stayed in Sefu’s camp where the man had a relative. Then they came into the main camp. Old Moke greeted them respectfully. The old woman went straight to Kondabate’s hut. Kondabate also greeted her with great reverence. The girls watched her shyly. The old woman crouched down and sang and practiced with the girls. But she didn’t sing the songs of the women, the songs of Elima, she sang the songs of the Molimo that were reserved for men only. That scared the girls, but Kondabate nodded solemnly and started singing along. The girls joined in shyly.

  On this evening there were not one, but four baskets filled with food hanging on the pole at the Kumamolimo. Manyalibo fetched a burning ember from every hut to light the the Molimo fire. The men and boys were excited and nervous when they started to sing. Then the girls came from the Elima hut, led by the old woman. She took embers from the the Molimo fire and lit a second fire next to the first. The women gathered around this fire. The girls, who had painted themselves with the stain from the black gardenia, danced in a long line, and the women sang the songs of the Molimo louder and louder and more and more forcefully. On this evening the women led the singing and the men sang along. The old woman from the north sat at the fire that she had lit and fixed her eyes on the flames. Across from her sat Kondabate, the beautiful Kondabate. As though spellbound by the old woman’s gaze, she too stared, motionless, into the flames. But then the old woman began using her hands to imitate a dance. She spread and bent her thin, dry fingers; her bony arms jerked and punched the air in every direction, as though they didn’t belong to her. But then she stood up and started dancing. She danced around the men’s fire, while the men sang without looking at her. Her singing and dancing became more and more intense. She jumped into the burning coals and danced in them. Then she started to kick the fire apart with her feet. With wild kicks she flung the embers in all directions, and the men had to dodge them as well as they could. Old Moke rose and gathered the fire together again, but the old one tore it apart again. In this way she reminded the men three times that it was the women who had tamed fire and tended it, that it depended on women whether the fire went out or kept burning, whether life ended or went on. Then the old woman grabbed a liana rope and looped it around the necks of one man after the other. Whoever had the noose around his neck hushed, and after the last man had been tied up, the singing stopped. For a while there was silence, broken only by the voice of the forest. Then old Moke said, “It’s true, we are bound. We are bound and can’t do anything. We have to give something to be free again.” Ekianga said, “We’ll give the meat of the antelope to be free again.” Manyalibo said, “Let’s also give the skin of the civet cat.” The men agreed. Then the old woman undid the nooses, and those who had been freed started singing. The next morning the old woman and her husband had vanished.

  Other visitors came: young men from groups whose hunting grounds were far away, many days of walking. The news of the Elima festival had spread quickly. Whenever hunters met hunters from other groups in the forest, they chatted and gossiped, and they found out the latest news about their relatives. They talked about each other’s luck at hunting, and the fine feats of great hunters they knew became even more amazing.

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sp; The young men joined the hunters of Apa Lelo. Most of them had aunts and uncles or distant relatives in the group, and they stayed with them or they hung out in the huts of the bachelors. Their aim was to get into the Elima hut in the evening. But the girls’ mothers guarded the hut and threw rocks and embers at the besiegers.

  Sometimes the girls emerged, painted with white clay and armed with long, woven whips. They raced through the camp, and if they liked someone they lashed out at him with their whips. Sometimes they hit adults too and old men, but that was only for fun, a friendly tribute to their manliness. But when they hit an eligible bachelor, it meant that there was an obligation. The one who was hit had to visit the girl in the Elima hut.

  Tumba, the one Arobanai had silently chosen, made himself scarce. So Arobanai and her friends decided to go look for him. They departed one early morning, their breasts and behinds decorated with white designs, and they ran to the west, following antelope and elephant trails. They ran with long, silent steps until late in the afternoon they reached