Split the eye (4)

SPLIT THE EYE (4)

By Clifford Oluoch

It was the Harvest Season, a time when all the gardens are deep, penetratingly green, full of life and beckoning any farmer to come and enjoy the fruits of the earth.
Mayira, the Chief’s eldest daughter, was in charge of organising the girls’ dance troupe. The fifteen young unmarried girls were extremely busy rehearsing the songs, trying their best to synchronise the moves and high-pitched voices. Three of the girls were Mayira’s half-sisters, belonging to her two step mothers. They were age mates.
The excited girls were busy gyrating and ululating to the beating of the drums, when they heard the sharp beatings of the bul, the traditional village drum that transmitted news by simply generating the required number of beats.
They all knew the sounds: five slow beats followed by screams always meant that a man had passed away and the burial arrangements would start straight away. Three slow beats, no screaming meant that a woman had passed away. Two beats showed that a young unmarried man had died. One beat was reserved for a child or unmarried girl. This would be repeated after some interval.
The three beats sounded, slow and heavy almost like a gong against a metallic plate. The girls, who were in an open space just outside the imposing village walls, stopped their dancing mid-step, all of them aware of the ominous beats of the drum.
“Ok, all of you gather around,” Mayira called her troupe quickly. She went ahead to disperse them to their houses to prepare for the death rites. The death of a female had different rites from that of a male. All the dead were cremated in the pyre found next to the village’s holy shrine, just outside the main village walls. Family members and the rest of the villagers were expected to sprinkle their foreheads with ashes from their cooking areas. This was to signify that fire, humans and ashes had a common destiny.
Mayira walked gloomily towards her mother’s house. She met her mother rushing frantically towards the cooking area. “Who is it mom?” Mayira asked her visibly shaken and confused looking mom.
Mayira’s mom, Kolo, stood, looked at her daughter and almost broke down but managed to control her tears. “It is Pala’s mother, the daughter of the seas and oceans,” she said sadly, her eyes looking over her daughter’s head. Pala was one of Mayira’s age-mates and close friends.
“How did she die…..,” Mayira started before realising that she knew the answer to the question even long she completed it. Pala’s father, just like the rest of the men in the village, was a known hot-tempered man known for unleashing untold terror to his household. Unlike other men, Pala’s father did not spare children or livestock. His anger was known beyond his household and his name often brought untold fear amongst his children. Livestock often made disappearing acts at his sight.
Mayira let her mother move on to the cooking area where she scooped ash and brought it back to the house. The death of Pala’s mother seemed to have rattled mother and daughter alike. They were both agitated, edgy and fear seemed to take control of them. Mayira strained to hear what her mother was constantly muttering to herself in great annoyance and agitation. It was a sight that Mayira had never
seen in the household.
“This cannot go on,” Mayira finally managed to hear a sensible sentence from her restless and disturbed mother. The sentence was repeated almost ten more times as mother and daughter scooped the ashes and sprinkled their foreheads first, followed by their feet.
“What cannot go on?” Mayira asked her mother, just in time as her three other siblings, all girls, joined in the ritual.
For the first time Kolo realised that she had been talking to herself. She looked knowingly at the daughter Mayira, her eyes a reflection of a pained soul that had just lost a dear friend. Kolo did not reply to the question, whose answer she was sure her daughter knew. Instead she busied herself with her three other daughters, who were younger than Mayira.
Kolo, the eldest wife of Chief Adera was a mother of four beautiful girls. She had no son and this had strained her relationship with the Chief. Kolo had watched as her husband had gone ahead to marry a second and even a third wife. The results were all the same: girls and more girls. Now there were nine girls in Chief Adera’s homestead, making him a laughing stock in the village. He had gone ahead to unleash his frustrations on his three wives. Chief Adera was desperate to get a baby boy, so desperate that he had nicknamed Mayira ‘Wuoyi’ meaning ‘The Boy’, a name that both mother and daughter resented greatly.
The second set of drumbeats rang out bringing the household to rapt attention. They were meant to move to the pyre and start the final rites of the dead. Customarily a dead person was cremated on the same day of the death. This had to take place before sunset.
Kolo gave instructions to Mayira to stay with the girls as she moved to the pyre where she had to be with the married women. The children stood on one side of the pyre, the men took the centre circle within the pyre.
Mayira spoke to her three siblings who understood the full impact of what had taken place. They had all taken part in village rituals relating to death. There was no villager who was not exposed to these rituals. Birth, initiation, marriage, death, harvests, sacrifices, were all rituals that all villagers were accustomed to.
The men strolled in lazily, took their place at the forefront of the pyre. The medicine-man was already there, all set for what he did best: preserve the traditions of the tribe.
Mayira stood with her siblings and the children of the deceased. Quietly they watched and followed the rites, joining in the chanting and humming wherever required. After the ritual, the children of the deceased would be required to undergo other rituals: complete shaving of the hair; bathing three times a day in the revered section of the Yando River for three days, a belief that the gods of the waters would cleanse the unclean; complete isolation from the rest of the village.
Soon the ceremony was over and Mayira watched as her friends slowly walked away towards their houses, ready to start the rituals.
“What will happen to them?” Mayira’s younger sister asked, referring to her friends. She looked concerned about the family of the deceased.
“They will be fine,” Mayira replied, trying hard to convince herself that nothing would happen to her friends. All she had to do was to wait for three days and then the harvest songs would start again.

***********

Several days later and numerous beatings afterwards, Mayira woke up to the stillness of the morning. She heard the second cock-crow and as a girl she knew her duty very well: wake up and fetch water the first thing in the morning; come back and make morning porridge for the boys and the men; join the men in tilling the land; make afternoon meal for the men and the boys. It was engrained in her.
It was a morning like any other: cool without any wind blowing. Mayira woke up, nudged her three sisters to rise and, possibly, shine. She then went to the kitchen where all the water pots were kept. Her three younger sisters dutifully followed her, a perfect example of an older sister.
The four girls made it to the outside of the still sleepy village: all the women and young girls were up, while the boys and the men enjoyed prolonged sleep, awaiting the troupe of women to come back from the river with water.
“Make sure you do not break another pot,” Mayira warned one of her younger sisters who was still learning how to balance a pot on her head.
“Yes, Mayira,” she replied dutifully, striving her best to make sure she did not disappoint her elder sister. The other two laughed at her, well aware that initiation into water carrying could be a stressful affair.
The four made it to the outside; the cold reminding them that the day had truly began. They walked to the village’s gate, unbolted it and joined the long trek of women who were on their way to the mighty River Yando. The mood was not there and the customary singing that accompanied the snaking was absent.
Mayira joined her agemates.

…..to be continued.

oluochcliff@yahoo.co.uk