Ama (63 page)

An enormous tree, buttressed by its spreading roots, stood near the centre, dominating the cleared space. They arranged themselves in a half circle around it.

“In our country,” Jacinta whispered to her, “our god Tempu lives in the tree we call
nsanda
. There are no
nsanda
trees in this place, so those who came before us made a home for Tempu in this one which is its brother. They call it
gameleira branca
,. The white flag is the way we dress
nsanda
. The ribbon around the trunk is for the Yorubas.”

The
batá
drums called for silence. Olukoya stood before the tree, barefooted and bare from the waist up. Gazing up into the dark canopy and then down into the space behind the roots he spoke a few sentences in Yoruba.. Then, to Ama's surprise, Jacinta stepped forward, and raising her two stumps, addressed Tempu briefly in Ki-Kongo. Next to speak was Josef and this time Ama understood.

“Onyankopon Kwame, creator of all things, lord of the universe; Asase Yaa, spirit of the earth,” he intoned. “Your children greet you. We have come to tell you that we are here. Before dawn tomorrow we shall return to praise your name and to honour the spirits of our ancestors. Tonight we beg you to protect us as we sleep. Protect us from
sasabonsam
and all malevolent spirits which may live in this forest. Now we beg your permission to take leave of you. We shall go and come again tomorrow.”

* * *

It was still dark when Josef gently shook Ama awake.

“Ama, come, we need your help. Sister Jacinta, it is time.”

As they walked towards the shrine, he explained, “We have only one sheep and two cockerels. That is not enough to allow all of us to make a sacrifice to our own gods. So each nation has selected one person to follow its own custom. Olukoya wants you to represent your people, even though you are only one.”

“What will I have to do?”

“If you like, say a prayer to your own gods and ancestors. Otherwise just watch and listen.”

In the flickering torch light Ama saw several objects which she had not noticed the night before. One was a solid clay cone, about waist high, with a small flattened top on which lay two pieces of iron. Another was the familiar Asante
Onyame-dua
, God's tree, supporting a basin in its arms. Around the base of the
gameleira
, under its roots, was an array of pots and calabashes, some upright, some inverted.

The last object was a crude ladder-like framework of trimmed branches. A goatskin had been stretched across it to make a table top. On the skin lay cow horns, shells, a seed rosary, the red spurs and comb of a cockerel, an earthen dish full of clay with feathers and teeth protruding from it, stones, and cracked fragments of glazed pottery and mirror glass.

“That is Tempu's altar,” Jacinta whispered. “Ama, pluck some leaves from this bush and lay them on it for me.”

Seven iron stakes had been driven into the earth around the altar.

“Mind the lances,” Jacinta warned.

There were six in their party.

Olukoya was their acknowledged leader. He had earned this status by virtue of his personal qualities; but there was more to it than that. As a young man he had been a novice in a shrine devoted to the performance of sacred rites in the service of Shangó, deified fourth king of Oyo. While he was in Oyo, Abiodun, the Alafin, had decided it was time to reassert the dwindling authority of his office by crushing the forces of his own military commander. Olukoya had become an innocent victim of the resulting civil war, ending up a slave upon a Portuguese ship.

There were only a few Yorubas at the
engenho
and even those were recent arrivals on the Bahian scene. But the power of their gods (four hundred and one in all, Olukoya said) was known far and wide. And Olukoya knew how to invoke that power. It was this knowledge which gave him such authority.

He lifted one of the pots and poured water from it onto the ground as he spoke.

“Eshù,

“gate-keeper of the gods, intercessor for mankind,

“we come to you in peace, to greet you at this cross-roads,

“where the spirits of Africa meet those of this country, this Brazil,

“and the fierce god of the white man, Jesus-Mary-Joseph.

“We cool your brows with this fresh water from the river.”

Unseen drummers accompanied him, quietly, so as not to drown out his words.

“Take our humble messages, we beseech you,

“to almighty Olodumare, supreme amongst the gods,

“who gives the breath of life to man

“and seals our destiny;

“to Obatálá, creator, god of the overarching skies,

“whose purity of spirit, goodness and kindness know no bounds;

“to Shangó, lord of fire and tempest, essence of courage and of justice;

“and to his wives;

“to Oshun, river goddess of Oshogbo,

“goddess of love,

“who sustained us during the terrible journey across the great sea

“and brought us safely to these shores; and

“to Oya, mistress of lightning and the tornado and of sudden death.

“Take our words to Oshumare, serpent of the rainbow, messenger of Shangó;

“to Ogún, his brother, fearless god of iron and war;

“to Obaluaye, who with his broom can sweep the sesame seeds of pestilence

“over the face of the earth;

“to Orunmila, leopard, messenger of the gods, who knows all things,

“to whom there is no secret;

“Orunmila, who sat watching Olodumare as he made the universe;

“and knows the secrets of his laws.”

He paused to finger the beads of Orunmila's necklace of divination which hung at his neck.

“Let our words fly to Yemoja, most fruitful of goddesses, mistress of the seas;

“and of chaste love between men and women.

“Yemoja, giver of children,

“we tie this ribbon about the trunk of this tree to ask you to bind us to you,

“as a mother straps her child upon her back.”

“We pour the blood of this black cockerel,

“to honour the spirits of our ancestors.”

Josef handed the squawking cockerel to him. He held it over the altar while Josef drew a sharp knife across its throat. The blood spurted onto the altar. Josef held up a bowl to catch the last drops.

The sheep which they had stolen for the sacrifice had been scrubbed clean and its hair combed. It had a broad sash about its waist, the knotted end tied into a bow. Olukoya gripped its body between his knees, held its mouth shut and pulled its head back towards him, stretching its neck.

The drums fell quiet. All knelt and prayed. The clear tones of a struck bell rippled across the clearing. A calabash rattle joined. The sheep struggled. Ama wondered whether a sheep could foresee its own end as humans can.

The knife did its work and the sheep's blood spurted into the bowl. The drums rolled, celebrating the sacrifice. Olukoya raised the bowl and poured some of the blood upon the clay altar.

Then Jacinta stepped forward. She spoke for the BaKongo; and for the others who had been brought to Bahia from the barracoons of Luanda and Loango and Benguela in Angola. Their ancestors from the ancient states of Tio and Loango and Ndongo had been crossing the Atlantic to Bahia, though not by choice, for the past two hundred and fifty years. The Angolans asked Jacinta to speak for them because they knew that since she had lost her hands, Tempu had frequently entered her body and taken possession of her spirit.

She pulled Ama forward with her right stump. Kneeling before an open bowl she drew Ama down after her. She pressed her stump into the bowl, charging it with powdery dry white clay. She tried to draw on the ground but failed. She signed to Ama to help her. Ama took a handful of the powder, watching Jacinta's eyes. Jacinta mimed to her to sprinkle the powder on the ground in a circle and then to draw a cross within the circle in the same way. She nodded her approval and then showed Ama that she should draw two circles on her face, one around each eye.

Ama stood up and stepped back. Jacinta slowly lowered her head towards the circle on the ground.

“Oh Tempu,” she chanted,

“let this circle become a mirror.

“In it show us the faces of the
pretos velhos
,

“of the spirits of all who have come this way before us.

“Invest the power of our ancestors in us.

“Let it shine forth from us with a blinding radiance.

“Here at this cross roads,

“where this great tree sinks its roots into the ground,

“where the clearing meets the forest,

“where the darkness of night meet the dawn of a new day,

“give us the vision to see into your world.”

“In the evening the sun descends into the underworld of darkness.

“Yet every day it rises again,

“in a new dawn.

“The cycle is without end.

“So it is with our lives.

“When we die we too enter the world of night,

“Where the sparks of departed souls light up the sky.

“And yet we too are reborn.

“So it is with all living things:

“birth, maturity, death and rebirth.”

A breath of wind lifted the ribbon of white cloth which hung from the tree and it fluttered, rising and falling. Ama followed the eyes of the crippled woman. Jacinta's shoulders were trembling as if the force which had lifted the bunting, had taken possession of her too.

“Oh, Tempu,

“I see your spirit moving in your flag.

“I know that you have heard me.

“Move us, as you, too, move.

“Take us with you on your road.

“Intercede for us with Nzambi Mpungu,

“Lord of all Creation.

“Heal the shattered edges of our souls; restore our injured bodies;

“Make our spirits round as the sun is round.

“Help us to stand tall and straight and whole as this tree which guards your spirit.”

She rose and signing to Ama to follow with the bowl, went to one corner of the clearing. With the stump of her right arm she drew a circle in the soft topsoil, and divided it into four quadrants. In each she drew a different symbol. Ama took a handful of the white powder and dribbled it into the shallow grooves. Jacinta stepped back, then dropped to her knees again and bowed before the symbol.

“Oh, Tempu

“With this sacred white clay,

“I make the sign of the dawn

“And the seal of your world.”

Then they repeated the performance three more times, defining the corners of the clearing. Josef stepped forward and dribbled blood on Tempu's altar.

Gregório, he who had run away from the
engenho
and been recaptured, spoke for the Ewe, neighbours of the Akan and the Yoruba, known in Bahia as Gêge. Gregório had fought for the Anlo in a war against the Ge. He had been captured and sold. Now, too late, he brooded on the futility of Ewe fighting Ewe, African fighting African. Only the white men benefited from those wars.

Josef spoke for the Akan, the Fanti of the coast and the Asante of the hinterland, known in Bahia as Minas. He poured libation with rum, invoking the spirits of the ancestors. Then three times he lifted the bowl from the tree of god and placed it on Ama's head.

Ignacio Gomes, the leather worker, a free man, half Tupi, half Kongo, was next.

Ignacio was a man of few words. To both the slaves and their masters he was an enigma.

The Senhor recognised and valued his consummate skill as a craftsman. He feared that a misplaced word might drive the man from his employment; and so he ordered Vasconcellos and his white and mulatto minions to treat Ignacio with the greatest circumspection.

The slaves found it difficult to understand why he stayed on at the
engenho
, poorly paid and poorly housed as he was. After all he was a free man. He could leave at any time. In Salvador, with his skills, he would surely prosper as an independent artisan.

The answer to the riddle lay in the roots which bound Ignacio to the soil. His father's ancestors had worshipped at a forest shrine at the very site where the Christian chapel now stood. Through him flowed the ancient spirits of this land, the
caboclos
; and in him they merged with the spirits which his mother had brought from Africa. He was the curator, the custodian, of these lands.

Portuguese rule, he knew, was no more than a brief episode. In time the ancient spirits of the place would reassert their power and swallow up the white man and his religion.

Ignacio wore only a loin cloth. He had painted patterns on his body with the dark blue dye of the
jenipapo
fruit. He spoke quietly. Though the drums were silent, the others had to strain their ears to hear him.

“Great Tupi gods,

“spirits of the forest,

“spirits of Ai the sloth and Tatu the armadillo;

“of Capibara the water hog and Tamanduá the anteater of the night;

“of spotted Paca;

“of Macahuba the macaw, Seriema the crane and Tucano the toucan.

“Great Tupi gods,

“Welcome the gods of Africa who have come to live amongst us;

“Welcome Oxóssi, armed with his bow and arrow, protector of the hunter;

“Welcome Tempu the tempest, the storm which plants its seed in woman.

“Tustáo and Flecha Negro, Pai Joaquin and Mãe Maria.

“ancient
caboclos
,

“in your honour we dress the neck of this pot in feathers.

“Free of our bodies.

“Lend us the power of birds to soar above the earth.

“Make us invincible.

“Return our land to us.”

He made obeisance before the tree and withdrew quietly.

Now it was Ama's turn. She had been considering nervously what contribution she might make. Back home it was the Owner of the Earth who poured to the earth and the oldest man, the senior elder, who held the people, held the earth. Their prayers were always concerned with the fertility of the soil, good rains, freedom from destructive winds; the fertility of women; or the success of the hunt. She would certainly not pray for the success of the sugar harvest and it seemed trivial, after the powerful invocations she had heard, to petition the ancestors for blessings on their tiny allotments. As to praying for the fertility of women, it would be nonsensical: they would only be making more slaves for the Senhor. Moreover, the animals which were the totems of the clans, leopard, crocodile, cobra, hyena, did not live in this country. She could speak to Itsho, but her relationship with his spirit was too private, too personal, too intense to display amongst these strangers.