Ama (64 page)

Olukoya looked at her. She shook her head. He nodded. It seemed that he understood.

* * *

When they returned to the other clearing the pots were already simmering.

The sheep was gutted, skinned and butchered. Luis dos Santos the wag, who was here too, praised the Senhor for what he called his “gifts.” While the food was cooking, the men busied themselves with weeding the clearings.

“Josef, Ama, please come,” Bernardo called. “Bring a bowl of
garapa
.”

He led them some way into the bush. He put down the axe he was carrying and indicated a tree.

“What do you think?” he asked, “This part at the bottom I will hollow out for a great war drum. From the part above I will be able to make five or six
atabaques
or
batás
.”

They approved his choice.

“Be my witnesses,” he told them.

He raised the bowl.

“Hear my voice, spirit of this noble tree. I bring you this drink. I water your roots.”

He poured some liquor from the bowl.

“I beg your forgiveness for destroying your abode. Enter, I beg you, into the drums which I will carve from the wood of your tree. Teach the hands of the drummer. Let no harm come from anything I do today.”

He put the bowl down and slowly lifted the axe. Josef and Ama retired to a safe distance to watch.

* * *

Olukoya led the procession. The drummers beat out a quiet slow rhythm with their hands.

At the entrance to the shrine they halted. Olukoya genuflected briefly. Then he went forward and laid a plate of chicken stew before the altar. Speaking Portuguese, he invoked the spirit of Eshù and gave notice of his offering. One by one the others followed. Each man removed the cloth from his shoulder and wrapped it round his waist; the women removed their head-ties. Each bore a gift; for Obatálá a plate of white rice or the fermented corn called ekó, wrapped in plantain leaves; for Oshun, chicken and honey; for Yemoja, wild orchids; for Tempu, a pair of cow horns; and fresh greens and coconut for the other gods. Shangó's plate, with a hot red peppered mutton stew, was made of wood, for his spirit is too hot for fragile pottery.

Instead of food some laid personal gifts which they had brought: a precious cowrie, smuggled from Africa; a ball of soap; for Oshun the treasured feather of a parrot, a brass trinket or smooth stones from the bed of the tumbling stream which ran behind the clearing.

Finally, when all had delivered their offerings, Olukoya stepped forward again.

“Eshù,

“great god of vengeance, intercessor for mankind,

“we come again in peace, to greet you.

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

“Great gods of Africa and Brazil, and all our ancestors,” he called, “we greet you again. May your spirits descend upon us.”

He gave a signal and in an sudden explosion of violent rhythm three drummers struck the taut skin of their drums with short
baquetas
, making them speak now with a voice so loud that it would heard back at the
engenho
;
agôgô
was beaten with its iron rod;
xaque-xaque
and
chocalho
shook; and in the background the sweet tones of the
marimba
rose and fell. At this signal, the worshippers began to dance. Counter-clockwise they shuffled round before the spirit-laden fig tree, rotating their hips, slapping thighs and chest, circling, snapping fingers in a miscellany of dancing styles.

Olukoya led a dance in honour of each Yoruba
orisha
in turn. As always, the virile Eshù, keeper of the gate, was first. The rhythm was new to Ama. She was shy at first, watching the movements of the others for a clue. Some mimicked Olukoya, learning; others, immersing themselves in the spirit of the drums, improvised, some gracefully, some with furious gyrations and stamping. For was there one of them who had not learned to dance, strapped to his mother's back, before he could walk? This was the first time Ama had danced since landing on the soil of Bahia. She relaxed and lost herself in the music. Beneath the soles of her feet she felt the crushed dry leaves of the forest floor.

Obatálá was next. Olukoya put on a brilliant white cloth to honour the god of spotless repute. Obatálá's dance was gentle and graceful. As he danced, Olukoya sang a poem of praise to the transparent honesty of the incorruptible judge and prayed for the perfect peace and tranquillity which only this paragon of gods can grant. He called Jacinta into the circle to dance with him for Obatálá is the protector of the handicapped. And he made her laugh; he made them all laugh with joy.

Shangó's dance, by contrast, was violent in the extreme. Olukoya swung Bernardo's axes in wild arcs which threatened the lives and limbs of the circle of dancers, who fled in terror. In the dance he seemed to take on the god's identity, to become Lord Shangó himself, Shangó the dangerous, Shangó the leopard who leaps down to earth like a bolt of lightning. (The drummers made a drum speak in the voice of a leopard.) Shangó, father of twins. Shangó, who rewards moral courage in the face of great danger and temptation. Olukoya's eyes bulged. Shangó, who sends thunder from a cloudless sky. (The drums thundered.) Shangó, who made the first batá drums, and taught them to play with the flash and roar of the squall which turns into a tempest. Shangó who breathes out fire and smoke, the flash of whose lightning is like a sharp knife drawn across the eye of the liar; Shangó, whose fire consumes those who dare to transgress custom and morality. Shangó who throws us his thunder stones from heaven. Shangó: fire and water in the heavens. Shangó on his horse Erinla.

Olukoya was exhausted. He went and lay down on the cool earth. His wife, Ayodele, danced for Shangó's wife Oshun, beautiful goddess of sweet water and love, a gentle, graceful dance. She mimed the stalking female leopard, she danced the dance of Oshun the coquette and epicure, carrying the narrow-necked pot with smooth river stones and cool river water in it, like the water from the river at Oshogbo which bears her name. She danced with a flash of fire in her eyes. She was transformed into the river Oshun. She mimed sexual ecstasy in a way that made it chaste and pure.

Olukoya joined her. Together they placed two horns upon the altar in tribute to Oya, wife of Ogún and mother of Shangó's twins. Then they danced. The swirling river Niger, Oya's home, was in their dance; the whirlwind; the zigzag of lightning; sudden conflagration; night; and sudden death, for Oya is mistress of the shades, mother of the faceless, of the masked Egúngún.

Olukoya struck the horns together.

“Oya, I summon your presence,” he sang. “Destroyer of worlds. You alone amongst the gods can still the charging buffalo, seizing its horns and conquering its fierce anger. Mother of nine children, mother of nine colours. Oya spare us. Oya guide us. Oya protect us.”

Ayodele joined him again. Separately and intertwined, they danced for Oshumare, an undulating, flowing dance, sinuous, spiralling, looping, serpentine, ambiguous, at once both male and female.

Olukoya danced alone for Ogún, supergod amongst the gods, immune to swords, immune to bullets. He placed two knives upon the altar and Ayodele poured oil on them to invoke the spirit of the god. Ogún, master of iron and steel, red-handed, fierce and unshrinking, Ogún, god of war, who fears only defeat.

This was a dance full of savage energy, extravagant flourishes, terrifying war cries. Ama thought she saw Olukoya miming a struggle for freedom, a war against their masters.

“Ogún, sustain us in the battles to come,” he called out as if to confirm her instinct.

“Ogún, sustain us in the battles to come,” the others chorused.

When he had finished dancing for Ogún, Olukoya sank to his knees before the altar. Then he stretched out, face down, upon the ground, arms extended. The drums were silent. No one spoke. The only sounds were those of the water on the stones and the wind rustling the branches of the trees. After an immeasurable time he rose and washed his hands and face. Then he called those who danced with him closer and in a low voice, explained.

“I was praying to the most dangerous of all
orishas
,” he told them, “he whose name must not be spoken aloud. I was captured and sent into slavery before I was able to master the secret of his dance. I know only that a single wrong step can arouse his anger and bring his wrath down upon the whole community.”

He jabbed his face repeatedly with his index finger, miming the dreaded smallpox.

“You understand? So I prayed only for forgiveness for not honouring him this day, because of my own ignorance.”

“And now I have one last duty to be done for which I need your help. Please take a bowl or calabash each, empty it onto the ground and follow me. We are not going far.”

He led them into the knee deep river. Its bed was full of rounded stones, which the current lifted slightly and then put down again. The sun penetrated the forest canopy here, sparkled on the surface, and lit up the stones in the bed with a rippling light.

“We have come to honour Yemoja, who lives in the Ogún river but also in all living waters. If you stand quite still, you will hear her speaking to you.”

It was difficult to keep one's balance: the bed was loose and irregular and the current swift. Ama almost fell. Then there was a splash behind her and a scream. One of the other women had fallen into the water. Those by her pulled her to her feet. Her cloth was dripping.

“Yemoja has selected her favourite daughter from amongst us,” Olukoya told them when the laughing stopped.

“Now bend and pick a stone or two and put it in your vessel. Be careful now. We want no more accidents. Then fill your vessel with water and go and put it under the roots of the fig tree.”

* * *

While the drummers and the dancers rested and refreshed themselves with maté, Ama, after asking permission, took up a drum.

At home this was not woman's work, but here things were different. She experimented. First something Itsho used to play for her. Then she tried her hand at
adowa
, which Esi had taught her to dance in Kumase. The drummers listened, at first amused by the thought of a woman invading their territory, then intrigued by a rhythm they had not heard before. Tentatively, quietly, they fell in with her beat. Ama was excited. She knew the music in her head. Now, without any training, she found that she could make the drum speak. After a fashion. Imperfectly. But well enough for someone to dance to.

The dancers were drifting back. The third drummer came to reclaim his drum. He, too, took up the rhythm.

“Show us,” he commanded with a nod of his head.

Ama hesitated. The man had a strip of cloth wound around his forehead to keep the sweat from running into his eyes.

“May I?” she asked him.

Then, alone in the centre of the ring of watchers, she danced
adowa
, slightly bent at the waist, the cloth stretched taut to keep her hands a palm's width apart, one hand above and then below the other, the movements of her feet controlled, deliberate, turning her head this way and that, looking first upwards and then down at her feet, stooping, bending at the knee, circling, straightening up, lost in the flowing beat. Then others came to join her, mimicking the elegance and refinement of her movements, as if to make fun of her, but learning. When the drummers stopped at last, the dancers clapped their hands for Ama and she, in turn, applauded them and then the drummers, too.

Jacinta danced for Tempu in the centre of the circle. She started slowly but then a change seemed to come over her. Ama noticed her open stare: she saw nothing around her. Her eyes were blank, unfocussed, looking inwards. She seemed to be overtaken by some sort of ecstasy, beyond herself. The spirit of Tempu possessed her and she began to chant in a language none understood and none heard her speak on ordinary days. It seemed that she was Tempu's vehicle, that he spoke through her. She seemed to have become Tempu. She was Tempu.

Ama wondered whether she was mad. She had seen a similar performance several times in Kumase. The
akomfo
in their grass skirts and whitened faces also spoke in tongues. An assistant would translate for the benefit of those who did not understand the language of the spirit world.

Behind her hand Esi had laughed.

“Charlatans. Crooks. Confidence tricksters,” she had said. “They take your gold. If you pay them enough they will say anything you ask of them. But beware, if you persuade them to say something that offends the Asantehene, or his interests, and he comes to hear of it, he will deal with the offending
okomfo
summarily. Do you understand?”

Esi had drawn a finger across her throat.

Jacinta's nose began to bleed. First a trickle. She paid no attention. Olukoya signalled to the drummers and they slowed their tempo. Now her nose was bleeding badly. She seemed unaware. The drumming stopped. Jacinta sank to the ground. Her eyes opened. Ama rushed to her with a cloth and squeezed her nostrils.

“Breathe through your mouth,” she told her.

* * *

Olukoya brought his bowl and came to sit by her.

“Well, sister Ama,” he asked, “How did you find it?”

“I'm glad I came,” she answered. “Thank you for asking me.”

“I am sorry we didn't ask you earlier. We have to be careful, though. I think you understand that?”

Lost in her own thoughts, she ignored his question.

“I feel free,” she said. “It was as if I was carrying some great burden, like a hunchback's hump upon my back. Now, suddenly, it's gone.”

He smiled.

“That's what this is all about.”

“One day,” he continued, “this country will be ours. Orunmila tells me so and my own intelligence confirms it. We are many; they are few. In the course of time our numbers will tell. In the meantime, we must prepare. We must get to know one another, to build up trust amongst us. We must learn whatever there is to learn from the whites. I mean useful things, like reading and writing, making sugar, building ships. We must make plans. But above all, we must preserve ourselves, our own beliefs and customs. We must restore our self respect. If we begin to believe that Africans are natural slaves, the first battle will be lost and we might never recover. Do you understand what I am saying? What we do here is part of all this.