February 4th, 1776
Today, I instructed Pomp, Slant, and Olakunde in reading and writing. I do not regret pulling out the leaves of this book to make a lesson-book for my friends, though I approach its end: Their pleasure and assiduity repay me. In the last several days, in our idleness, Pomp and Olakunde have learned the better part of the alphabet; and Slant, though he hath not brilliancy of parts, excels in generosity of spirit and humility of demeanor, which makes him a ready student.
This day, when we were finished with our lesson, we swapped the tales of Africa and Europe: Olakunde told us of Ogun, the god of iron, beloved by smiths and warriors; which potent deity was despised by the other orishas for teaching man the mysteries of the forge and smithy; and I in return told them of Prometheus, similarly condemned, and of lame Hephæstus, blacksmith of the gods, toiling in his Ætnan gulph.
For Pomp, who begs tales of horror and enchantment, Olakunde recounted tales of the red monkey who with withered lips enounced sacred knowledge to the oracles of Oyo. He spake of the cults of the forest demons, whose wails could be heard in the bush when the brotherhoods met in convocation. He spake of the ghost societies who worshipped the dead, which spirits returned, said he, caparisoned in the feathers of many birds, and speaking in tones too low for mortal throat; or faceless in grave-shrouds, walking between the huts and crooning of judgment. In such a humor, he told us that his city was oft called Oyo Oro, “Oyo of the Ghosts,” and so it seemed to us as he spake: empty alleys of mud, tenanted only by the gray dead and the frigid moon, as the living lay slumbering in their houses, or shivering in corners in the greatest transports of fear. And as he spake of these things — the crying in the woods, the dead returned — one could observe Pomp’s pleasure in the fear of it, as he painted for himself the swamp where once he had kept cattle, and peopled that desolate bogland with horrors.
And I rejoiced to hear of this city too, for hearing these nocturne tales, I might glimpse the place in daylight, too, this capital of my mother’s land, half heard of in trivial mentions, unadorned and unmajestic: women in the marketplace; goats tied to the cam-wood tree; the pepper stews for which Olakunde yearns; groundnuts and cassava; the sun-graced courtyards where livestock brays and where, in the morning, the head of each household greets his patriarch by prostrating himself, touching cheeks right and left to the dirt, as women recline on their elbows.
These are the tales I wish to hear.
Olakunde narrates always with looks of the greatest solemnity, but raveled deep in his demeanor is his joy in telling these tales, and to an audience so delighted with his testimony.
He tells us also the wonder-tales of travelers from other realms in Africa: of the men of the Upper Coast whose teeth are pointed; of the great cities of the north; of desert Taghaza, where the houses are built of salt with roofs of camel-skin. He told us of a king who fought wars across the Niger by releasing fleets of birds trained to hurl arrows. He told us of the Emperor of the Ashanti, who sits every day beneath a tree of gold, upon a sacred stool of gold, with his feet in a basin of gold, his skin glistening with a paint of tallow and gold, surrounded by troops of royal pickpockets, cats, and a hundred albinos. Olakunde told us then of the yam protocols of the Ashanti, wherein all of the noblemen of that country must arrive in dignity to pay their respects to the Emperor; and as each processes through Kumasi, the capital, he must sacrifice a slave in each quarter of the city, the blood running into holes where the yams last grew.
I expressed surprise, that slaves should be sacrificed thusly; to which Olakunde nodded and replied, “In Ashanti, true. In Dahomey, true. Before, not so many slave kill. Now so much war, the orishas so angry in they bellies, and the kings say, for buy slave, only a few cowries, only small gold . . . Now many prisoners. Kings know true price.” Thus these rites where slaves are slit, where executioners dance slowly before the Emperors, drumming on skulls with their knives. So learn I of that continent’s wonders, and of its terrors too.
Slant doth not speak as we tell tales, for he claims he hath no tales to tell; but he frets away all hours when he is not on deck, certain that he shall inhale some fatal breath, and every occupation for his anxious mind we can offer him is gratifying to him. It is my suspicion that he is too sensible of how words desert him to tell tales in company; but I wish ardently that he should speak freely. He sits with eyes fixed upon the speaker, mouth open, limbs motionless save for the hands, which pace and wheel upon his knees.
On some occasions, Will joins us and listens; but he does not speak ever. He asks no questions and offers no tales, deprived of his antic companion, with whom the recounting of incident was a joy.
And for myself, I lie in my hammock at night and whisper the names to the darkness: Dahomey, Taghaza, Sankore, Accra, the ancient realm of Songhai. I know not where lie most of them in that vast continent, but I must reclaim the names I would have heard in stories, had I grown up amongst those cam-wood trees, those wattle walls, instead of that gaunt house in that cold city on the Bay.
There is a power in names. Olakunde told us of ashe — the power which runneth through all things, subtle and flexile, which finds its most potent expression in human utterance; so that it is a terrible thing to call down imprecations upon an enemy, or to wish for anything but good, for what is said out loud is forged into truth.
So tonight we sat and told our tales: Olakunde of Oyo, Pomp of marshy cunning-men and revenants, and me of Greece and Rome. Slant and Will listened; and even Bono, when he was by, hearkened some and quipped. What signified was not the tales we told, commonplace or fantastical, but the gestures, the silence of friends as another recounted.
If, through utterance, ashe may claim us and make what we say true, then
this, in recalling these nights of fable, is what I speak loudest,
what I declaim to the listening firmament:
“Oh, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! Like the dew that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion: for there Jehovah commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.”