Post by Mindobwe on Jan 16, 2006 17:37:37 GMT -5
Curse of the Malata
A story by Haulib of the Shombe
I have told you the story of how we were given the tail of a blue lion by the lion orisha himself for slaying the mchawi who held the beast imprisoned. What follows is a sadder tale of dimbe, the dark magic of the mchawi and horrors then unknown by we who were children of Shumaza. It is a cautionary tale of a lesson learned late and the cost of pride amongst the Shombe peoples.
In the mchawi lair were two small cages that each contained a fascinating creature. The little monsters were shaped like coconuts but they had wings and were covered with coarse green fur. They were restless and threw themselves about within their cages, trying to get out. They had no mouths, eyes or noses. Watching them move, we were reminded of the strange bat-like creature we had seen when we first encountered the oryx, our spirit guide. We thought that perhaps these caged things were the same type of creature that the oryx had helped us spot near our kraal. We carefully checked each of the cages to ensure that they were sturdy and would hold the things. We then cut two long carrying poles from the bushes outside the cave, and proceeded to carry the cages and their strange green occupants back to our home in hopes that Msiba could identify them for us.
The cattle we took from the mchawi's boma did not like the green coconut bats and moved quickly to stay well ahead of the little monsters. Still, it took us three days to return home. There was a great celebration the day we returned with the tail of the blue lion. Our mothers all said their good-byes and our fathers treated us as men.
Late in the day we carried our captive monsters to Msiba's hut. She was struck with horror when we showed her the trophies and had us kill the things immediately! Malata plant seeds she called them. She told us that they scout around until they find water and people. The seed then plants itself nearby and before long it bursts forth into a great tree that eats people. When we told her that we thought that we had seen one flying free near the kraal several days ago, and that if flew off toward the river nearby, a look of fear came into her eyes. She dashed into her hut, grabbed a few things and commanded us to follow her as she raced back to the kraal. We made it back, exhausted, just as the sun was rising.
There was a great commotion when Msiba arrived at our kraal and spoke with the elders. Warriors were summoned. People who had gone down to the river were missing. A party of great hunters was assembled to fight the malata tree that surely grew there. Nuboli, greatest of all our warriors, led them. I volunteered to go fight the monster. Msiba counseled against attacking. She said that by now the tree had grown too large for our hunters to kill. It might even be spawning free moving, human-shaped warriors to defend it. She said that we must mark the kraal as cursed and leave immediately.
The elders agreed to leave the kraal but they sent Nuboli and a few of his best hunters to carefully scout the situation at the river. When they left, Yakubu and I, along with the other newly named men were stationed to guard the trail between the river and the kraal. In a few short hours, our clan left the kraal and traveled onward in our great cycle of the grass.
It took us a couple of weeks to move the cattle to the next kraal in our cycle. Unfortunately, that place too was marked as cursed. Warning posts set into the ground at each approach to the place told the story of ingogo that had burrowed tunnels under each of the huts. Even after the ingogo had been killed the diseases carried by the filthy beasts remained and caused people here to sicken and die. It would be many seasons before the sun and grass and orisha made this place clean again.
Nuboli met us at this cursed kraal. He was alone. All his hunters had been killed by the malata plant despite the great care they had used in approaching the evil site where it grew. He told us that the tree seemed to know they were coming and had vines or tendrils hidden in the grass. The tendrils attacked his hunters before they even got close. He saw plant warriors guarding the tree and it was growing a boma wall around itself with new tendrils extending out even further. Truly the place was cursed.
With the curse on this new kraal, our cycle was broken. The elders talked amongst themselves late into the night trying to decide where to go now that our clan had no kraal for a home. Eventually they agreed to travel to a new kraal that the Shumaza had never been to before and that was not one of those in the great cycle for many seasons yet.
Again we traveled the golden plains for many weeks, arriving at the unfamiliar kraal at the same time as another displaced clan. It seems an ill omen that two clans of the Shombe were traveling a broken cycle at the same time. The Moro clan had recently been displaced by the entare. They too were seeking the safety of a new kraal. Elders met and decided that our fates would be determined by ritual combat.
Both clans had suffered losses recently. The Moro from the entare, the Shumaza from the malata plant. Young warriors from both clans filled in the gaps in the lines of warriors on each side. I was one of 12 chosen to stand for the Shumaza and I was determined to show that I knew the meaning of Shombe honor and Shombe valor.
Special blunted throwing spears used for ritual combat were carefully unpacked from the clan's stores and given to each of us standing for the Shumaza. A shield was offered but I refused it. It was hard enough to accept that we were to stand off from our opponents and throw things at them. That is the way of ritual combat we were told. Everyone else from our clan arrayed themselves to one side. All the Moro people gathered on the other side. Drums and bells rang out in a sort of musical combat long before the first spear was thrown. I was silent throughout. I threw 8 spears including one that hit a Moro in the neck, crushing his throat and killing him. I was hit once but ignored the pain. It was only a bruise. All of the Morro warriors fell to Shumaza spears. Fewer than an handfull of Shumaza warriors fell, none were killed. We helped the last few Morro warriors retain their honor by knocking them down with our blunted throwing spears as they tried to run at the very end. The drums of the Shumaza roared in victory as we won the kraal for our people!
In a gesture of goodwill, our elders offered to shelter the Moro within our kraal for a time. The Moro elders, proud despite their loss, declined and moved on to seek a kraal of their own. In later seasons we learned that the Moro never found the safety of a new kraal. They were destroyed by the entare before they reached the protection of a new home. Someday, the Shombe are going to have to learn to come together to defeat the entare or else we will all find the same end as the Moro.
Those somber thoughts were far off that night however as we celebrated our victory within the walls of our new krall after traveling the open plains for more than two months. We lived in this new place for several seasons. It was a good place for us to grow in size and strength and the Shumaza prospered there. Those of us united by the tail of the blue lion however, were not fated to stay with our clan. A soroka told us that we would be leaving and not returing within the lifetimes of the people in the clan. We would take a spirit journey through the coils of Da, for Bedaga the Trickster was interested in us.
The soroka's prophecy came true in time and the oryx again led us away from our clan on a spritiual journey. But that is another story.
A story by Haulib of the Shombe
I have told you the story of how we were given the tail of a blue lion by the lion orisha himself for slaying the mchawi who held the beast imprisoned. What follows is a sadder tale of dimbe, the dark magic of the mchawi and horrors then unknown by we who were children of Shumaza. It is a cautionary tale of a lesson learned late and the cost of pride amongst the Shombe peoples.
In the mchawi lair were two small cages that each contained a fascinating creature. The little monsters were shaped like coconuts but they had wings and were covered with coarse green fur. They were restless and threw themselves about within their cages, trying to get out. They had no mouths, eyes or noses. Watching them move, we were reminded of the strange bat-like creature we had seen when we first encountered the oryx, our spirit guide. We thought that perhaps these caged things were the same type of creature that the oryx had helped us spot near our kraal. We carefully checked each of the cages to ensure that they were sturdy and would hold the things. We then cut two long carrying poles from the bushes outside the cave, and proceeded to carry the cages and their strange green occupants back to our home in hopes that Msiba could identify them for us.
The cattle we took from the mchawi's boma did not like the green coconut bats and moved quickly to stay well ahead of the little monsters. Still, it took us three days to return home. There was a great celebration the day we returned with the tail of the blue lion. Our mothers all said their good-byes and our fathers treated us as men.
Late in the day we carried our captive monsters to Msiba's hut. She was struck with horror when we showed her the trophies and had us kill the things immediately! Malata plant seeds she called them. She told us that they scout around until they find water and people. The seed then plants itself nearby and before long it bursts forth into a great tree that eats people. When we told her that we thought that we had seen one flying free near the kraal several days ago, and that if flew off toward the river nearby, a look of fear came into her eyes. She dashed into her hut, grabbed a few things and commanded us to follow her as she raced back to the kraal. We made it back, exhausted, just as the sun was rising.
There was a great commotion when Msiba arrived at our kraal and spoke with the elders. Warriors were summoned. People who had gone down to the river were missing. A party of great hunters was assembled to fight the malata tree that surely grew there. Nuboli, greatest of all our warriors, led them. I volunteered to go fight the monster. Msiba counseled against attacking. She said that by now the tree had grown too large for our hunters to kill. It might even be spawning free moving, human-shaped warriors to defend it. She said that we must mark the kraal as cursed and leave immediately.
The elders agreed to leave the kraal but they sent Nuboli and a few of his best hunters to carefully scout the situation at the river. When they left, Yakubu and I, along with the other newly named men were stationed to guard the trail between the river and the kraal. In a few short hours, our clan left the kraal and traveled onward in our great cycle of the grass.
It took us a couple of weeks to move the cattle to the next kraal in our cycle. Unfortunately, that place too was marked as cursed. Warning posts set into the ground at each approach to the place told the story of ingogo that had burrowed tunnels under each of the huts. Even after the ingogo had been killed the diseases carried by the filthy beasts remained and caused people here to sicken and die. It would be many seasons before the sun and grass and orisha made this place clean again.
Nuboli met us at this cursed kraal. He was alone. All his hunters had been killed by the malata plant despite the great care they had used in approaching the evil site where it grew. He told us that the tree seemed to know they were coming and had vines or tendrils hidden in the grass. The tendrils attacked his hunters before they even got close. He saw plant warriors guarding the tree and it was growing a boma wall around itself with new tendrils extending out even further. Truly the place was cursed.
With the curse on this new kraal, our cycle was broken. The elders talked amongst themselves late into the night trying to decide where to go now that our clan had no kraal for a home. Eventually they agreed to travel to a new kraal that the Shumaza had never been to before and that was not one of those in the great cycle for many seasons yet.
Again we traveled the golden plains for many weeks, arriving at the unfamiliar kraal at the same time as another displaced clan. It seems an ill omen that two clans of the Shombe were traveling a broken cycle at the same time. The Moro clan had recently been displaced by the entare. They too were seeking the safety of a new kraal. Elders met and decided that our fates would be determined by ritual combat.
Both clans had suffered losses recently. The Moro from the entare, the Shumaza from the malata plant. Young warriors from both clans filled in the gaps in the lines of warriors on each side. I was one of 12 chosen to stand for the Shumaza and I was determined to show that I knew the meaning of Shombe honor and Shombe valor.
Special blunted throwing spears used for ritual combat were carefully unpacked from the clan's stores and given to each of us standing for the Shumaza. A shield was offered but I refused it. It was hard enough to accept that we were to stand off from our opponents and throw things at them. That is the way of ritual combat we were told. Everyone else from our clan arrayed themselves to one side. All the Moro people gathered on the other side. Drums and bells rang out in a sort of musical combat long before the first spear was thrown. I was silent throughout. I threw 8 spears including one that hit a Moro in the neck, crushing his throat and killing him. I was hit once but ignored the pain. It was only a bruise. All of the Morro warriors fell to Shumaza spears. Fewer than an handfull of Shumaza warriors fell, none were killed. We helped the last few Morro warriors retain their honor by knocking them down with our blunted throwing spears as they tried to run at the very end. The drums of the Shumaza roared in victory as we won the kraal for our people!
In a gesture of goodwill, our elders offered to shelter the Moro within our kraal for a time. The Moro elders, proud despite their loss, declined and moved on to seek a kraal of their own. In later seasons we learned that the Moro never found the safety of a new kraal. They were destroyed by the entare before they reached the protection of a new home. Someday, the Shombe are going to have to learn to come together to defeat the entare or else we will all find the same end as the Moro.
Those somber thoughts were far off that night however as we celebrated our victory within the walls of our new krall after traveling the open plains for more than two months. We lived in this new place for several seasons. It was a good place for us to grow in size and strength and the Shumaza prospered there. Those of us united by the tail of the blue lion however, were not fated to stay with our clan. A soroka told us that we would be leaving and not returing within the lifetimes of the people in the clan. We would take a spirit journey through the coils of Da, for Bedaga the Trickster was interested in us.
The soroka's prophecy came true in time and the oryx again led us away from our clan on a spritiual journey. But that is another story.