"The Stool, the Fetish and I" by Prophet Dauda
Photo Credit: Ning Shi, obtained and licensed through Unsplash
There were nights within a full year when the sky went lifeless—no stars shone, and the moon would get smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter, and sometimes it looked as if a blanket has been spread across the expanse of the sky, covering everything. On some nights there would be no such cloud, but the moon would simply vanish without trace from the sky as if it had never existed in the first place. On such nights, there was no life in the village. People did not sing and tell tales by the family fire. It was dark everywhere in the land. Only insects and frogs from a nearby stream sang. Those and owls, and sometimes the distant laughter of a hyena. It was scary. On a night like this, my mother, Gladys, would not even send me an inch away alone for errands. If she did—to get a pestle, mortar or salt from the neighboring compound—she often called out Alice or Chifuniro, my sisters, to keep me company. Mother would give us smoldering charcoal on a piece of earthen pot, with which to stone owls that screeched from a huge kachere tree that stood between our compound and the next. The elders told us that the burning charcoal frightened the owls.
I was afraid not only of the dark, but also of tales about animals—scary animals. Lions, leopards, snakes. I remember at some point my mother gave my elder sister a lengthy lecture for singing to me a clan folklore about a lion who ate an old woman and a little orphan on the hearth of their own home.
*
Each day was not very different from the other. We saw the same people, ate the same food, danced the same dances, or kicked the same ball at the playground. Life seemed at standstill, totally uneventful. The moon came, taking its shape reluctantly. At first a quarter appeared surrounded by a few stars. Then the land wore a festive mood in celebration for Eid Ul Fitr. Soon the moon would generously come out, sending its slanted rays to the surface of the land. The stars, too, came out in their thousands. They floated in the sky three, six, nine million or more miles away from our Earth. The shooting stars carelessly plucked themselves from the rest of the sky and fell toward the surface. It was lively in the sky and so it was on the land. Kids in many villages were excited at the sight of the moon.
I remember in the dusks of such days, when the huge yellow moon peeped from behind a distant hill, I played tag with Esnart, a girl from the next compound. We chased each other all over the place until we lost ourselves from the sight of our unsuspicious elders. We buried ourselves in the bush and dissolved into love—profound love. At that moment, she was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Shortly afterwards, we would separate and walk different in directions as if we had picked a quarrel. Such regrets!
The moon would gleam directly from its zenith. That is a mysterious moon, I thought. In your compound it appeared to beam down directly overhead. If you asked your friend from a distant compound, a very distant compound, it also beamed down directly over their head. As children we enjoyed the sight of dark patches that formed a rooster-like figure on the moon. And so we sang:
Mwezi uwale!! (Let the moon shine)
Mwezi uwale!!
Tisewere ife! (For us to play)
A huge crowd had formed around our house. My mother cried bitterly as she walked around our house. Looking at my brother Sunga, tears stained his face. What was the matter? No one had been sick in our compound.
A noisy dawn woke me up. I quickly explored around me with my eyes. Other kids had already gotten up. The morning muezzin had already yelled from the mosque located in a distant trading town. A huge crowd had formed around our house. My mother cried bitterly as she walked around our house. Looking at my brother Sunga, tears stained his face. What was the matter? No one had been sick in our compound. There was also no rumor of a sick relative in a distant compound or village. What happened? My head was filled with a million unanswered questions.
For the time being I lost myself. Like one possessed, I sprang from the mat and made for the huge crowd. People talked excitedly about how much the thief had taken away with him.
I rushed into our sun-dried brick house to see for myself how much the thief had taken away with him. I made for the inner room that extended from the huge room that greeted you the moment you got in our house. The wooden stool was there. The wooden tray of yellow buns and milk scones and the round bamboo basket, which usually sat on the wooden stool, were gone! My mother sold buns and milk scones on the side of the dusty road that ran through the village to the next trading town, Jali. The scones and buns had been bought some days ago from a bakery ran by a Greek man. A batch of them could last a week. In these parts, not many people believed in breakfast of buns and milk scones. It was a luxury. People believed in morning lunch of salted bananas or cassava when they had returned from the garden just before the sun shot directly from overhead.
I continued to explore the rest of the house. I looked at the usual white line drawn on the earth wall to keep out cockroaches that leapt from a wet ash-heap behind the cooking hut. The cockroaches mostly invaded our house at night.
My mother cried out. It caught the attention of everyone. She had just noticed that our newly bought radio was gone, too. It was medium-sized and not more than six months old. My mother worked hard to buy this radio. She sold some of the yearly yields from the previous harvesting season. Radios were scarce in those days. In the whole village only one man, a rich man had one. My mother was very proud of the radio. The day my uncle bought it, he held a lengthy lecture showing her how to switch it on and off. “This button,” he explained as I sat around them, “Switch on, switch off,” he said as he forced my mother’s thumb on the flat and round button. On, off. On, off. My mother never went to school, therefore she could not read or write. But she was a quick learner. Soon she became the master over the radio button. She never cared about knowing the brand of the radio, but my uncle, whom she had sent to buy it for her, had recommended that brand a million times. One thing she made sure of was to carefully fold the antenna and place the radio back in its cardboard case after each use. With that, one could not tell that it had already spent more than four months in our home. It always looked brand new. Now it had been stolen!
Tears went down my mother’s cheeks. My elder sister, Jane, searched around the garden that partly enclosed our house. Where the banana trees demarcated a boundary between our garden and Mbuya Nana’s, the thief had dumped my sister’s notebooks and an earthen pot in which Mother had always kept seeds for the next growing season.
*
Soon my grandmother and another elderly woman from whom the thief had also stolen headed to a medicine man. They carried a big rooster with them for payment. I was now happy. The thief was going to be dealt with and our stuff would be returned—our radio, our buns, our milk scones!
His mzuri cap grew smaller and smaller until it was like a tiny insect flying in the air.
The two women returned with the medicine man. He wore a mzuri cap3. His arrival brought silence in the compound. You just knew how much respect such men commanded in the land. For a moment when he arrived, I saw hope rise in the eyes of many people. He briefly moved inside and around the house alone. He fished out a `thing’ from his pocket. It was a short-sized pipe that had a glass disc on one end. He brought the `thing’ to his eyes. He walked towards the banana trees that stood in a circle, just a few steps from where the thief had dropped my sister’s notebooks and the earthen pot. He said that he was tracking the footprints of the thief. He walked to the next banana stems, and then the next. As he walked, he was slowly swallowed by the slope that gave way to the creek behind our compound. His mzuri cap grew smaller and smaller until it was like a tiny insect flying in the air. The whole compound came to the edge of the slope to see the man. He turned back.
"He is not from a faraway compound," he assured. "He is from the other bank of the valley." He pointed at the land that stood above the creek that was densely populated with banana trees. This left people angry and the air was charged with violence.
He extracted something out of his pocket, something sewn in a black cloth. The thing had a sacred look to my young eyes. It was some Juju 4. Before he did anything with the Juju, he spoke something to my mother. He did not speak above a whisper. My mother came to us.
*
“Has anyone touched the stool?” she asked, her eyes reluctantly soaked in tears. Silence fell on the place. My heart pounded impatiently.
“This is a very powerful medicine,” the medicine man said. “I am Mozambican. And you know what comes from Mozambique!” Juju from Mozambique!
“Has…has anyone touched the stool?” My mother repeated, with a serious tone this time around. My heart beat and my hands sweated. My small body trembled.
“So far, the only person who has touched the stool is the thief, right?” the medicine man said looking at us. “This thing is death I swear by my ancestors.”
What was I going to say? Should I come forward and tell the people that I had laid my hand on the stool that morning? Maybe if he learned that, he would change the Juju? What would my mother say and do? So far I would be the only obstacle to the successful performance of the charm. No return of the radio! No return of the milk scones and the buns! More importantly no surrender of the thief! The hope and confidence I had when the medicine arrived in our compound, ran dry—completely dry!
*
“Touching the stool?”’ my sister yelled from behind the house. “I think I saw Bongo touch it,” she revealed.
On hearing that, my mother burst into tears hopelessly. Poor woman. I felt sorry for her.
“I did not really put my hand on the stool,” I foolishly crucified myself.
“Are you sure?” The witch doctor sounded fearful. “Woman, there is no going back once I place this on the stool.” His words were as clear as in writing. He landed the fetish on the stool. My heart beat and I felt so light in my body. “Woman, there is no going back once I place this on the stool” the man’s words rang in my head. I was going to die! I thought.
On the other hand, I felt that whatever the man was doing, I was being marched to Golgotha. I was an innocent soul—a little innocent soul, staggering with a Cross while the actual devil was somewhere there enjoying the buns, milk scones and the possession of the radio, if at all he had not yet sold them to a distant trading town.
He mixed some white flour in water and sprinkled it round our house. He did this as he uttered some words in a strange tongue. Seeing this, hope rose in the eyes of my people. On the other hand, I felt that whatever the man was doing, I was being marched to Golgotha. I was an innocent soul—a little innocent soul, staggering with a Cross while the actual devil was somewhere there enjoying the buns, milk scones and the possession of the radio, if at all he had not yet sold them to a distant trading town.
Night fell. I was sleepless on my mat. Why had I accepted to be nailed together with the thief? Perhaps, because of my mother’s tears. The whole night I could not sleep.
Tomorrow came. I did not die and the charm was still on the wooden stool. The next day came, and the next. My strength was in place. I did not complain even of a headache. Not even stomachache. Not even the toes. Nor the teeth! Everything in my body was in perfect shape! Many days followed and the charm started getting old on the stool. When my sisters swept the inner room with a broom, sometimes the charm would drop to the floor. They had to pick it and put it back on the stool, hoping it would perform someday—catch the thief and bring back the radio and the milk scones and the buns! My grandmother, due to old age, a million times tripped over the stool and the charm also fell to the floor. She too, had to put it back on the stool, hoping it would perform someday. Days flew by. The charm shrunk and one day my sister had the courage to throw it into a nearby bush.
Now it has been some sixteen or seventeen years since the items were stolen and I touched the witchdoctor’s Juju. My mother and the witchdoctor are dead. What is hard for me these days is to figure out who else, apart from me, touched the stool on that morning.
1 Traditional wraps for women
2 A medicinal gourd
3 Islamic cap
4 African fetish
Prophet Dauda was born in 1994 in Zomba, Malawi. He studied History and English Literature at University of Livingstonia. In college he was part of the university writer’s forum. In 2017, he self-published a memoir A Life In the Life of an Orphan recollecting childhood experience in an orphanage founded by American missionaries in his hometown. He currently teaches and run a book club at a mission school, Henry Henderson Institute Mission Secondary School. “The Stool, The Fetish and I” was inspired by a childhood incident in his home where his mother was very superstitious.