him in the deliberate and careful preparations. They represented the three kinds of people in the village, the ones who loved and revered him for his gifts, the ones who feared him because of what he knew and the ones who envied him. The last were the most dangerous. PapuTlonga likened them to the hand of death that wore away the life and laid bare the bones of dessication that led to hatred.
He needed to keep them all where he could see them. He knew from the Ancestors that they also represented parts of himself. The ones who loved and revered him were also dangerous. If he kept those parts where he could see them he also was safer. If a Nganga went to the dark arts through thirst for power, the end was a terrible destruction. The Ancestors’ gifts were not without cost.
The three men laid out huge baskets made of thick leaves. They carried fruit and maize and yams and the thick, sweet smelling rice bread that the women had baked in the small ovens at the edge of the clearing. PapuTlonga spoke quietly to one of the men, the one who carried the searing heat of secret envy of the gift that had passed him by.
“Well done, my son. The Ancestors will be pleased.” He smiled and held the man’s shoulder.
The younger man stiffened. “What if the spirits do not come? What will we do then? We should prepare to fight, not dance and drum in the darkness.” He scowled as he looked at the edge of the village where the scout held vigil on a tall tree.
“They will come, my son. The Ancestors will come,” he said gently. ”If they say to fight then we will prepare to fight.”
The younger man looked away. He was well built and tall. His eyes gave away his inner sense of his shame. He had not inherited his father’s gift and he felt daily the rebuke of the villagers. What secret sin had been his? He knew that he should have been a Nganga in training and instead he was demeaned by the tasks laid before him. Laying out leaves of food offerings.
His father could never look at him without remembering the moment when as a lad he had cornered a wild baby mongoose in a hollowed out tree and killed the poor beast in a slow and painful manner. PapuTlonga knew at that moment that the Ancestors would never use his son’s voice and his body for their messages. Their gifts were earned, not given freely.
“Where are the children?” PapuTlonga asked his son. “Have they been taken down stream?”
“Of course. The women will take care of them. Have no fear.”
The ritual of the Ancestors was considered to intense for the young children. The Nganga needed complete concentration and focus. Crying children were considered a danger to the delicate process of crossing the boundary of the worlds. All the children under thirteen years were separated from the tribe for the night ritual. They were brought to a hut down by the stream and given poipaw juice to help them drift into a deep sleep so they would not be disturbed by the sounds and they would not disturb the ceremony.
“They are the life of our tribe,” the older man reminded his son.
The younger man did not speak but looked away. He was aware daily of the gulf between himself and his father that cut into both of their hearts but was never spoken about. They watched as the wind increased and blew in stronger swirls, exciting the low lying bushes and sending moaning sounds through the heavily leafed mango groves.
“Good,” said PapuTlanga, eyeing the swirling pattern of the winds. “They are already gathering . Come we must hurry.” He was relieved that the ritual would soon begin. He had been fasting for three days and his strength was beginning to ebb. He knew that once he drank the juice of the Igolo plant he would have all the energy he needed and more beyond. He just needed to make it to that moment without fainting from hunger.
By the time the moon was edging over the trees, the fires were lit and the chant had begun. The smoke rose into the night air carrying the scent of Juniper and Cardamom. The drummers held back the pace at first. They were well trained in their craft of building the bridge. Slowly the pace increased and the chant swelled. The drums made of antelope hides, stained with the dark resin of beetle nuts sang their charged hymn to the Mothers and Fathers who had gone into the upper worlds. Bodies moved in rhythm to the sounds and PapuTlonga came out of his hut and began to move in the ceremonial ritual gestures that he had learned from his father. His bare feet beat a sacred rhythm in the dust as he moved toward the center of the clearing. His face was painted, and it was clear that he was already in a deep altered state.
His voice had depth, authority to it as he moved into the fullness of his calling. He was the intermediary and the emissary between all those who had gone into the heaven worlds and those who still walked the earth. The sounds that he made grew louder and more unearthly as he moved in rhythm with the drums.
He voiced the ancient words of summons. His cry, the expression of the desires of all the gathered village. Their need was measured in their faces. All eyes fixed on the one man who could reach into the deep abyss of hidden knowledge. The chant rose and fell. The drums drove the passion of a people.
Finally at the peak of the intensity the drums stopped as PapuTlonga fell to the ground his body quivering, his eyes rolled back in his head, then silence. The three men who had been his helpers gently covered him with a thin gauze like cloth, to give him privacy to speak with the spirits.
No one moved. The silence held their shared belief and hope that the Ancestors cared for them and protected them as they walked the earth. The fire crackled. From far away, they all heard the cry of an owl, the ancient symbol of the tribal spirits. No one spoke.
Finally, PapuTlonga moaned and began to move, slowly at first, then he removed the white gauze from his face. The three men lifted him to his feet and helped him walk to the seat that was prepared beside the chief of the tribe.
“They are coming,” he said slowly. “Too many…. We cannot overcome them. ….They are too strong for us…… They have weapons….. We must disappear.”
A low moan touched the night air as the horror of the slavers’ approach intensified the fear that had drawn the camp into its poisonous innards. The people knew how to disappear, but the thought of having to do so again, lay heavily on them.
The chief stood, impressive as he was with the full regalia of his office, the beaded headdress, his arms bound with leather and feathers . He stamped his magnificent carved staff on the ground three times. “The Ancestors have spoken. They have always protected us. We will obey their word.”
He turned to PapuTlonga and asked, “How long do we have?”
PapuTlonga’s heart stopped in his chest and he held his breath as he realized he had forgotten to ask the most critical question of all.
The Chief asked again, ”How long do we have?”
The people waited for the reply but none came. A horrified silence filled the air and fear returned as if by storm. The timing was all. They needed to know how long. If they delayed the timing all might be lost. Suddenly a small voice from the edge of the circle called out. It was Mekutei, PapuTlonga’s twelve year old grandson. “Three days, Grandfather. They said we have three days.”
The stunned silence lasted for the briefest moment before someone shouted out, “Nganga. He is Naganga.”
The whole circle of faces took up the cry. They hoisted the boy on their shoulders and carried him past the blazing fire and set him down before the Chief. The fire hissed and crackled and made dancing patterns on the Chief’s face.
Mekutei was frightened. He had never been this close to the Chief and he had disobeyed his Grandfather. The children were told to drink the juice and go to sleep. But Mekutei had pretended to drink and pretended to sleep. His urge to attend the ceremony was stronger than his fear of punishment. He had crawled out past the slumbering grandmothers and crept silently up the hill to watch from behind a tree.
He bowed low. “I beg forgiveness, Grandfather.”
PapuTlonga was still dazed partly from the drug, partly from the meeting with the powerful beings who had spoken with him and partly from the awareness that those abilities that had taken him years of painful training to hone, were given