Forest of the Pygmies(24)
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Beyé-Dokou told them more about the three persons he had mentioned before: King Kosongo, Commandant Mbembelé, and Sombe, whom he described as a terrible sorcerer.
He explained to them that King Kosongo's feet never touched the ground, because if they did, the earth trembled. He said that the king's face was always covered, so no one would see his eyes. Those eyes were so powerful that a single glance could kill from afar. Kosongo never spoke to anyone, because his voice was like thunder: It deafened people and terrorized animals. The king spoke only through The Royal Mouth, a person from his court who had been trained to survive the power of his voice and whose task it was also to taste his food, to prevent the king's being poisoned or harmed by black magic through what he ate. The Pygmy warned them always to keep their head at a level lower than the king's. The correct procedure was to fall facedown and crawl in his presence.
The tiny man in the yellow T-shirt described Mbembelé by aiming an invisible weapon, firing, and falling to the ground as if dead; also by making thrusts with his spear and acting as if he were hacking off hands and feet with a machete or axe. The pantomime could not be clearer. He added that they should never contradict Mbembelé, though it was obvious that the one of the three he feared most was Sombe. Just the name of the sorcerer sent the Pygmies into a state of terror.
The path was not visible, but their small guides had traveled it many times and they had no need to consult the marks on the trees. They passed a clearing in the thick growth where there were other voodoo dolls similar to the ones they'd seen; these, however, were a reddish brown, like iron oxide. As they came closer, they could see that the color came from dried blood. All about the dolls were piles of garbage, animal carcasses, rotted fruit, hunks of cassava, and gourds holding various liquids, perhaps palm wine and other liquors. The stench was unbearable. Brother Fernando crossed himself, and Kate reminded the frightened Joel that he was there to take photographs.
"I hope the blood came from sacrificed animals, not humans," the photographer murmured.
"Village of ancestors," said Beyé-Dokou, pointing to the narrow path that started at the dolls and disappeared into the forest.
He explained that they'd had to make a long detour to reach Ngoubé in order not to pass through the lands of the ancestors, where the spirits of the dead wandered. It was a basic rule of safety: Only a fool or a lunatic would venture there.
"Whose ancestors are they?" Nadia inquired.
Beyé-Dokou struggled to understand the question, but finally with Brother Fernandos help he got the idea.
"Ours," he clarified, pointing to his companions and using gestures to indicate that the spirits were short.
"Do Kosongo and Mbembelé also stay away from the ghost village of the Pygmies?" Nadia insisted.
"Nobody go there. If the spirits are disturbed, they take revenge. They enter the bodies of the living, they control they will, they cause sickness and suffering, sometimes death," Beyé-Dokou answered.
The Pygmies motioned to the foreigners that they must hurry, because the spirits of animals also come out at night to hunt.
"How do you know if it's the ghost of an animal, not just an ordinary animal?" Nadia asked.
"Because ghost don't have smell of animal. Leopard that smell like antelope, or serpent that smell like elephant, is ghost," he explained.
"Then I guess you need a good sense of smell, or else have to get real close, to tell the difference," Alexander joked.
Beyé-Dokou told them that at one time they hadn't been afraid of the night or the spirits of animals—only those of their ancestors—because they'd been protected by Ipemba-Afua. Kate wanted to know if that was some god, but he corrected her misimpression; he was referring to a sacred amulet that had belonged to their tribe since time immemorial. The way he described it, they understood that it was a human bone that contained a never-ending powder that cured many ills. They had used the powder more times than they could count and through many generations, and it never ran out. Every time they opened the bone, they found it filled with the magical substance. Ipemba-Afua represented the soul of their people, they said; it was their source of health, strength, and good fortune for the hunt.
"Where is it?" asked Alexander.
The Pygmies told them, with tears in their eyes, that Ipemba-Afua had been seized by Mbembelé and was now in Kosongo's power. As long as the king had the amulet, they had no soul; they were at his mercy.
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Foreigners and guides entered Ngoubé with the last light of day, when the villagers were beginning to set fires to light the village. They passed some scrawny plantings of cassava, coffee, and banana, a pair of high wood corrals—perhaps for animals—and a string of windowless huts with sagging walls and ruined roofs. A few long-horned cattle were cropping grass, and half-bald chickens, starving dogs, and wild monkeys were poking around among the huts. A few yards farther along, the path widened into a sort of avenue or large central square; there the dwellings were more reputable looking, as they were mud huts with corrugated zinc or straw roofs.
The arrival of the strangers caused a commotion, and within minutes the people of the village had gathered to see what was going on. From their appearance they seemed to be Bantu, like the men in the canoes who had brought them as far as the fork in the river. Women in rags and naked children formed a compact mass on one side of the square, through which four men taller than the other villagers, surely of a different tribe, made their way. They were dressed in ragged army uniforms and outfitted with antiquated rifles and ammunition belts. One was wearing an explorer's pith helmet adorned with feathers, a yellow T-shirt, and plastic sandals; the others were naked to the waist and barefoot. Strips of leopard skin circled their biceps or heads, and rows of ritual scars adorned cheeks and arms. The lines of the scars were raised dots, as if small stones or beads were implanted beneath the skin.