The
Girl Who Changed a Tradition
Short
Story
Sam Mwaka-karama
She looked. Then walked and looked
back again her heart skipped… knocked her toe and stumbled two then three
steps. She bent forward looking. No blood! A burning hot pain, that was all -
must hurry, it was getting dark! Abeca hurried
along she should have left earlier. Now you see, she had feared to take her
early escape all this time… everybody in the village seemed to be looking at
her – and strangely, even to make matters worse, her own aunt Lakwel did not understand.
“What did I tell you Abeca?” Aunty Lakwel had been
angry and also doing all she could to keep her voice down and solicitous at the
same-time. There were people within earshot… “Nen ba
– the elders have already been here and, your issue has now been resolved! You
can’t change what the elders have agreed upon: Wife heritage is a tradition.
That culture will fight you”.
“A-a it is enough Auntie, I don’t
want that man” said Abeca decisively
“Do you know what you are talking
about?”
“Auntie I know exactly what I am
talking about – my husband died and was buried; I can’t take another man even
if he is his cousin brother… well maybe. Just maybe!”
Abeca fell silent for a moment… bit on her
lower lip contemplatively; she shuddered at the thought of having to sleep with
Ogil Lajok for the rest of her life!
“Abeca stop playing around, you are
not a little girl ‘just maybe’ what! Say it!”
“Maybe if it was someone else and not
Ogil Lajok, I might have considered”
“That is a load of rubbish to say Abeca – it is the tradition you have to respect; do you know
these people, you could wind-up dead”.
“Auntie, that is exactly what I want
to get away from… there seem to be too many of very dark secrets in Larwecce
here and I have come to hate this place ever since Ulaa-wiic died”. They fell
silent another moment… slowly the charged atmosphere passed.
“Dok cen… go
back Abeca – life is not like that; I also need
you here which is why I introduced you to Ulaa-wiic… he was such a good looking
nice person. A brave hunter - only to be put down by a Buffalo just after fatally
spearing it; the short period you have been married to him here, things had
become a lot easier for me – please go back to Ugil Lajok… you will get used to
each other and eventually live well”.
“I was married to a good looking
strong and brave hunter, Aunty, he is dead and gone – it is you who introduced
me to Larwecce village people; it is not right to try to tie me down here for
the rest of my life – to an ugly, invalid, poetic, lyrical Lukeme or Nanga and
Adungu crooner” – what will the crooners sentiments help me? Help me cry all my
life?
Auntie Lakwele Ukato - wanted even
begged Abeca to stay – she had pleaded with her
niece the day before, had tried to wring-out some agreeable commitment from her
niece but it wouldn’t work. Things otherwise were falling to pieces between Auntie
Lakwel and her niece Abeca.
Abeca couldn’t stand
living with Ugil Lajok.
To Abeca,
worst problem with Ugil was first of all his hideous looks having been born
with a crack down his upper lip and a breakage down between his front teeth to
give him a scatter-mouth and then, elongated spread-out front teeth. It was
hard for a young woman to look at that face for a long moment. Let alone play a
whole lifetime wife…
Even to further compound matters Ugil’s
squint eyes were cataract blinded; even though at least his left eye had some
small slot and through the thinned-out membranes of the cataract Lajok could
see with strain and difficulty.
Ugil Lajok was talented otherwise in
a weird sort of way, in days gone-by not long ago when his cousin brother Abeca’s husband Ulaa-wiic was still alive; the guy often played
his Lukeme or sometimes Nanga in accompaniment with his haunty songs. The ugly
crooner spread his poetic lyrical poverty through sometimes terribly dark
nights… at first, as a newly married young woman less than a year before death
of her husband; Abeca had even enjoyed Ugili’s
crooning. Often in company of her great hunter husband, she had felt elated by
the songs of the blind ugly man.
She had walked. And walked. The
little numbness she had felt when she knocked her toe had gone. She was walking
east then after crossing the Acwaa River, she would head north.
The sun had just gone down over the
vast horizon. Crickets chirped. And the Ayweri bird
scraped its last sundowner cried; wrrrret, wrrrret, wrrrret,
wrrrrret, wrrrrret… she looked. And true the Ayweri
bird was perched on top of an anthill a little way from the scanty trail she
was following. The bird of the sunset had also seen her. Abeca mouthed
her own self-blessing invoking the spirits of her ancestry to walk with her –
suddenly, the fears all vanished.
The moon was still high on the
eastern horizon at sundown. So that the night was immediately cloudless, clear.
She could see very far. Another night bird had started her continuous nonstop
song; tot tot tot tot tot tot tot tot tot tot tot tot
tot… then the song of the children came to her mind in rhythm with
the beat of that night bird; the song “Langwinye ki moo”
. Now she really walked.
Her loincloth Udiye’e made
of softened animal skin felt loose over her front and and lightly slapped her
behind rhythmically. She had several
rounds of colorful beads on her waistline, round her wrists and neck. Abeca was bare feet and had nothing to cover her tiny molds
of breasts. She held a small animal skin Kibeggu bundle
whose long strap passed over her head to her other shoulder.
Abeca was young in her
teenage and was childless. Her husband the hunter Ulaa-wiic died when they had
only lived together one hunting dry season. It was in the second dry season
that he died in the wilderness. Abeca had
defied her favorite Auntie; Lakwele Ukato. And hardly did she know, but as she
walked away that night – in her womb was a little fetus, pregnancy of the dead
hunter. The man she loved had left her a seed! She was walking away towards
another life. A change!
The Writer: Sam Mwaka-karama
– Is an Independent Thinker, Author and Blogger
