THE CUSTOMS OF THE ANTS
The following days were busy indeed in the village. There were so many
things to see and to do that it was hard for any boy or girl to keep up
with the times.
If one stayed to watch the women preparing the meat of the elephant for
the great feast, one would miss the expedition into the forest to cut
poles for new houses, and would not see the putting up of the framework
and the construction of the roof. Nkunda spent some time helping to
make the mud to plaster the walls of her mother’s house, and any child
who ever dabbled in mud and water with the feet knows how pleasant that
is. Other children collected split bamboos and wet bark rope, and grass
for thatching.
[Illustration]
The house Mpoko and Nkunda saw going up was built without the use
of nails or hammers or saws, planes, screws or chisels, foot rule or
figures. First, a row of strong poles was planted along the line of
the house wall and as high as the eaves would be--a little less than
five feet. The mud floor inside was tramped down hard, and was a little
higher than the level of the ground outside. The three forked posts
supporting the ridgepole were about seven feet high.
Of course there were children who did not know the old riddle about
the ridgepole posts. When Mpoko told them that there were three men
carrying a dead one in their teeth over yonder, they ran very fast to
the place at which he pointed. All that they saw, however, was three
“king posts” just set up, with the ridgepole lying across them; and
then they remembered that the forks of such a post are called _meno_,
which means teeth. Then they went and found other children who had not
heard the riddle and brought them to see; and before the roof was on,
the joke had been told four or five times.
It was not hard to build little huts in the same way the men were
putting up the big ones, and when a group of children had just
finished one Nkunda came by from the hen house.
“I have a house built without any door,” said she. “The person who
lives in it will come out when he is hungry.”
Nobody could guess that riddle until Nkunda opened her little brown
hand and showed them a new-laid egg.
“I know a riddle you have not heard,” said Nkula. “My father’s fowls
laid their eggs under the leaves.”
None of them had heard that one, but Nkunda happened to remember
seeing Nkula munching peanuts a few minutes before and called out
triumphantly, “Nguba!” Of course, the peanut, or “goober,” hides its
fruit under its leaves.
[Illustration]
“The bird with its head cut off eats up all the food,” said their
mother. The answer to that was easy when one saw the women grinding
flour for bread. The stone on which grain, cassava, and plantains are
pounded was the headless bird.
Then the Alo Man told them one that was new to them all.
“I went to a strange town and they gave me one-legged fowls to eat.”
The answer was “Mushrooms.” Another new riddle was this: “A small stick
may have many leaves and lose them all in a day.” The stick was a
market, and the leaves were the people.
With laughter and joking and singing, all the work went on, and before
long the men were finishing the house walls. They bound split bamboo
crosswise of the posts with wet bark rope, which shrinks as it dries
and will last for years. The women plastered the wall inside and out
with the mud which they had made at the nearest ant-hill by puddling
earth and water with their feet. This mud was squeezed between the
bamboos, and when it was dry, more was put on, until the walls were
quite rain-proof.
When the walls were dry the frame of the roof, which had been made
separately, was set on top, and then the grass thatching was tied on
in bundles, the upper row overlapping the lower as wooden shingles do.
The rafters of the roof were the midribs of the raffia leaf. The house
was divided within into the side for sleep and the side for fire.
In chilly weather a wood fire smoldered inside each hut, so that the
walls and inside of the roof became black and shining with soot. The
houses were used only to sleep in, to sit in on rainy days, and to hold
various stores which must be kept dry; all the cooking, eating, and
general work of the family were done outside. Moreover, a whole family
did not live in a single house. Each grown person had a separate hut,
the children usually staying with their mothers.
There was almost no furniture except that some houses had a mud
platform with a grass bed on it. When the headman of the village
presided on any formal occasion, he sat on a low stool cut out of a
solid block of wood. The rest of the people sat on their heels and were
perfectly comfortable, for they had always sat in that position. Food
was served in wooden platters and calabashes, without tables. Baskets
and jars served to hold things, and there were no stoves, cupboards,
bureaus, washstands, desks, sofas, or sideboards. The people made what
they needed and wanted, and spent no time taking care of anything they
did not want.
The village was fairly clean, for the dogs, fowls, and goats and the
wild birds and animals ate up a great deal of garbage. If rubbish
accumulated, it was carried off into the forest at certain times. There
was always enough to eat of one kind of food or another, and enough
to trade, for most of the things really needed could always be found
in the great storehouse of the wilderness. If there had never been
anything to be afraid of, the people would have lived comfortably year
in and year out. But the shadow of danger was always hanging over them.
The men of the village had had a great deal of talk with the Alo Man
about this fear of attack, and he was able to tell them several things
about the ways of defending a country and of avoiding trouble, which he
had seen in his travels. He had been among many different tribes, and
some of the customs of which he told seemed very strange.
For instance, the Alo Man said that the Wa-nkonda built their huts
round, with the walls sloping out from the bottom like a basket,
and the spaces between the bamboos were not plastered with mud but
filled in with round bricks of white clay. This seemed to Mpoko and
Nkunda like a great deal of needless trouble, but the Alo Man assured
them that the Wa-nkonda would think their huts just as strange
and outlandish. In some tribes the warriors used daggers with the
ring-shaped hilt, and shields of hide or leather, and some preferred
the bow and arrow to the spear. The Alo Man had seen a king’s palace
eighteen feet by twenty-five, with plank walls and thatched roof. This
king owned ivory bows carved at the ends; the ivory would have snapped
like a dry twig in any temperate climate, but the hot steamy air of
Equatorial Africa kept it elastic. The same king had double drinking
horns made of a pair of eland horns mounted in ivory; he had oil dishes
of carved ivory shaped like little canoes or handled cups, and his
women had combs and hairpins of carved ivory. The Alo Man had been a
guest at a royal banquet, at which they served soup, sweet potatoes,
greens, fish, boiled chicken, boiled pork, roast pig, rice pudding, and
stewed guava. The women of the village were proud to find that their
own feast would have nearly everything on this list and a few other
dishes besides.
Mpoko had reached an age when he was beginning to wonder about the
reason for things, and he wondered a great deal about the constant
danger of raids from enemies outside. He knew that he himself would
probably be headman some day, for his mother was of a family even more
important than his father’s, and it was the mother’s rank that counted
in such matters. He asked the Alo Man some questions about the best way
of defending one’s village, and without saying anything very definite
in reply the Alo Man went on to tell the story of the Quarrelsome
Ants. The story perhaps gained in interest from the fact that several
different kinds of ants were just then busy in plain sight.
[Illustration]
I often see things [the Alo Man began] that remind me of the time when
all the Ants met together in palaver under a large tree, like this one,
to try to find some way of protecting themselves from their enemies.
“We have more enemies than any other creatures on earth,” groaned the
Black Ants.
“We are perfectly helpless, whatever happens,” wailed the Red Ants.
“A Centipede came to our village yesterday and ate up all our slaves
before we could do anything.”
“The other creatures are so large,” lamented the Rice Ant. “They are
provided with weapons suited especially to hurt us. The Anteater came
to our hill and poked his long, slender tongue down every corridor and
into every hole, and licked us up by the hundred.”
[Illustration]
“If you had ever known what it was to be hunted by Birds,” said the
Wagtail Ant, “you would think other enemies were hardly worth minding.”
“It does not matter which enemy is the worst,” said the Gray Ant. “What
we have to consider is the way to escape.”
“Let us live underground,” said the Rice Ant.
“Our enemies can burrow faster than we can,” said the Red Ant.
“It would be better to take to the trees,” said the Black Ant.
“So it might, if you are ready to walk into the mouth of some hungry
Bird,” said the Wagtail Ant.
“We can learn to fly,” said the Gray Ant.
“Birds fly much better than we ever could,” said the Rice Ant.
“We shall have to come to earth to eat or sleep,” said the Red Ant.
“And when we do, our enemies will all be waiting for us,” said the
Wagtail Ant.
“Then, since we cannot live underground, on the ground, in the trees,
or in the air, where are we to live?” asked the Black Ant. “I see no
way but to fight.”
“How do you expect to fight a Centipede?” asked the Red Ant.
“Or an Anteater?” asked the Red Ant.
“Or a great, pouncing Bird with a beak like a spear?” asked the Wagtail
Ant.
Each insisted that his own way of escape would be effective and that
every other plan was foolish and dangerous.
“There is nothing for us to do,” said the Black Ant at last, “but each
to live as suits him best, for we shall never agree on a way of living
that will suit us all. For my part, I intend to fight.”
Then the Black Ant and his people fought their way through the rest and
departed in a column across the country.
The Red Ant built a strong castle with hundreds of winding passages and
chambers, but no sooner was it done than the Anteater saw it. Clawing
his way through the wall, he put in his long, slender tongue and licked
up the inhabitants.
The Rice Ant burrowed under the earth, but no sooner had the many worms
and burrowing insects learned of the new colony than they came and ate
not only the grown Ants but the baby Ants and even the eggs.
The Wagtail Ant climbed the trees and hid under the bark, but Birds
with long, slender beaks pried into every crack and nipped the hidden
Ants with their pincers.
The Gray Ant grew wings and learned to fly, and although he succeeded
in dodging the Birds, he found that when he alighted and tried to hide
in the leaves, the web of a Hunting Spider awaited him.
Meanwhile the King of the Insects had heard of their troubles, and
he sent a message to the Ants, saying: “You will find safety only in
union. Join all together, and, small as you are, you will be safe.”
The Beetle, who was sent with the message, started out bravely, but
bumped into a tree and hit himself a blow on the head which knocked the
message completely out of it. Thus the Ants have never received the
advice of the King.
* * * * *
Many of the men of the village had been listening to this story, and
there was silence for a time after the Alo Man had finished.
“It is true,” said one of the hunters at last, “we quarrel a great deal
among ourselves, and we have not been able to agree with the other
villages even about this expedition.”
“But our own ways are the best,” said another. “Why should we change
them for those of others?”
“That is what the people of Satu’s village say,” said the Alo Man.
“If there is ever a great meeting in which we are to plan how to defend
ourselves against Tswki,” said Mpoko’s father, grimly, “I think we
shall have to begin by making a law like that of the People of the
Bandaged Faces.”
The others grinned, for they knew that story; but Mpoko could not
imagine what his father meant, and there was no time just then to ask.