"I've changed my mind. I'll not be part of it." Serina pulled at his
arm and realized she was shouting to make herself heard above the
torrent around them. In the west the lightning flared again. "Take me
back. Now."
Directly ahead the wide thatched roof of the mill house loomed out of
the darkness. Atiba seemed not to hear as he circled his arm about her
waist and urged her forward. A sheet of rain off the building's eaves
masked the doorway, and he drew her against him to cover her head as
they passed through. Inside, the packed earthen floor was sheltered and
dry.
The warmth of the room caused her misgivings to ebb momentarily; the
close darkness was like a protective cloak, shielding them from the
storm. Still, the thought of what lay ahead filled her with dread. The
Jesuit teachers years ago in Brazil had warned you could lose your soul
by joining in pagan African rituals. Though she didn't believe in the
Jesuits' religion, she still feared their warning. She had never been
part of a true Yoruba ceremony for the gods; she had only heard them
described, and that so long ago she had forgotten almost everything.
When Atiba appeared at her window, a dark figure in the storm, and told
her she must come with him, she had at first
refused outright. In reply he had laughed lightly, kissed her, then
whispered it was essential that she be present. He did not say why;
instead he went on to declare that tonight was the perfect time. No
cane was being crushed; the mill house was empty, the oxen in their
stalls, the entire plantation staff ordered to quarters. Benjamin
Briggs and the other _branco _masters were assembled in Bridgetown,
holding a council of war against the Ingles ships that had appeared in
the bay at sunrise.
When finally she'd relented and agreed to come, he had insisted she put
on a white shift--the whitest she had--saying in a voice she scarcely
recognized that tonight she must take special care with everything.
Tonight she must be Yoruba.
"Surely you're not afraid of lightning and thunder?" He finally spoke
as he gestured for her to sit, the false lightness still in his tone.
"Don't be. It could be a sign from Shango, that he is with us. Tonight
the heavens belong to him." He turned and pointed toward the mill.
"Just as in this room, near this powerful iron machine of the _branco_,
the earth is sacred to Ogun. That's why he will come tonight if we
prepare a place for him."
She looked blankly at the mill. Although the rollers were brass, the
rest of the heavy framework was indeed iron, the metal consecrated to
Ogun. She remembered Atiba telling her that when a Yoruba swore an oath
in the great palace of the Oba in Ife, he placed his hand not on a
Bible but on a huge piece of iron, shaped like a tear and weighing over
three hundred pounds. The very existence of Yorubaland was ensured by
iron. Ogun's metal made possible swords, tipped arrows, muskets. If no
iron were readily at hand, a Yoruba would swear by the earth itself,
from whence came ore.
"I wish you would leave your Yoruba gods in Africa, where they belong."
How, she asked herself, could she have succumbed so readily to his
preto delusions? She realized now that the Yoruba were still too few,
too powerless to revolt. She wanted to tell him to forget his gods, his
fool's dream of rebellion and freedom.
He glanced back at her and laughed. "But our gods, our Orisa, are
already here, because our people are here." He looked away, his eyes
hidden in the dark, and waited for a roll of thunder to die away. The
wind dropped suddenly, for an instant, and there was silence except for
the drumbeat of rain. "Our gods live inside us, passed down from
generation to generation. We inherit the spirit of our fathers, just as
we take on their strength, their appearance. Whether we are free or
slave, they will never abandon us." He touched her hand gently.
"Tonight, at last, perhaps you will begin to understand."
She stared at him, relieved that the darkness hid the disbelief in her
eyes. She had never seen any god, anywhere, nor had anyone else. His
gods were not going to make him, or her, any less a slave to the
_branco_. She wanted to grab his broad shoulders and shake sense into
him. Tonight was the first, maybe the last, time that Briggs Hall would
be theirs alone. Why had he brought her here instead, for some bizarre
ceremony? Finally her frustration spilled out. "What if I told you I
don't truly believe in your Ogun and your Shango and all the rest? Any
more than I believe in the Christian God and all His saints?"
He lifted her face up. "But what if you experienced them yourself?
Could you still deny they exist?"
"The Christians claim their God created everything in the world." Again
the anger flooding over her, like the rain outside. She wanted to taunt
him. "If that's true, maybe He created your gods too."
"The Christian God is nothing. Where is He? Where does He show Himself?
Our Orisa create the world anew every day, rework it, change it, right
before our eyes. That's how we know they are alive." His gaze softened.
"You'll believe in our gods before tonight is over, I promise you."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because one of them is already living inside you. I know the signs."
He stood back and examined her. "I think you are consecrated to a
certain god very much like you, which is as it should be."
He reached down and picked up a cloth sack he had brought. As the
lightning continued to flare through the open doorway, he began to
extract several long white candles. Finally he selected one and held it
up, then with an angry grunt pointed to the black rings painted around
it at one-inch intervals.
"Do you recognize this? It's what the _branco _call a 'bidding candle.'
Did you know they used candles like this on the ship? They sold a man
each time the candle burned down to one of these rings. I wanted Ogun
to see this tonight."
He struck a flint against a tinderbox, then lit the candle, shielding
it from the wind till the wick was fully ablaze. Next he turned and
stationed it on the floor near the base of the mill, where it would be
protected from the gale.
She watched the tip flicker in the wind, throwing a pattern of light
and shadow across his long cheek, highlighting the three small parallel
scars. His eyes glistened in concentration as he dropped to his knees
and retrieved a small bag from his waistband. He opened it, dipped in
his hand, and brought out a fistful of white powder; then he moved to a
smooth place on the floor and began to dribble the powder out of his
fist, creating a series of curved patterns on the ground.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm preparing the symbol of Ogun."
"Will drawings in the dirt lure your god?"
He did not look up, merely continued to lay down the lines of white
powder, letting a stream slip from his closed fist. "Take care what you
say. I am consecrating this earth to Ogun. A Yoruba god will not be
mocked. I have seen hunters return from an entire season in the forest
empty-handed because they scorned to make offerings."
"I don't understand. The Christians say their God is in the
sky. Where are these gods of Africa supposed to be?" She was trying
vainly to recall the stories her mother Dara and the old _babalawo _of
Pernambuco had told. But there was so much, especially the part about
Africa, that she had willed herself to forget. "First you claim they
are already inside you, and then you say they must come here from
somewhere."
"Both things are true. The Orisa are in some ways like ordinary men and
women." He paused and looked up. "Just as we are different, each of
them is also. Shango desires justice--though wrongs must be fairly
punished, he is humane. Ogun cares nothing for fairness. He demands
vengeance."
"How do you know what these gods are supposed to want? You don't have
any sacred books like the Christians. . . ."
"Perhaps the Christians need their books. We don't. Our gods are not
something we study, they're what we are."
"Then why call them gods?"
"Because they are a part of us we cannot reach except through them.
They dwell deep inside our selves, in the spirit that all the Yoruba
peoples share." He looked down and continued to lay out the drawing as
he spoke. "But I can't describe it, because it lies in a part of the
mind that has no words." He reached to take more of the white powder
from the bag and shifted to a new position as he continued to fashion
the diagram, which seemed to be the outline of some kind of bush. "You
see, except for Olorun, the sky god, all our Orisa once dwelt on earth,
but instead of dying they became the communal memory of our people.
When we call forth one of the gods, we reach into this shared
consciousness where they wait. If a god comes forth, he may for a time
take over the body of one of us as his temporary habitation." He paused
and looked up. "That's why I wanted you here tonight. To show you what
it means to be Yoruba." He straightened and critically surveyed the
drawing. His eyes revealed his satisfaction.
On the ground was a complex rendering of an African cotton tree, the
representing-image of Ogun. Its trunk was flanked on each side by the
outline of an elephant tusk, another symbol of the Yoruba god. He
circled it for a moment, appraising it, then went to the cache of
sacred utensils he had hidden behind the mill that afternoon and took
up a stack of palm fronds. Carefully he laid a row along each side of
the diagram.
"That's finished now. Next I'll make the symbol for Shango. It's
simpler." He knelt and quickly began to lay down the outline of a
double-headed axe, still using the white powder from the bag. The lines
were steady, flawless. She loved the lithe, deft intensity of his body
as he drew his sacred signs--nothing like the grudging branco artists
who had decorated the cathedral in Pernambuco with Catholic saints, all
the while half-drunk on Portuguese wine.
"Where did you learn all these figures?"
He smiled. "I've had much practice, but I was first taught by my
father, years ago in Ife."
The drawing was already done. He examined it a moment, approved it, and
laid aside the bag of white powder. She picked it up and took a pinch
to her lips. It had the tangy bitterness of cassava flour.
"Now I'll prepare a candle for Shango." He rummaged through the pile.
"But in a way it's for you too, so I'll find a pure white one, not a
bidding candle."
"What do you mean, 'for me too'?"
He seemed not to hear as he lit the taper and placed it beside the
symbol. Next he extracted a white kerchief from his waistband and
turned to her. "I've brought something for you. A gift. Here, let me
tie it." He paused to caress her, his fingertips against her cinnamon
skin, then he lovingly pulled the kerchief around her head. He lifted
up her long hair, still wet from the rain, and carefully coiled it
under the white cloth. Finally he knotted it on top, African style.
"Tonight you may discover you truly are a Yoruba woman, so it is well
that you look like one."
Abruptly, above the patter of rain, came the sound of footfalls in the
mud outside. She glanced around and through the dark saw the
silhouettes of the Yoruba men from the slave quarters. The first three
carried long bundles swathed in heavy brown wraps to protect them from
the rain.
They entered single file and nodded in silence to Atiba before
gathering around the diagrams on the floor to bow in reverence. After a
moment, the men carrying the bundles moved to a clear space beside the
mill and began to unwrap them. As the covering fell away, the fresh
goatskin tops of three new drums sparkled white in the candlelight.
She watched the drummers settle into position, each nestling an
instrument beneath his left arm, a curved wooden mallet in his right
hand. From somewhere in her past there rose up an identical scene,
years ago in Brazil, when all the Yoruba, men and women, had gathered
to dance. Then as now there were three hourglass-shaped instruments,
all held horizontally under the drummer's arm as they were played. The
largest, the _iya ilu_, was almost three feet long and was held up by a
wide shoulder strap, just as this one was tonight. The other two, the
_bata _and the _go-go_, were progressively smaller, and neither was
heavy enough to require a supporting strap.
The man holding the _iya ilu_ tonight was Obewole, his weathered coffee
face rendered darker still by the contrast of a short grey beard. His
muscles were conditioned by decades of swinging a long iron sword; in
the fields he could wield a cane machete as powerfully as any young
warrior. He shifted the shoulder strap one last time, then held out the
mallet in readiness and looked toward Atiba for a signal to begin.
When Atiba gave a nod, a powerful drum roll sounded above the roar of
the gale. Then Obewole began to talk with the drum, a deep-toned
invocation to the ceremonial high gods of the Yoruba pantheon, Eleggua
and Olorun.
"_Omi tutu a Eleggua, omi tutu a mi ileis, Olorun modu-pue ..."_
As the drum spoke directly to the gods, the line of men passed by Atiba
and he sprinkled each with liquor from a calabash, flinging droplets
from his fingertips like shooting stars in the candlelight. Each man
saluted him, their _babalawo_, by dropping their heads to the ground in
front of him while balanced on their fists, then swinging their bodies
right and left, touching each side to the floor in the traditional
Yoruba obeisance. The office of _babalawo _embodied all the struggles,
the triumphs, the pride of their race.
When the last man had paid tribute, all three drums suddenly exploded
with a powerful rhythm that poured out into the night and the storm.
Obewole's mallet resounded against the skin of the large _iya ilu_,
producing a deep, measured cadence--three strokes, then rest, repeated
again and again hypnotically--almost as though he were knocking on the
portals of the unseen. Next to him the men holding the two smaller
drums interjected syncopated clicks between the _iya ilu's _throaty
booms. The medley of tempos they blended together was driving,
insistent.
As the sound swelled in intensity, the men began to circle the drawing
for Ogun, ponderously shuffling from one foot to the other in time with
the beat. It was more than a walk, less than a dance.
Atiba began to clang together two pieces of iron he had brought, their
ring a call to Ogun. The men trudged past him, single file, the soles
of their feet never leaving the earth. Using this ritual walk, they
seemed to be reaching out for some mighty heart of nature, through the
force of their collective strength. They had come tonight as
individuals; now they were being melded into a single organic whole by
the beat of the _iya ilu_, their spirits unified.
Some of them nodded to Obewole as they passed, a homage to his mastery,
but he no longer appeared to see them. Instead he gazed into the
distance, his face a mask, and methodically pounded the taut goatskin
with ever increasing intensity.
"_Ogun cyuba bai ye baye tonu_ . . ." Suddenly a chant rose up through
the dense air, led by the young warrior Derin, who had devoted his life
to Ogun. His cropped hair emphasized the strong line of his cheeks and
his long, powerful neck. As he moved, now raising one shoulder then the
other in time with the drums, his body began to glisten with sweat in
the humid night air.
All the while, Atiba stood beside the mill, still keeping time with the
pieces of iron. He nodded in silent approval as the men in the line
began to revolve, their bare feet now slapping against the packed
earth, arms working as though they held a bellows. This was the ritual
call for Ogun, warrior and iron worker. As they whirled past the design
on the floor, each man bent low, chanting, imploring Ogun to appear.
While the sound soared around them, the dance went on and on, and the
atmosphere of the mill house became tense with expectation.
Suddenly Derin spun away, separating himself from the line, his eyes
acquiring a faraway, vacant gaze. As he passed by the musicians, the
drumming swelled perceptibly, and Serina sensed a presence rising up in
the room, intense and fearsome. Without warning, the clanging of iron
stopped and she felt a powerful hand seize hers.
"Ogun is almost here." Atiba was pointing toward Derin, his voice a
hoarse whisper. "Can you sense his spirit emerging? Soon he may try to
mount Derin."