Drum

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

This volume is dedicated, with his permission, to my good friend and valued collaborator

Lance Horner

to whom I am profoundly obligated for the assistance he has given me and without whose insistence, aid, and persistent encouragement the book would never have been finished.

book one

chapter i

The African sun exploded in a blast of white-hot heat that seared the earth. It tore at the face, the head, the vitals, and parched the throat. Tamboura paused to wipe away the stream of sweat that ran down into his eyes and dripped into his mouth with the salty taste of his own body. He shifted the weight of the slain antelope buck on his shoulders, while with the tip of his tongue that was like a darting arrow of red flame he licked the moisture from his thick, dark hps. The green flies that had departed momentarily from the carcass alighted again to gorge themselves with blood.

Tamboura was proud of his kUl, His light wooden lance had penetrated the animal's jugular vein on his first throw, and he had now completed his last task—^that of killing the meat for his own feast. Although the spear had served him well, he looked at it with contempt and his lips twisted in disdain at the light shaft and the fire-sharpened end encrusted with dried blood.

Balancing the slain buck with one hand behind him, he raised the other and hurled the stick away from him. It was an awkward cast because of his burden, but it landed many paces away and stood quivering in the ground. He spat after it and cursed it, calling down upon it the avenging spirits of his ancestors and his own particular spirit. It was a stupid boy's weapon—a worthless plaything! Tomorrow! Ay, tomorrow, after the circumcision ceremonies of tonight, he would have an iron-tipped spear, the spear of a man, a real hunter.

Tamboura squinted to see through the shimmering heat waves and, shielding his eyes with his hand, peered across the stubble of sunburned grass and dusty tamarisk shrubs to where a huge baobab tree lifted a stubby umbrella of leaves above a squat barrel-like trunk. Beneath it there would be shade from the fierce sun and rest from his heavy burden.

Strong as he was, with the elastic vitality of youth, he stumbled under his burden as he quickened his steps to a trot, the sooner to reach the beckoning shade. Then he slid the carcass with its buzzing flies from his shoulders and dropped to the ground, welcoming the cool dryness of the leaves against his back. Even under the tree the dappled light was dazzling, and when he closed his eyes his lids served only to change the stark whiteness of the light to a fiery red. He reached down to unknot the sweaty strip of soiled cloth from his loins. Once it had been gay and gaudily patterned with red and white arabesques—the Midlands cotton miUs of England knew what "the stinkin' niggers" liked —but now it was grimy and sweat-stained, a faded gray. He folded its musky wetness and laid it across his eyes, glad of the welcome darkness it afforded.

He stretched, grinding his narrow buttocks down into the comforting leaves. Ay! It was pleasant to lie under the shade of the big tree with a sense of accomplishment behind him and the even greater anticipation of what the evening would bring. This was the day he had yearned for, lived aU his life for and for which he had patiently taken the taunts and patronizing jibes of the young hunters. This was his day. Yesterday he had left the camp of the pubescent boys, with no provisions to eat or drink, only the obligation to slay an animal for his feast. He had sustained himself with the locusts he had caught with his hands, and fat white grubs he had found under a stone. He had bathed in the warm water of the river, carefuUy examining his body for any disfiguring pimple or defect, anointing his skin from a little leather flask of palm oil. He had had the good fortune to slay his meat offering on the first throw. Now he would not be cheated out of his initiation as he had been last year and the year before. He knew he had seventeen years instead of the fifteen his brother Mandouma claimed for him.

The notches on the pole of his spirit in his brother's hut—the pole with the carved lion on top—had counted up to fifteen two years ago but Mandouma, head man of the village, had erased one mark and done the same thing again last year. Both Mandouma and his son, Bansu, had insisted there were only fourteen marks. That was because his brother hated him and so did Bansu, Tamboura's nephew, who was three years older than he. Well, they and that dirty bitch, Zarassa, Mandouma's wife, were all the family

he had and if they hated him, he could hate equally well in return. Once there had been eight brothers between Mandouma and Tamboura and now they were all dead. Only the eldest and the youngest were alive, and that meant that when Mandouma joined the hunters in the sky, Tamboura would be head man of the village with all the honors and authority of king. It was the law of the Hausa nation that a brother succeeded rather than a son but the greedy Zarassa and the foppish Bansu did not want that. Zarassa was half Arab and she cared little for Hausa laws. She cared only for her son, and she had soft-talked Mandouma into hating his brother. Yes, they had almost succeeded again this year, but they could not soft-talk old Kanili, the witch doctor. Two years ago he had believed them, even last year, but this year Kanili took one look at Tamboura and scoflfed at their assurance that he had only fourteen rainy seasons to his life.

They had tried to deny him the rite of circumcision which was rightfully his for they did not want him to sit in the councils of the village and gain the confidence of the hunters and the elders. But old Kanili was his friend! Neither Mandouma nor the half-caste Bansu had dared dispute the old witch doctor a third time. So, Tamboura had left the hut of his brother to sleep in the communal hut of the initiates, all younger than himself, for the last six months. During that time, he had studied with old Kanili, learning of his own spirit—^the spirit of Earth whose sign was the hon. Tamboura was glad he was of the earth spirit for that meant he would be a hunter. Those whose marks were the crane were of the spirit of the air to hunt birds; those with the mark of the crocodile were of the spirit of water to spear fish and hunt the crocodiles, but those of the earth proudly bore the sign of the lion and were hunters of beasts.

To Tamboura, Kanili had taught the secrets of the earth —how to hunt the animals, how to make things grow from the soil, and perhaps most important of all how to renew his strength from his great mother earth by lying on his back and letting her power seep through his skin. Someday soon, when Tamboura had learned to use the iron-tipped spear, he would stalk and kill a lion alone and then the lion's spirit would enter into him. He would have all the power and bravery of a lion and perhaps, if the spirit were really within him, the lion's mane would grow on his cheeks and chin and cover his belly with a mat of black hair.

Atunoo, one of the young hunters of the village, had killed a lion and it was a marvel the way the hair grew on his body, Tamboura envied him for he was a real lion-man. To kill a lion was much more difficult than killing a foolish crane with flapping wings or a sleepy crocodile. Mandouma was a crocodile—that's why he was so lazy and why he let Zarassa influence him instead of knocking out her teeth and teaching her obedience. And Bansu was a crane—that's why he walked stiff-legged like a bird and twittered like one, hanging beads around his neck and braiding copper wire to make even more bracelets for his skinny arms. Ay! Tamboura was glad he was a lion spirit for the lion spirits were the real men who were able to scatter their seed ten times a night and breed a thousand sons.

It was cool imder the baobab—cool and quiet and restful, with a hint of a breeze which rustled the leaves above him and fanned the sweat from his skin. He knew that he was not far from the kraal for he could see the tops of the silk cotton trees that grew there. There was time to linger a Uttle longer; he was not due back at the village until sundown, which would give the women plenty of time to skin the buck and roast it for the big feast that would follow the secret rites which they were forbidden to witness. Tamboura's mouth watered at the anticipation of the roast meat, the yams, the locusts in honey and the cassava bread.

But in spite of all his bravery, he shivered with an involuntary twitching of all his muscles. He would not admit it even to himself but he dreaded the pain the evening would bring. Some boys feared it so much that they ran away from the kraal and became outcasts in the bush. That there was pain he was well aware, for all the men boasted of how they had endured it and how it had seared them like a white-hot fire. Sometimes the knife didn't cut clean the first time and old Kanili had to saw and saw until the skin came away. Then it was more painful and left a ragged and disfiguring scar. But Kanili now had a new knife—a sharp one of steel—which he had bought from the slave traders. He had promised that with the new knife there would be a clean cut the first time and he had demonstrated how easy it would be with Tamboura for there was more than enough skin to get a firm grasp. And then . . . Kanili had whispered a secret! The millet beer that Tamboura would

drink before the ceremony contained a white powder dissolved in it which would dull the pain.

Ay! What was a little pain compared to the glorious fact that it would make him a man? The last two years had been difficult ones, for his body had ached with desire which could not be fulfilled. As he was now, no girl of the village would let him touch her. He was unclean and he would contaminate any girl or woman whom he entered. Tamboura removed the sweaty loincloth from over his eyes and looked down over his body, hating the thick rosette of black skin which marked him as still a boy. After tonight, it would be gone and he could strut before the other men in the council house, removing his loincloth as they did and displaying the unshrouded organ of his manhood with pride. But even more than the pride he would take in his virility was the freedom he would have to court the girls of the village when they slipped away into the darkness of the trees after the pulsating rhythm of the full moon dances. Then aU the men of the village, aflame with the desire the drums had instilled, forgot wives and marriage vows and grabbed the first warm flesh they found in the darkness and bore it to the ground. Once Tamboura had almost succeeded but the woman had discovered his boyhood and clawed his face, spitting on him and cursing him for trying to defile her. But not after tonight!

When the cut had healed, he knew the first girl he would take for himself—Iba, the sleek daughter of Layoumba. As children they had played together like young animals. Although he had not seen her for six months, he remembered how the points of her breasts would press hard against him when he drew her close to him while they were hiding in the tamarisk bushes. But that was only playing! She would not let him do what his throbbing urgency demanded. Never! She would only stroke him, slowly at first and then violently until he tingled in every muscle of his body and the blood exploded in his head. Then suddenly it would be all over and he would run from her in disgust. Now it would be different! Ay, by the very spirit of the lion, he swore it would be. She would be the one who would run from him but he would catch her, not once, not twice but ten times, maybe twenty times as he had heard Atunoo, the hairy lion-man, boast.

His hands wandered down over his body, reveling in its hardness, and it was with difficulty that he removed them.

Bahl He was no longer a child. Such things were for boyS|. not the man that he almost was. After tonight! Ay, aft«^ tonight! He stood up, the better to resist the temptatioiii that had lured his hands.

Tamboura was tall for his seventeen years—tall and big-; boned, with hands and feet that seemed too large even for: his big frame and promised even more growth. The adolescent curves of his body had almost disappeared and the: sharp cleavages of definition between his muscles were showing. Twin, rounded curves broadened his chest. Somewhere: back in his ancestry he too had a sprinkling of Arab blood, for his face lacked the rotundity of the pure Negro and there was a suggestion of high cheekbones. His nose, short in length and starting wide between his eyes, came down in a straight line, flattening to broad but sensitive nostrils. The lips were thickened but not ill formed, dully tinged with red and damply smooth. They parted to disclose a row ofi large, white, even teeth. His body ghstened with palm oil and sweat like a piece of blue-black steel, smoothly glabrous except for the close-fitting skullcap of black velours which covered his head, reaching at the sides almost to his eyebrows. His eyes were velvety soft like those of the antelope he had slain—circular discs of copper brown, set in a creamy white which seemed overlarge in contrast to the dark skin. There was a hint of the Arab ancestor, too, in the long eyelashes and the strongly cleft chin.

Having put Iba out of his mind, he was now able to tie: the loincloth, and he reached down and eased the slain i beast up onto his shoulders again. It was later than he: thought. The sun was nearing the horizon in a mass of rose and violet clouds and he must hurry. Rested now, and I refreshed by his contact with his spirit Earth, he started off at an easy lope, the polished hooves of the antelope clicking: a tattoo that timed his footsteps. Soon he reached the yami and manioc patches which marked the outer boundary of; his village and with them the grass disappeared in a pathi of beaten dirt. He passed the stockade where he heard the' plaintive singing of the slaves his village had captured and I he smiled to think how he too would raid the villages beyond the river and bring back captives whom he could i trade for yards of cloth, sharp knives, bugle beads and all! the luxuries which his primitive civilization had not beeni able to produce.

People he had not seen in his six months' absence fromi

the village passed him on the path. The women, knowing that this was the night of his celebration, greeted him with good-humored bantering; the men, with frightening threats of the painful ordeal he must undergo; the young boys with envious looks. And the girls ... ay, the girls only dropped their eyes with a false modesty which allowed them to estimate the bulge of his loincloth in anticipation of dancing nights to come. He returned their greetings in kind for now; being only a few hours away from man stature, he could speak to all as an equal, giving no offense.