5.

Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004

It was time. Miisi stood up to join the members of the clan streaming toward the new graveyard for the main event.

Earlier, when he saw the coffins unloaded off the truck and a wave of emotion run through the clan, he could not suppress a tinge of cynicism. Whose bones were in the coffins? After all, a lot of people had died in o Lwera over the centuries and it was not like the medium had carried out a DNA test. But then he had chastised himself: it didn’t matter. Facts are immaterial to faith. For a moment then, he regretted the fear that had stopped him from going along to o Lwera to look at the remains.

His fear went back to the moment when, on return to Kiyiika Village to tour Nnakato’s hill, the elders had come across a tree with a large beehive. The hive sat in an alcove where the tree split into five branches. Bweeza had run back to the car to get tiny baskets into which she dropped smoked coffee beans and coins before placing them below the hive. Then she gave thanks to the spirit Kayuki for revealing himself to the clan. Miisi had stood at a respectful distance, knowing that chances were that there would be at least one beehive in the woods. In any case, in his dream, the bee man or Kayuki as Bweeza referred to him, lived in a cave. But when they found the tree with the pink bark Miisi went numb, especially as there was a rock nearby. All he had said to the other elders was that according to his dream Nnakato had hung on a similar tree and that she would be close to the rock. Then he had pointed out a tree that would make the central pole of the shrine.

“If you believe my dreams, the dwelling should be built here: it should be circular and ten strides in radius.”

Perhaps sensing his turmoil, the cousins had allowed him to wrestle with his doubt privately. No one asked provocative questions, there was no sarcasm and no jesting in the car as they traveled back home—just worried silence. That was when a grain of doubt formed. He still could not rule out coincidence, but now and again what if crept up on him.

In his instructions regarding the location of the patriarch and the lad in o Lwera, Miisi had been true to the dreams, but he stood by the fact that they were just dreams.

“If you find nothing, and I doubt you’ll find anything, don’t blame me. I’ve warned you over and over that these are images conjured by a traumatized mind.”

Two weeks later, when the party returned having located both bodies, Miisi decided that they were other people’s remains. Now he wondered what would happen to his restless sleep after the rituals. He could not wait to see the power of the mind.

“Ready for the main event?” Muganda smiled at Miisi as he made his way to the gathering. Miisi nodded and hurried to join the clan.

When he arrived at the graveyard, he was met with silence. Anticipation and trepidation hung equally in the air. The clan stood facing the three coffins—Kintu’s, Nnakato’s, and Kalema’s. Each coffin was placed alongside a grave. For a moment, Miisi was caught in the awe of being in the presence of history. He saw Kintu’s blood flow unbroken through the ages leading to him and he bowed his head. He wanted to whisper something in acknowledgement but did not know how.

When he looked up, he saw three white lambs tethered to a tree nearby. On another tree were three black male goats. The scene could have come straight out of the Old Testament, he thought. He wished that Kanani could come out of his tent to see it. In a few moments, the animals would pay with their blood for Kintu’s sin just as animalkind had done for mankind throughout time. The animals chewed the cud, oblivious. It was Miisi who suffered their looming end. He smiled at the irony. To him, humanity was cursed anyway. The mind was a curse: its ability to go back in time to regret and to hop into the future to hope and worry was not a blessing.

Next to the coffins were bundles of sticks—peeled and smooth. They were as long as chopsticks, only thicker. Miisi had almost missed them. Sheep and goats, black and white, were trademark items for a sacrifice, but the sticks did not make sense. He turned to the clan and wondered which of the cousins had faith in the rituals, which were skeptical, and which were drifting through everything half-consciously.

Muganda greeted the clan and asked them to stand around the graves. He wore a kanzu. On top, he had knotted the traditional barkcloth. He wore a necklace of cowries. The watch was gone and in its place were traditional black gem bracelets. He carried a big staff mounted with a traditional curved knife. His feet were bare.

“I speak for Kintu’s children—past, present, and to come. We have gathered to lay our father, mother, and brother to rest. We’ve also come together as children from a single spring to strip ourselves of a heritable curse. As we obtain peace of mind, we seek rest for our mother Nnakato, our father Kintu, and brother Kalema. Ntwire shall let go of the child nursed on Nnakato’s breast. Because Kalema found a home and family in Buganda, we shall sever all Ntwire’s claims on the lad.”

Muganda then instructed each person to pick a stick. His assistant passed them around. Miisi picked one: it was dry and odorless. When everyone held one, Muganda continued,

“Kalema was buried near an oasis. The sticks you hold were cut out of the musambya, the Nile tulip shrubs that grew around his grave. Now, I’ll ask you to whisper all your afflictions and rub them into the stick. You may not remember everything at once, so hang onto them.”

A stick was placed on each of the coffins.

All around Miisi, cousins whispered feverishly into their sticks. It felt like a Pentecostal congregation whispering in tongues. Just then, a young woman slipped past Miisi. He looked up: she was the woman who had so far stood apart from everything like a teenager forced to go to church. The woman picked up a stick and returned to the back of the gathering. Miisi caught Muganda looking at him with amusement and lowered his eyes, feeling like a child caught with his eyes open during prayer.

Miisi did not whisper any affliction into his stick.

“Can we have the lambs brought forward?” Muganda interrupted the whispering. “For the squeamish, it’s time to look away. We’re going to harvest their blood.”

Miisi turned away before the lambs’ legs were bound. It did not help. Presently, a gasp escaped the gathering. Then rapid rustling like kicking came, followed by a slow puffing of blood. Thrice, the rustling and puffing came before fading. Miisi felt nausea rising. Luckily, he held it back.

“We’re going to cover the carcasses with barkcloth.” Muganda’s voice came. There was a pause. “You can turn around now. Everyone, place your stick on top of the carcasses.”

Miisi rubbed his stick as if he were making a fire and placed it on the pile. The sticks on the coffins were also placed on the carcasses, so were any that were left over. The gathering was asked to step back. The assistant came forward with a large urn and poured oil on the heap, soaking everything. Muganda struck a match and said, “I now set all that afflicts you on fire.” He threw the match on the heap and slowly it was engulfed in flames. “When everything has burned, the ashes will be buried in the four corners of this place but now, join me in laying the dead to rest. First, we lay Kalema. I pour a bowl of the blood we harvested from the sheep into his grave. In so doing, I sever ties with Ntwire and with Ntwire’s home. You’re no longer Kalemanzira but Kalema. Any force that comes to collect you has been blocked.”

Muganda walked to a patch cordoned off by wooden planks. He stopped and pointed with both hands at the demarcated space.

“Here lies your brother, Baale. We shall mark his resting place properly later.” Then he moved to the second grave and called out, “Nnakato, you will now lie between your beloved Kintu and Baale; search no more. The rope around your neck has been removed and you shall endure the squatting posture no more.”

He moved to the last grave.

“Kintu, your blood has survived the curse. You have children the way a millipede has legs. Now that you’re home, we ask that you rest.” Now Muganda turned to the gathering and raised his hands. “I call upon the winds of the clan—ghosts, spirits, and all ancestors—to come down on these children like a mother hen comes down on her chicks with her wings and feathers. Guard and guide, undo any evil plots and traps that lie in their paths now and for the rest of their lives.”

As Miisi helped to lower the coffins, images of his children lowered into the ground swarmed before him. He busied himself piling earth on the coffins. He did not hear the medium say, “That’s enough. If you’ve put earth on the family, come around.” Miisi carried on shovelling until the medium stayed his hand and led him back to the circle.

“My men and I shall sacrifice the goats. Their blood will be poured around the central pole of the shrine and around the wall to buttress the shrine. The goats will be roasted and shared by everyone. I shall see you when you return for the ablution rite.”

Suddenly, there was a commotion. Miisi looked up. The reluctant woman, the one he had noticed picking up a stick, had fainted. He ran to help. Muganda ordered everyone away except the elders.

“Go get the large sheets,” he told the assistant before turning to the staring people. “Everyone else get back to your tents now unless you want to be caught in this.” At that threat, the cousins scattered. “Who knows her? Who came with her?” Muganda asked the elders.

“Her name is Suubi Nnakato: she is from my branch but—” a woman who was lingering shouted.

At the sound of her name, the woman sprang off the ground unnaturally fast and sat back on her haunches. Her eyes were unseeing. She started to bob, then sway. Slowly, her head started to swing. Nsimbi returned with large sheets of barkcloth.

“Come, hold the edge of the sheets,” Muganda instructed the elders and they formed a cubicle around the woman to screen her from public view. Miisi held two ends in one corner. This was his chance to observe the transpossession phenomenon.

The woman’s body, swinging or rotating, picked up momentum and started hopping about on her hands. Miisi stepped back as the body lurched toward him. The spinning was so unnaturally fast that the woman’s head was hardly visible. It was clear to Miisi that the woman did not own her body anymore. He was wondering whether the spinning was the woman’s body fighting the suppression of her consciousness when he heard a finger snap. Miisi shouted at Muganda, “Stop her. She’s breaking bones!”

Muganda ignored him. Taking his time, the medium took a tiny basket from the assistant and entered into the screen. He pulled up his kanzu and knelt down. Having broken several fingers and a wrist, the body now knelt on its knees and spun from the end upwards. Muganda placed the basket in front of the body. He placed a few coins and smoked coffee beans in the basket and requested, “We beg you to introduce yourself.”

The spinning started to slow down. When it stopped, Miisi saw that the woman’s eyes were narrowed and she breathed with puffing, slow, and deep breaths.

“You’re very angry. How have we offended?” Muganda was humble.

When the body did not respond Muganda added, “I beg of you to let go of your host, she has broken several bones.”

“Let me kill her.”

The voice was as thin as a child’s—not older than four.

“But who are you?”

“Babirye, her twin.”

Muganda sat back as if his job had been done. Miisi was trying to reconcile the child’s voice to the aggression.

“She tried to bind me in your stick.” The body moved and Miisi saw a stick that should have been burned lying on the ground. Goosebumps spread all over his arms. The body leaned forward and picked the stick off the ground with its mouth, then spat it out again.

“Nnakato has denied my existence all this time,” the child’s voice laughed sarcastically. “But then she binds me into a stick to burn me? Me, her sister?” she breathed as if asthmatic.

Miisi felt nausea rise again. He could hear a grating sound somewhere in his head. He asked Bweeza, who stood outside the cubicle, to hold his corner.

“I don’t feel well,” he whispered to the other elders.

It was as if Bweeza had been waiting for such an opportunity all along. She took Miisi’s place with relish. Muganda was still groveling for Suubi’s life as Miisi walked away.