Butler Did It! (2 page)

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When Matthew and Tommy finally returned
from their shopping adventure, the fiery chief engineer of the
Pelican, a tall, slender, dark-haired woman known as EB, greeted
them. She leaned against the ship’s rail, beer can in hand and
called down to them.

“And where have the two of you been for
so long?” She asked sarcastically. “We loaded Professor Wilkinson
and his cargo container a couple of hours ago.” As Butler and Tommy
got closer, she got a better look at their torn khakis and bruised
faces.

“God, don’t you two look a mess!” EB
declared, not terribly surprised. “Oh, by the way, the booze you
ordered was delivered half an hour ago. I hope you’re ready to
drink whatever they brought, since I had no way of knowing what you
ordered.” She casually took another swallow of the beer and made a
face. “I think you might have made a mistake with this ‘Old Four
Legs’.”

At about the same time as Matthew and
Tommy were limping up the gangplank, another journey was beginning
in a distant land.

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LONDON, ENGLAND

The big jet liner climbed slowly into
the grey skies over Heathrow Airport. Kobi Tenatta felt a lifting
of his spirits as he settled into his seat. It would be a long trip
before he arrived at his home in the central highlands of Kenya.
The lengthy flight would take him to Nairobi, but that was only the
first leg of his journey. After that, it would be a two-hour drive
to his home in Nakuru. He was grateful, at least, to have
begun.

Kobi was a small, black-skinned man
with the characteristic round face and mild features of the Tiburu
tribe of Central Africa. At about 5’4”, he was shorter than most of
his friends and family, but his body was hardened from a life of
physical activity as a Park Warden at Lake Nakuru National Park.
His warm brown eyes showed the intelligent confidence of a man who
held a position of respect in his family group and who had proved
himself in the dangerous battle against poachers in the African
wilderness.

As his father described it, he was the
eldest son of the eldest elder’s eldest son.

That’s a lot of elders
, he
thought.
One day I too will be an elder in the tribe. That’s the
reason I’m on this plane.

One week earlier, he had traveled all
the way to London to represent the Tiburu People in a ceremony
celebrating the return of two tribal artifacts that had been in the
possession of the British Museum. The objects had been stolen from
his tribe in the late 1800’s during a time when the various
European countries had divided the continent of Africa into
‘spheres of influence’ in an effort to control the rich land.
During this time of conquest, military actions against the loose
tribal governments of the native people were common and often
excessive. Because of these raids, many different tribes saw their
most prized possessions carried off by arrogant and uncaring white
men. The Tiburu treasure had been one of the many artifacts that
now lay forgotten in museums around the world or had found their
way into private collections to remain unrecoverable.

To pass time, Kobi had picked up a
brochure about the objects. They had been on special exhibit in the
Museum for three months before being returned to Africa. Strangely
enough, he personally knew very little about what the objects
actually were. The story, which his family had handed down over the
generations, was more a story of the noble hearts of those who had
protected it, rather than a story of the objects themselves. One
day, as a part of Kobi’s coming of age ceremony, his grandfather
had taken him aside and told him the tale.

“In the times long back, travelers from
far to the north came to our lands to pay tribute to our King and
to partake of the bounty of our land. These men brought with them a
very great treasure, which they presented as a gift, to show the
esteem of their ruler for our King. In the court of our King there
was a man named Kuyu. He was the most noble of the King’s advisors
and a very great general. Kuyu found favor in the eyes of the king
every day for his truthful spirit and the steadfastness of his
vows. He did not waver in anything to which he had dedicated
himself. Because of this, the king held him in great
esteem.”

“There came a day when the enemies of
the king had grown strong. News came that the warriors of his
enemies were coming to devour the kingdom and the wise king knew
that he could not overcome them.”

“To Kuyu he said, ‘Here is my greatest
treasure, the gifts of a far away land, nothing like this has ever
been seen in our world. To you I entrust this tribute, given to me
in honor of the richness of the land. Take this treasure and keep
it safe from the uneducated men that would try to destroy my
kingdom. Vow to me, with your life, that you will preserve my honor
throughout your generations by keeping these objects safe from
those who would disrespect them.’”

“Kuyu vowed that he and his family,
through all generations, would preserve the king’s honor, and hold
sacred their vow to keep the treasure safe. The family of Kuyu fled
along with the rest of his people, who eventually migrated south to
a fine land of rich soil in the shadow of the volcanoes. They
carried the King’s tribute on their backs and did not let any
strangers know of its existence. The tribute was safe in this new
land and the Tiburu Tribe grew strong and honorable, knowing that a
vow from a man’s heart is the most valuable thing he can possess.
The Tiburu people took possession of the land, which they inhabited
and made fruitful. The secret of the king’s treasure was shown to
the eldest son of the family of Kuyu, now a symbol of an honorable
man’s duty, to make vows sacred and keep them with his whole heart.
Each son of Kuyu who became an elder renewed the vow of his
ancestor to keep the Tribute safe as a symbol of the honorable
heart of a Tiburu man.”

Kobi’s grandfather looked sad as he
said, “My own father was killed keeping this vow. The ignorant
white men came and ripped our homes apart; taking whatever they
wanted for themselves. The white man is possessed by the devil of
greed, thus he robs without discrimination. The man who shot my
father held the King’s tribute in his profane hands and laughed as
my father died.”

“Since then, the Tiburu have honored my
father as a man who died keeping his vow. The Tribute was lost to
us, but we kept our honor. This honor has preserved our people and
made us strong during times of change. The last century changed
every part of African life, but the Tiburu have adapted and
prevailed. The time will come when you, too, Kobi, will be an
educated man and will come before your people to dedicate yourself
to honor, the keeping of your vows, and the welfare of your people.
It is a great thing to be the descendant of so many honorable
men.”

Kobi remembered the sun on his
grandfather’s face that afternoon as he told the story. For Kobi it
had been a moment out of time, when for an instant, he had joined
with all the Tiburu men before him who had kept that
vow.

Sighing and settling uncomfortably into
the airline seat he took up the brochure produced by the British
Museum, where he read the history according to British
archaeologists.

In the eighth year
of her reign as Pharaoh of Egypt (1465 BCE), Queen Hatshepsut
sent a fleet of five ships under the leadership of her Chancellor,
Senenmet, to the Land of Punt to establish trade relationships.
Included in the tribute to the King of Punt was a small golden
statue of the God Amon, whom the Egyptians believed to make his
home in Punt. The statue of a golden serpent on a pedestal was
small enough to fit in a man’s hand. Along with the serpent, she
also sent a small stone stele inscribed with the story of her
direct descent from the God Amon, whom she claimed had destined her
to rule as Pharaoh over Egypt. It was recorded by Senenmet that the
King of Punt greatly valued these objects for their beauty, as well
as for their artisanship. They exemplified skills the people of
Punt did not possess.

To this day, it remains
unknown what happened to the fabled Land of Punt and its Kings.
Curiously, the Tiburu people of Central Kenya tell a legend which
claims that the last King of Punt entrusted Hatshepsut’s gift to a
favorite general, and enjoined that man to vow that he and his
family would guard this treasure with their lives.

Over the course of time, the
Land of Punt disappeared, or rather became something else, and Punt
was forgotten by all, except select scholars deciphering Egyptian
hieroglyphics who found references to the mysterious land. The
people of Punt, whom it is suspected, eventually became the Bantu
tribes of Africa, migrated south into the rest of Africa. So, also,
did the tribute, kept by one family, who guarded it with their
lives to the end of all generations.

No one knows whether this
legend is true, but two objects, a statuette of a Serpent, and a
stone Stele were in the possession of this Tiburu family until they
passed into British hands in the 1880’s. They were given to our
Museum by the estate of Sir Henry Waite in 1939. With the hardships
of World War II, the museum had little time to investigate the gift
and consequently it was stored in the basement archives until the
current time.

The true and startling value
of these particular objects went unknown until August 2004 when
international philanthropist Alexander Levasseur began efforts to
get the tribute returned to the Tiburu people of Kenya. Because of
Levasseur’s interest, the museum staff began to investigate the
nature of the Tiburu objects. When the objects were unearthed from
the museum vaults they were seen to be of great historical
interest, since most existing references to queen Hatshepsut were
all but obliterated by her successors. The well-preserved Stele
told a story that gave further credibility to the tale of the Queen
Who Declared Herself King, and was of great interests to
Egyptologists around the world.

In addition, the location
and fate of the land of Punt is one of history’s great mysteries.
The serpent statue and the stele would appear to be the only
existing relics of that great Empire. Will they be the key to
unraveling the fate of these people? Will the Land of Punt turn out
to be Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, or some other place heretofore
unsuspected?

It is with great gratitude to the
people of Kenya that the British Museum has exhibited these
exquisite pieces of Egyptian history for the last three months.
Thus, on 15 March 2010, in a ceremony presided over by a Royal
Representative, these precious objects will be returned to the
Kenyan people. Representatives of the Royal Historical Society, the
British Egyptology Institute, and the Queen’s Treasury of Cultural
Objects will accompany Kenyan officials and historians in escorting
the treasures to Nairobi, Kenya. There they will assist in the
placing of the Golden Serpent and the Stele of Hatshepsut in the
Nairobi Museum of Culture, on proud display for the people
of Kenya
.

Kobi laughed to himself. The British
Museum’s brochure certainly put a good face on the situation. It
didn’t exactly agree with the African’s view of events.

The handing-over ceremonies in London
had been long and tedious as ceremonies inevitably were. Now that
they were over, Kobi was aching with fatigue. While in London he
had enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the friends he had made
while in school at Oxford, but he really was happy to be going home
to his wife, their new son, and the blue skies of Kenya. Thinking
of that joyful homecoming, he drifted in and out of sleep as the
aircraft made its way across two continents.

The entire flight was thirteen hours
long, including a one-hour layover in Dubai. At about the time they
were leaving United Arab Emirates airspace, Kobi had been informed
that they would not be landing in Nairobi as was planned, but
instead, were going to Mombasa. His travel weary mind could barely
comprehend the news of a rebel mortar raid on the airport at
Nairobi. Now, the plane was being re-routed to Mombasa.

Why would rebels shell the runways
of one of the most secure air terminals in all of Africa? What
could they hope to gain? Except, of course to cause inconvenience
for everyone flying out of Nairobi
.

All he knew was that instead of a
two-hour drive to get from Nairobi to his home, the journey was now
going to take well over forty-eight hours. However, the
inconvenience was not his alone. Besides the ancient Tiburu
treasure, the plane also carried many dignitaries from the museums
and governments of Britain and Kenya. As a result, the Kenyan
officials decided to relocate the ceremony they had been planning
in honor of the Frenchman, Mr. Alexander Levasseur, to the airport
in Mombasa. Levasseur was the man who had been almost solely
responsible for persuading the British to return the
artifacts.

Levasseur was a mystery to Kobi, and to
quite a few other people, it seemed. He hadn’t been able to
discover much about the man from any of his contacts in either
England or Kenya. As rumor had it, Levasseur was a rich exporter
operating around the Indian Ocean. He also had a reputation as an
international playboy, occasionally featuring in the gossip
magazines. However, no one really had any idea what he had done to
become so rich. Kobi suspiciously wondered why such a man would
spend so much effort on the return of these particular objects and
how he had been successful in getting them returned to Kenya.
Especially since the ownership of these artifacts was even more
contested than the many other African treasures yet to be
returned.