The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (38 page)

She did name Ruth, but she real name was Yelede. I remember she neck, long and full a grace, and she face oval like a smooth river stone, and she cocoa-brown skin. She did come from a great city name Benin, and she tribe was among the strongest in Africaland. But she refuse to become the youngest wife of a powerful chief, and she father in exasperation sell she to a white trader for a goodly sum. Mammy tell me all this, and the name ah she mammy, and she mammy's mammy. The planter did name me Tituba but, after she saw that I had great power, mammy named me Legba, which is the Dahomey name for one who does tell men what the gods want and does ask the gods favours ah men.

Mammy didn want me to carry only a whiteman name but she didn want me to have a Yoruba name in this new place, either. The Yoruba tribes use to capture other tribespeople and sell them to the white traders. But none ah the Yoruba tribes was powerful here and others might a remember that was Yoruba who did sell them. So mammy gave me a Dahomey name, because she tribe and the Dahomey were great enemies. Mammy tell me that past enemies didn matter in this place, that all the tribes believed the same things, and we all had to be African now if we was to get free. She did know this from early, and taught it to me when she see I had power. But she was fearful, very fearful, that the master would find out about mi power and kill me. Slaves couldn have no power, and even free niggers with dey own plantations knew to keep dey place. ‘Yuh day a come, pickney,' she would tell me, rocking me on she breast. ‘Buh not yet, not yet.' And I was content to have it so.

But it have no secrets in the barracks, so stories about a newborn god-child was bruited about soon after mi infancy. Was said that it had one who was like the whiteman Son-of-God, but come to save the Negro race. But even among mi own people it had those who thought that such talk would bring down the wrath ah the whiteman God pon we kinky heads. Mammy never boasted that I was the child people spoke about, and since I was a girl-child was simple enough to deny that I did have any strange powers. Yet the very fact ah mi existence did give mi people confidence, and when I was only five years old the runway hill slaves, name Maroons, made war on the planters, because they hear that the old gods was with dey. And so mi message was spoken even before I spoke it:
We are many and the whiteman is few. All we need is to speak with one voice
.

That is why mammy gave me a Dahomey name, why she make sure to teach me words in all the African languages, why she tell me I should worship every god as a god (except the whiteman crucify god). And was a great hurt to she when the planters make peace with the Maroons and the Maroons agree to give up dey own brethren who was still in chains on the plantations. I did want to ease mammy hurt, but I was only ten and didn have a voice yet.

Mammy die before I start giving mi people the message ah the gods. She just fall down dead in the field one day, though she hadn even reach thirty years. Mi heart break, and I cry for days. The slaves bury she in the slave graveyard at the edge ah the plantation and sing hymns and put up two stick to mark wey she was bury. I know Mammy woulda like to bury in the Yoruba way, but I didn know the prayers and it had no
babaloawans
or even
a oje
to do it. So she get bury in a open field, not mong she ancestors' bones, in she cotton dress, not in any special clothes, and with not a fowl or goat sacrifice for she spirit.

Was at she graveside that I decide was time to stop hiding mi power, though I was only about fifteen wet seasons in age. And I take the surname Falunbi, which means ‘reborn by the grace a Ifa'. I claim mi birthright as mi people saviour. I doan fear the master any more, for the whiteman try plenty times to kill me and always fail. Once I thought mi power was a curse. Now I proclaim to all that mi power come from the ghosts a we ancestors; but I never tell anybody that is not we ancestors' ghosts who show me how to fight the white man.

I keep mi deepest secrets secret. But, when I speak in the forest by the light of a fire, I show mi power. I must, to show mi people that they could be free. They fear obeah, respect obeah. At these adaes I strip myself to the waist, mi helpers tie me with mi arms outspread like the whiteman dead god. Someone from the audience whip me – it always have someone willing to do it. I let miself get whip till the blood course down mi back, black in the flickering light. Always the same expressions on dey faces: fear, mistrust, curiosity, revulsion. Always I tell them the same thing: ‘Tonight I pray to our gods, who were old before the whiteman walked the earth. Before tomorrow night, mi scars shall be healed, as though they had never been.'

That is how I does talk, because sometimes they go to leave and I speak to them in the whiteman voice, dey master's voice, commanding them to stay. And they always stay. Most times, I does make sure it have rum and cakes and even some coins to keep them dey for the night. If we far enough from the plantations, or if is a celebration night like the end a the harvest, we have drumming and dancing and singing and storytelling. But often this not possible and the hours does pass slow slow. Plenty does slip away in the dark, fraid the overseer find them, or bored, or just unbelieving. But that was then and the unbelievers getting less and less every day, every night. For a few does stay and, in the new firelight, they see that mi whipped back now as brown and as smooth as every person back suppose to be. And dey faces become full ah wonder, full ah belief. But that not enough, for some does fear that that kind a power only mean that they could be whipped more.

Yet the word spread that Tituba power true, that mi obeah stronger than the whiteman whip. And more and more people know mi by mi true true name – Legba Falunbi. Later, I learn to do the wounding and healing with chicken guts and pig's blood. It less painful, quicker, more convincing than mi real healing. And the true true spring a mi power cant be shown or even told: for what would mi people think if they knew that the ghosts that give me knowledge and strength are not the ghosts a we ancestors?

Maybe I did eat human flesh when I was a child, or maybe mammy did eat. For mi people say that that is how a witch get made. It have such stories, like the planter who chop up and cook im dead slaves to save money on meat. But if I did eat ah the dead, they wasn dead Africans. For the spirits inside me not
egungun
, not ancestors, not even African souls.

Since I was a child I hearing dey voices. It have the boy who people did live in these islands first and who become the whiteman first slaves. Im tongue I talk first, when I was still a infant, but no one did understand because it had no one alive to understand. It have the man who did bring mi people from Africa, who tongue is like the Spanish own but is not Spanish. Im tongue I talk as a small child, soon after mi first whipping. That was when mammy first suspect mi power. It have the man who take pleasure in killing, and who later repent, who tongue is Spanish. Im tongue come to me after the overseer chop mi hand for slapping him when im did try and fuck me. And there is the tongue a the two women, whore and lady, whose words I already knew but which I knew differently after I run away and get catch by the hunting dogs who hold me by the leg but I tear mi flesh off in the dogs' jaws and continued running but the Maroons catch me on the trail through the District of Look Behind and hand me over to the hunters and I get beat till I nearly dead. But Obatala protect me and I recover. But was bitter to me, more bitter than anything any whiteman ever do, that mi own people should a betray me like that, and that the beating afterwards was done by a African who woulda been a warrior in his native land. Him I always remember, because im was built like a mountain and because im was dressed like a African in a brown tunic and leather sandals. I remember mi shame that this ebony-wood man, who woulda been a prince in we homeland, should in this place be only a lackey to white worms.

So, when I recover, I did resolve to restore mi people to dey rightful pride and place. Every time I get beat, I did remember a person I eat. From that moment, I remember all. Five spirits it have inside me. Mammy say I's a cousin a Eshu, the messenger, who have twenty-one paths in im and who does punish them who break the gods' laws. I think that I's these ghosts' Hell, and they is mi means a leading mi people to salvation back in Africaland.

But I have mi own power, too. That last time, the hunters split mi nose and cut off mi ears as punishment for running away. But mi nose heal and mi ears grow back. I did know then I didn have to fear the whiteman and I run away again. This time I leave the island, in the belly of a ship like mi ancestors. The Indian boy ghost in me could make raft, but im wouldn tell me how. I woulda sail back to Africaland, but I didn know how. The Portuguese whiteman ghost in me know, but I wouldn ask im. Mi ancestors' ghost not inside me, but I have dey' memories inside me. That is all I need. I could remember the long plains and horned beasts and the big snake-nosed creatures with leather hides. I could remember the thatched huts and the lean-body hunters and plump women with dey many children. All this get take way from we.

Sometimes I think that I die in Africa and mi spirit get sent to this savage Afterworld, where the sun shine hot hot or the rain falling like a curtain, where is only green hills or long plains a sugar-cane arrows, where mi people, bodies hard with hard work, subject to cotton-body men who only exercise is to snap whip, pull a trigger. But I know this is
Aye
, the living world a men, and I must guide mi people to
Orun
, the outerworld a the gods. And I know we not alone. African come with we. The ancestors want to talk with we; is mi people who doan want to talk with them.

I talk to them all the time. Alone in the forest, I live between
Orun
and
Aye
. Old men and old women sit with me beside mi fire, dey hair white like Sahara dust, wrinkle-up faces full a wisdom. The men wear robes of bronze and gold and purple. In their right hands they hold sticks of carved power, and they stand straight and proud. The women wear dresses ah deep blue and rich red and blazing yellow. I wear black and red, Eshu's colours. We eat smoked fish and corn and okra, and I always remember to throw some food on the ground and say the names ah mi ancestors. We drink palm-wine and rum and smoke tobacco. And we talk. We talk. The men tell me bout the great exploits ah dey youth, the women tell how to raise obedient children. I listen more carefully to the men, for I have no children and never will. But I shall lead mi people to freedom!

But it wouldn be easy. I have to free dey minds before I could free dey bodies. Some ah them does do like them living here. Only I know that this island I get born on is not mi home. I look back at the waves running away from me to the beckoning beach, I look back at the lazy mountains resting on the big blue sky, and I know mi own fragility on the endlessly cruel sea. I pray to Damballa, the god ah all journeys. I did want to hide away on one ah the many ships going to steal more a mi people, but I could not return to mi native land without freeing mi people here. Nana Nyankapong give me great power, and I would use it to fight the white man. This was mi purpose here, what I did born for.  Sleeping, I hear the waves slapping outside the wooden planks, and I dream I is a fish, floating smooth smooth through the dim sea, eating smaller fish and swimming again, eating and swimming eating and swimming, until one day some siren call me to land and I see mammy with she belly already round sleeping on the sand. I is Eshu's cousin, but Yemoja who watches over the sea carry mi soul in she womb before I did become flesh. When a fish reach the land, it does drown in air. I dream I did drown and was reborn a slave. But no ordinary slave, because I between
egungun
and
orisha
, not quite god, not quite man.

When I did reach another island, I steal a sheet a paper and a pen and I write out a document in the whiteman hand giving miself permission to be off the plantation. The enemy's ghosts living inside me, so I know the enemy's mind and I know how to fight im. But is not enough! Mi people labouring in the fields, the mills, the boilinghouses. They rise at dawn, stretching. The overseer hands out tools. They go out to the fields. The sun does stretch high, hot hot hot. Some does sing as they work, others bend and rise, digging or cutting, faces shut to life. A mid-morning break to drink water and rest for a while. The men and women watching each other with flirting eye. Then to work again. Lunch break after noon. I know the routine good good.

I was the best worker on the plantation, never tired, strong like hardback man. I did always try to work hard and be obedient and give respect, because I did fraid too bad to get whip. Other slaves could get whip till they faint, or get the relief ah death. But mi own power subdue me, because I fraid ah eternity ah torment, getting whip till tender brown skin rip, and healing in a again and again pain. So I toil under the hot sun, quickening mi rhythm when the driver come close. I watch how mi people humble themselves before the whitepeople, doffing hats, never meeting the master eye. Strong African men abasing themselves before pale-skinned men they coulda break like a twig. African women offering dey proud-bottom bodies to flat-ass whitemen. I was one ah them, fearful ah the master power. Yet always a question was in me: what give the whiteman authority over we? And I could ask that question because I had a power not even the whiteman had. But I didn have no answer. Not then.

The answer only come when I realize that mi power was a gift, not a curse. But I learn, and now I ent no slave. I learn that the whiteman have no authority over we. And I gone around with Damballa to the plantations, saying so. Most didn like to hear such words. They didn want to listen. Is those with the shutaway faces who open dey eyes to me first. But often I get betray by the very ones I seek to free, and I had to run. Sometimes, I was too slow and I get catch and lash and put in gaol. I always escape. Once or thrice, I get hang and bury. I always escape, slave never bury deep.