Synopsis: Oluwa Koluluwa and her people are tormented as slaves. Black and Whites are not even allowed to touch in any way, though it depends on the master-slave relationship. Oluwa hates slavery even though born as one. She is a woman with big dreams with a father that is the leader of the Black Herusan people, so as a future leader, she has responsibilities… and one that affects her love life. Like her father, she is hot-headed with a fighting nature for change… How far will she go? What sacrifices must be made? Will her and her Herusan people survive in the hands of their master? Will her romantic relationship survive?
Note: Different languages are used as the story progresses, but font colors are not available here. Reach out to author!
This story is for entertainment with learning aspects. Not everything is based on historical fact. Moreover, the content of this book in no way, shape or form supports affairs, drinking, violence etc. If you cannot handle such content without being influenced, DO NOT READ!!! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to the author.
Chapter 1- Our People, Our History
Olu means love in the language of Herusangi, the reason for which my father delivered me as his Oluwa. It has been myself and Fasu since Ma’ mae died; I cannot even remember for I was a child.
“My Love, my dear Oluwa. Come to your old man”, my father said in our native tongue when he saw a shadow pass by his tent.
I wonder how he knew it was me with the bountiful Herusans sauntering outside his tent, every which way on the middle ground where our tents surround an empty place in the middle. Some of our tribal members were of course in their tents, but still…
(Maybe it is my bushy black hair that gave me away…)
I touched my hair, and thought to myself as I entered his tent, then did as he commanded, sitting next to my Fasu- father as we say in our language. I sat on his mattress. A mattress- no one has this luxury but the chief of the Herusan people.
“My child, do you know the history of our people?”
He began as the lantern showcased our shadows on the light brown sheets of his tent.
“You’ve never told me”, I answered him.
“Well, my Oluwa, it is time. This is our story for today.”
He is about to start narrating in their language, the white people’s stupid language. I hate this practice of assimilation because it bounds us to ‘the man’. Yet…somehow my Fasu finds a way to draw in the good from it and still flow within himself who he is.
“Once upon a time there lived a people known as the people of Herus...”
He began in this language they call…well, I don’t know what they call it, but I do know my Fasu taught me it along with everything, so he can set me up as the future ruler of our tribe. I would like to believe it was also because he finds that learning about my enemies will help his daughter for whatever hell they plan to bind me. Those people…
“…The peaceful Herusans went through a gruesome moment in Herus. Herus was a place that existed much like ours. The tribe was close knit….”
“Oja makuwi? Karambi Kono ni? Kan-”
“Much like ours? Isn’t that basically us? We-” I asked in Herusangi, but he cuts me off before I finished.
“Ahem!”
Whenever he did that, he meant that I should also speak like them even if it is just the two of us.
“Much like ours? Aren’t we the Herusans?”
I corrected myself.
“My Love, my story.”
I give an eye roll, though it is a disrespectful gesture to call out an adult.
“You better watch it! My child will be raised well”.
He said, ‘my child,’ but Fasu believes our children are well-raised than the white man’s children.
“…Herusans grew their own food, had their own farms, their own culture and traditions and always celebrated together. Herusans were very much close that there was no way any Herusan could create a footstep without the entire nation of Herusans being conscious of this… What can I say, we’re a people that got into each other’s business!”
I shared a chuckle with Fasu.
“Herusans lived contentedly for years; this was until the Swarians arrived and treated the Herusans heinously. They raped their wives, aunts, daughters and even grandmas. Ignited fire upon their only homes and fed them a negligible amount of food, just enough energy to get them working. Swarians took in Herusans as slaves and maintained them harshly. Their agriculture--- destroyed, their culture, their home, their family … Everything that mattered to them was razed. Some were burnt alive…”
He mumbled something at the end there, but I wasn’t sure what.
“Men, women, young children who knew nothing--- they were all taken in as slaves. They took everything and left them with zilch… They were black people in ships…With time, they divided slaves of different tribes, countries, races, and backgrounds into different households. At the end, members of families were divided and still are, they still sell us, and have reduced us to letters. Well, our master has taken our names and reduced us to letters. Each master or mistress has their own operations.”
He concluded his long tale.
“How do you expect me to seep all this when I am about to start working for them?”
“Just remember the rules- Dumb, listen, praise, and silence, or listen, obey, and act. The existence of Herusans now live within us. The Swarians still dominate us-”.
“But some day, just someday... Things will never stay the same”.
“Spoken just like your Ma’mae”, he smiled.
He wraps his arm around me and leans with his chin on my head. I lay on his broad shoulder against his smoke smelling clothes feeling his eyes stare down on my head.
We stay like this for a while thinking to ourselves…
Whenever I hear my name ring from his mouth, I know what time it is. He suffers me with tales and endless myths and possibilities, but I can’t say that I mind. Honestly, I quite enjoy his melodic voice and the passion for which he speaks with more than what he says. The joy- it isn’t for me, but I feel merry for him to be full of alacrity after the hard labor and torture.
My Fasu glimmers when talking about his endless journeys; some of the past, some of what could be, some of the present and sometimes advice he seeks from me pertaining our tribe. Sometimes the stories are popular childhood stories every adult knows and love, and shares with their kids. Other times, Fasu tells lies…I mean, myths- like the one of Fasu battling a hundred men and all while he was injured.
“Did…did they execute her Fasu?”
I broke the silence.
I bottled up the nerve to ask even after my hesitation because I knew that he didn’t like it when his precious future ruler showed signs of weakness.
“It’s time to eat my Love”.
I scrutinized him and his…weakness--- the way he divulged my question…but I nod agreeably as his silence said it all. He didn’t want to talk about it, and I knew that because he never restricted his lips, but today I saw his desolation.
“Janu Janu! Janu Janu!”
Bankwa, a tall and scrawny girl of my age yelled from outside Fasu’s tent for all to come out and eat, so I assisted Fasu with his wooden cane and we head out to eat supper in the dark where insects crawl, and the ground is cold and hard.
Outside on the middle ground is the usual pot sitting near the fire that is blazing from the wood it eats. Several Herusans are exiting their tent and others are at the tap washing their hands in their tattered clothes. Fasu and I are making it straight to the tap to do the same when Mama Blanche stops me. Fasu, the chief, made a beeline to the tap, so the people crowded around the tap gave way. He washes his hands then goes to sit on his log--- another pleasure of being chief-- and following him are the others who are done freshening up and sitting on the ground surrounding the fire.
Mama Blanche is bugging me with her usual persistence of marrying her son while the other Herusans that are smart have their attires on the icy floor to sit… especially the mothers for their children. Medicine does not come easy--- days, weeks or even about a month’s walk on a dangerous road in hopes that slaves in another compound have available our needs. What comes easy to ’them’ but not for us slaves. We tread the walk to purchase some natural remedy in compensation for something valuable of ours.
After giving the elder respect by listening to her stupid proposal, I make a beeline for the tap, the cluster of Herusans pushing against each other are giving me way. From their faces as usual, they are not pleased. I am the chief’s daughter and here I am getting my way…. Yes, I don’t really have friends except for my Fasu and some of the grownups…Ironically, the minute I bend down and put my hands where I expect the water to pour, the tap stops…I swear I could feel their smiles drilling behind my head.
A boy taps and taps at the tap, placing his head underneath the bottom of the tap…A young female about my age immediately grabs a bucket hanging below a well and pulls a bucket of water. Like the usual routine, they all rush in a crooked line behind her, one by one waiting to use the water to wash their hands.
It is almost as if they did not mind someone butting them, they just did not want me to be first or ahead…Just blank stares are what I receive as I stand alone at the sideline, staring at the bucket up ahead….
I stand pitifully looking around at what to do; it takes me some embarrassing few minutes to realize Fasu is looking at me, but not a muscle moves on his face. It is almost like he is testing me…I look at the quite long line and with my head up, avoiding their gaze, I walk to the front and dip my hands in the bucket of water. With my back still bending, I twist my head in a clandestine manner to look at Fasu who slightly nods in approval.
I then walk to the group where Bankwa is pouring food on rusty trays. I join my age mates and sit waiting with the others for the rest to wash up before we start eating. It is tradition to eat together.
I always wonder why the fuss to wash the hands first. It is one of those things where you want to do what others do even if you don’t understand it. I also just thought that if I had asked, it would be a chance to bring back things to a conversation about spirits and the gods. I don’t believe in spirits, but it sure keeps my people hopeful and religious.
We wait with tummy’s growling… Some chatting…Our mouth salivating from the food in the big pot now poured on trays.
As the last Herusan washes up, he joins one of the children’s circles. Beside the numerous children’s circle are the several groups of married and marriageable men huddled around their own tray. Like the men and children, we have many groups of married and marriageable women like me with their own tray in each group, and Chief Fasu sits on his log holding his own plate. We don’t have much kitchenware, so we use the corroded ones we have, and sometimes nature like big leaves.
We are all around the fire on the middle ground feeding what heat we can by the fire. There is a distinction between men and women which is why we eat in our own similar gender groups. It is also because of the lack of utensils …but our etiquette and culture are the main drive behind what we do.
“Barja! Barja! Barja!”
‘We are one’. We screamed simultaneously.
“Arrarrarrarrarr!”
We make a wild noise shaking our heads as one, then suddenly… We eat in silence. Fasu could have eaten before the whole process, but he works to preserve our tradition. Moreover, he always stands firm to our controllers, our masters; Herusans depend on him as a leader, and he acts as so because many times he’s taken other people’s beatings. He is highly respected and obeyed. But I fear Fasu’s behavior may one day force me to rule…. It torments me, not to rule, but to lose him…What if some day Fasu pushes their buttons… just enough?
Knock! Knock!
The exit/entrance to our underground hole and home is pounded … interrupting my thoughts….
Some like myself instantly react by looking at where the sound has come from while others are so focused on their meal. I watch as Kurgi, our guard listens hard towards the door that is also a hole gradually getting smaller on the way outside our encampment where the end is another hole covered with branches and dried leaves.
“Black Herusan Tribe”
After hearing the secret code that helps identify intruders or non-Herusans, Kurgi was at ease and let them inside.
Three tired men in uniform join us with their baggy eyes, and dirty bags--- stuff wrapped in a traditional wrapper--- hanging from their backs. Their sad faces…worn out bodies….and oh, this time they have already opened their bottles of alcohol to drown their sorrows.
“Vaaja! Vaaja!”
Bintu ran to her dad excitedly who scolded her as the other two men passed by. She then reacted appropriately, bending down on her knees, taking his hand, and whispering a few words. He returned a smile with difficulty and like a monkey, she clung and crawled to his neck. He didn’t complain; with his daughter, he was so kind in front of people, but I, like some, know what he does to his wife at night.
I watch as the wife welcomes her husband back, covering her bruised skin and tilting her eyebrows in combative mode when he isn’t watching. Her face contorts in disgust, but the moment she realizes, she revaluates…. changing her tune before she is recognized as ‘that type’ of woman.
I hate marriage, the spirits, …or maybe I just hate believing in things and being disappointed. As I am thinking to myself, some have already finished eating. Some have returned to their tents to sleep, some chatting, some gambling… the usual routine. The children are playing, and some are sleeping or having their moms force them to sleep. The men are drinking, smoking, and chatting, and sometimes I hear them talk about women and sometimes politics. The women are gossiping, washing clothes, praying to the spirits and gods, washing the dishes and some are doing their ‘wifely duty’ of sleeping with their husband.
(Plenty of suckers running around this place and yet they make more.)
I thought.
“I hope you’re ready before they rip you apart”.
My friend, Papa Loni said, and I chuckled at one of the oldest men in our compound and one of the men who came back. He said that to me as I was about to for the first time ever step outside our home to work for the white folks that we call Kalakades.
“I will show them!”
I confidently said back to him with a smirk about my upcoming initiation as a laborer for ’them’.
“Look at her”.
He said to me, but inside I was afraid…nervous…. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and that scared me.
“Bankwa, rama!”
One of the three men that recently came into the compound and Bankwa’s younger brother jokingly demanded food knowing as a man he had the upper hand despite the age difference.
He came outside a tent he shared with others in his stained clothes that I recognized from young…the moment I opened my eyes at birth I had recognized him in those clothes…Okay, fine…but he had been wearing them for a long time.
We cannot afford much; our chief does have more, but not that much more either.
“Bro-ther!”
Bankwa said angrily, but still got up to serve her brother along with the other men.
This is a rare case because usually there isn’t food left, or it may be kept for the next day. We just depend on the leftovers in the homes of our different masters, or we buy some, that is for those who get paid even if little by their masters and mistresses.
“May as well add for those who want seconds since you’re already by the pot. Let’s go! Chop! Chop!”
I commented and received a death stare from Bankwa as she walked to the pot. I couldn’t help but butt into their business. If they disliked me, then I may as well have fun.
“Hm.”
Bankwa didn’t quite react to the daughter of the chief.
I get up to wash my hands while some Herusans are returning to their ‘slave’ duties. I don’t have any because I haven’t started working yet, and Fasu prefers it that way…. but unfortunately, I am needed, and will start soon.
“Gnu- “
I poke into my father’s tent to wish him a goodnight.
“I mean, goodnight”.
I corrected myself because he may not have answered me if I spoke in Herusangi. He liked me talking in the white man’s language as practice, but our knowledge of their language is also a secret from Herusans.
Herusans can be judgmental especially about how their chief is entertaining the Kalakades’ culture. Only the elders by status--- not age--- know about Fasu’s skills, and it is because they are designated as advisors. However, even they don’t know how much Fasu knows and has taught me.
“Gnuke we, my dear Oluwa.”
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