Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs And Religious Beliefs. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
wantonly and wilfully destroyed a living thing for no other reason than to see the effect of the new kind of snare that he had invented.’ The voice of the High Accuser was harsh, a rasping croak. ‘He destroyed a little steenbuck ewe with young in its belly, and here you can see for yourself the sorry remains of his victim on the Tray of Accusation. This boy was not hungry when he committed this deed, neither had he the intention of taking the animal to his father to prepare for food. It was a clear case of wanton useless destruction of life, in direct defiance of the Laws of Odu. Malinge must die. He must die so that the Great Mother’s displeasure at this demon-like act should be disarmed, so that the wrath of the High Gods be not showered upon us like evil hail. Malinge must die – not to deter others from committing the same offence, but that by dying he can take his heinous sin with him to the land of Forever-Night, away from the huts and villages of the Wakambi.’
With this the High Accuser sat down, fiercely scowling at the villagers assembled before him. An even deeper silence settled heavily upon the High Place of Justice.
The other Old One, the Mercy of Heaven, then rose totteringly to his ancient, withered feet. ‘People of the Wakambi: to you this unworthy one addresses this message. We all know that the young boy Malinge is guilty and we all know that he must suffer the most ultimate form of punishment, because if we let irresponsible young people kill the animals of the forest wastefully, it will not be long before the High Gods will deprive us of all living things on which we depend for food. It will not be long before the forests become only the haunts of starving jackals and hyaenas with no other animals in sight, and we would all die the shameful death of hunger. So I, too, agree that this young man must be punished. But I plead that we give the boy the opportunity to explain to us in his own words just why he did this thing and why he felt prompted to break one of the oldest and most sacred laws of our people, and above all, why he dared to improve on our standard methods – why he rendered these more cruel as the very design of this trap shows.’
His voice faltered and he sat down, wiping the sweat from his wrinkled brow with the back of his hand. There were tears on his wrinkled cheeks and his gentle tired eyes were inflamed and bloodshot.
‘Stand up, prisoner,’ bellowed the High Accuser. ‘Stand up and tell us why you broke the laws of the gods, why you dared to improve upon the things that our ancestors invented. Do you consider yourself wiser than your forefathers?’
‘N-No,’ stammered the boy, ‘I only thought . . .’
‘Listen, oh vermin,’ rasped the High Accuser, ‘this is not a world that belongs to you. If you want a world which you can improve then you can go and create one for yourself. In this world you will take your place as the insignificant speck that you are and you must conform to the rules as laid down by our forefathers. You must not try to improve on anything that they found good enough. You seem to have forgotten that it was the love for inventing new things that caused the destruction of the First People. Don’t tell me that you have never heard the Seven High Laws of Living, because I know that you have.’
There is something known as hope, and that something has the habit of shining brightest when a man gets most hopelessly lost in the forest of fear and despair. Hope is a false star shining brightest on the darkest night of one’s life. In the words of the High Accuser, the doomed boy Malinge saw a glimmering thread of hope and he seized it and held fast to it. A man about to die loses all fear. He throws all respect and dignity to the Seven Winds and says and does exactly as he pleases, and Malinge did exactly that.
‘You doddering old hypocrites!’ he screamed at the top of his squeaky voice. ‘You are not fit to sit in judgment over a lame and half-dead fly. You say I broke a law by inventing something new. Why then is our Queen Marimba not being accused of inventing all those new instruments with which she makes music?’
Malinge’s hope of revenge on the woman who had brought him to trial was drowned in a flood of laughter that followed immediately on his impudent outburst. The assembly laughed long and loud till the High Accuser had to stand up and roar for silence.
‘You utter fool!’ he bellowed. ‘You miserable, impudent rat! Marimba is an immortal, an appointed servant of the gods on this earth, and what she does is done at the command of the most High Gods. Royal Marimba, pronounce sentence upon this mud-wallowing dog.’
Marimba stood up and her great eyes were bright in the moonlight. There was also a great sadness in those eyes that was beyond human understanding. Her voice was soft and gentle as she said: ‘Malinge, I am not your executioner and I find myself unable to order your death. But I am not going to let you escape lightly. The High Gods tell me that you are an habitual and stubborn law-breaker, who acts thus for the sheer pleasure it gives you. It also gives you pleasure to see innocent animals die in agony. I now order that you be taken away from here and your legs broken with clubs so that you may never walk again, and your hands destroyed by paralysing your fingers.’
Marimba looked down at the ugly snare that Malinge had invented and shuddered. There was no mistaking it – the thing was deadly and only a madman, a monster of cruelty, could have invented this sort of thing. No wonder the old men had overruled her and had thrown Malinge to the crocodiles just before daybreak.
Then Marimba got down on her knees and began to work. She dismantled the long trapdoor consisting of oblong flat pieces of wood tied together with buckskin thongs and gut. She made small alterations to the pieces of wood so that they were no longer of the same length and thickness. She ordered her handmaidens to bring her a number of cusana gourds of different sizes and to open each end, making a big hole in one end and a small one in the side. Her next order was equally peculiar: the gourds were to be put in a large clay bowl at the gate of the village and word spread that all the old women of the village were to pass their morning water into the big bowl for three successive days. This, explained the great princess, was not only to place a permanent blessing upon the instrument; it would also make the gourds resilient and durable.
Afterwards the gourds were boiled in animal fat to make them more resilient and waterproof. With her own delicate hands Marimba assembled the instrument while vast crowds of Wakambi men and women watched in awe and astonishment. She first assembled the hardwood frame with four carved legs, and along a flat piece of wood that connected the two ends of the oblong frame she stuck the gourds by their mouths firmly with tree resin.
She then covered each of the holes in the sides of the gourds with silky laminae which she obtained from the nests of the munyovu wasp, also stuck firmly with tree resin. The gourds were arranged under the central plank in gradually diminishing size. Then came the pieces of wood that formed the trapdoor, also arranged in the same order according to size, each piece directly across a corresponding gourd resonator. The strips of wood were suspended above their resonators by two lengths of thong.
Thus the xylophone – the marimba – was born. Soon this melodious companion of the feast and the dance was sending its notes through the festive air, each note as gentle as a maiden’s promise. The xylophone is a living instrument which can bend its notes to fit the blood-warming melody of a wedding song or harshen its voice and convey to the human mind the clamour and dark horrors of war – or the thrilling excitement and suspense of the hunt. Even without the accompaniment of a human voice one can tell a whole story with the xylophone alone. One can use the voice of this holy instrument to create various moods in one’s audience. While other instruments speak to the ears, the xylophone speaks to the heart and the soul. Indeed it is an instrument worthy of bearing the name of the Goddess of Music.
In building xylophones only hard and well seasoned woods must be used. Great care must be exercised in selecting the wood for the various notes. There must be no pores, or the slightest crack.
Timber from a hardwood tree once struck by lightning is excellent. These sacred instruments must never be built in times of war and famine; neither must they be made by people who are sterile or spiritually perverted, or physically deformed in any way.
‘Great Marimba,’