Fourteen

When he wasn’t travelling, my father often received visits from medicine men from distant places.  They walked together across the hillside where the elephants foraged to look at the scat.  They watched the clouds for signs of rains to come.  They traded gifts, stone bowls filled with powder or beaded bags which contained bone.  The medicine man always brought a large satchel filled with grasses and plants native to his own land.  My father would take him to forage for plants from our forest and the grasslands over the hillside.  My mother didn’t like it, but I usually tried to follow close behind to hang on every word. 

“Come back to the house,” she called to me. “Stay out of their way,” she scolded.  “Help me cook the yams for dinner.”

We boiled the yams and then pounded them in a big stone bowl, making them smooth, just the way my father liked them.  My mother stirred the meat stew for our dinner.  My father had treated many wealthy men’s ills and he was always able to get the family stew meat even when meat was hard to find.  One man, healed of his fevers, gave our family a buffalo he had killed in my father’s honor.  More often, we received a goat or chickens.

The men returned for dinner and we all sat around the fire eating the yams, talking about the danger that was coming.  The men had seen the future foretold in the elephant scat and the rain clouds.

“The elephants are herding closer to humans than usual,” said my father.  “They can sense the danger that is coming too.” 

As darkness overcame us, my father pointed up to the stars in the sky. 

“The story in the sky tells us what will happen.  The hunter points his arrow, and he is nearly ready to fight now.  It will be a terrible battle for our people,” he continued. 

The men drank.  My mother didn’t speak.

The next day my father took me with him on a long walk into the forest to gather plants and bark.  While we walked, the sun beat and formed sweat on the back on my father’s neck.  He told me then about my naming ceremony.  Many times, I had seen my father perform the ceremony on the seventh day after a child was born in our village.  The people gather in the morning to pray all day.  They pray for good luck for the community, rain, healthy herds, and for the newborn child’s long life and prosperity.  In the evening, the child is held up by the mother for the townspeople to see.  She hands the baby to my father, the town elder, and he puts water, honey, palm oil, kola nut, yams, pepper, salt, and wine in the baby’s mouth to protect the child and bring happiness.  After the ceremony, the people feast.

My father told me that traditionally it is the father who chooses the name for the child.  When he is asked by the elder what name has been chosen, the father whispers the name he has chosen in the mother’s ear.  She then announces the name to the townspeople.

“For you, I chose the name Adana,” he said.  “You were to be raised as my namesake. “  He and my mother had discussed it beforehand. 

“Your brother has no mind for all of this,” he said, pointing to the trees and the woods around us.  “You were to be the one to learn the medicines.”

When it came time to whisper the name in my mother’s ear, he whispered Adana.  Then as the elder, my father asked the question again. 

“What will the child’s name be?”

“Lulu,” my mother announced for all the townspeople to hear.  “She will be called Lulu, for she will be famous in war.  I have dreamt of a great war to be fought with our people, and Lulu will save us all.”