New, Old And Ancient

There’s this devious thing called life, how it creeps up on us and sometimes with more devious company, like a disease.

(The Konja kingdom, somewhere in the multiverse)

Julu nem julu neme Julu nem Julu nem bemen
Julu nem julu neme Julu nem julu nem kadem

The drums vibrate, the people sing feverishly, the women clap their hands. In the middle of the crowd stands a young woman. She is naked from the waist up. Her whole body is painted in a white that makes the green beads hanging from her neck, her arms, her waist, and her legs shine. Then she starts to dance and we do not see a young woman anymore, we see a goddess to be worshipped. Unwittingly, we join in the song, singing our way to ecstasy.

The power in this field is palpable, the electric feeling of the festival sweeps us away. Then the song stops abruptly, the young woman whirrs on the spot and disappears .

This is the story of Julu, the girl Julu, the goddess Julu and how she came to be with theory Konja people. This is the story of the real and the more real. Before you enter this story, you must drop your prejudices at the door as we have done.

***

Millions of years before now, the Konja people received a prophecy that said:

Besma negel shemandi, oi de mesma degel allumaiti, lumia lumaio brasma nei ne Julu la pulu na da skul. Nei abumen ne lane, nei femane ne lane bu nei finia bume wui kam tui breit.

Which means:

On the seventy seventh day of the one millionth year, light will shine on us, the moon will fall from the sky. Our animals will flourish, our women will flourish and our dead lands will come to life.

As all prophecies do, this one came to pass. On the 77th day of the one-millionth year, a young woman was found by the spring Konja, from which the people derive their name. Her upper body was painted silver. She was naked, sleeping curled up on a rock. The water flowed around her, lapping gently at her heels as if trying to wake her up. Her beauty was ethereal, her upper lip was full and turned up to the sky. Her nose was small and pointed at the tip. Her skin was a light brown that shone, unlike the yellow skin of the Konja people. The men that found her took her to the seers cave, they did not do it because they knew she was the Julu in their prophecy(at this time the prophecy had been woven into songs and chants for the purpose of preservation, very few took it seriously). They took her there because the seer’s cave was where strange objects were taken to when found.

The seer, wise man that he was, did not take the matter lightly. He applied himself to careful thinking and came up with a plan. His plan involved dropping the young woman into the sacred pool. If she means them well she would come out alive but if she is a threat to his people, she would drown and her body will float out of the sacred pool in three days.

After three days, the young woman had neither come out nor died in the water. The seer was worried, what power could this woman possess that kept her alive underwater for so long? How was he going to protect his people when calamity fell? He consulted his stones and he didn’t see any calamity coming, on the contrary, the stones showed that Goodwill was on its way.

Seven days later, the elders of the land visited him in his shrine. The seer gave them stools to sit near the sacred pool. The eldest of them began to speak

“Ndezi na be diongo” he said. Quickly, we push our interpreter in front of us and begin to hear the words in our own language. “ I know there is no young man among us, yet I feel the need to tell of the history of Konja, how we came to be where we are now, or rather a history of our short term glory and our everlasting woes.

Long ago, in the times of our ancestors, Konja flourished, the land was supple and soft. Anything we planted on it grew. Then great heat came and the great famine followed. Our people ate rocks instead of food. Our women began to have problems with conception and birth. Many died. Our lands dried up, our crops and animals died and there was a great cry to the gods. The seer interceded for the people and the gods gave us a prophecy of hope. They also struck the mountain Konja and it brought forth water, enough to ensure our survival.

It is necessary that I tell this story so we all remember how close we got to extinction and how careful we have to be in preventing a repeat of such evil. We the Elders of the Konja people heard about the young lady our watchers found beneath Konja. We want you to tell us about it”

The seer bows to the assembly of elders.

“My elders, you have done well to come and ask me this thing. It shows you all care about the welfare of the Konja people. As for the young woman, I have put her through the test of the gods and she has neither failed nor passed it. I have been checking my stones these seven days and all I see is Goodwill shining upon us. The gods have never once lied to me but I must admit that I am apprehensive and at this point willing to do whatever the Elders of Konja command”.

All the Elders nod and exchange significant glances with each other. The oldest Elder raises his staff and begins to speak again.

“You have spoken well. Before we came to you, we have done our own homework. Our decision is this: If the strange creature in the form of a young woman does not come out of the pool tonight, tomorrow morning you will go into the pool and bring her out then we will try her body with fire”.

The seer bows to the Assembly of Elders once more. They leave.

***

That night while everybody slept, the sacred river began to stir. None but us was there to witness the glorious sight. The young woman ascended out of the water as the water swelled, first to spit her out then next it began to flow through the cracks in the rock and into the outside world.

When the land woke up in the morning it was to see grasses growing in their dead fields, dead trees fruiting in their right season. When the water flowed past the people, the men drank, the women drank, the animals drank and they all felt the renewal.

***

It was in the spirit of that renewal that the people of Konja came out at full moon to worship the moon goddess. Men and women in their finest apparels, children, and animals, no one was left out. All assembled in the village square and watched the moon emerge from the clouds.

Then the drums began to beat.

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

The people swayed and shook their fists.

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

People fell to the ground in ecstasy

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

Seven maidens rushed out of the crowd and began to dance

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

Fire erupted from all the torches around the square

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

A scream was heard, a woman that had been pregnant for so long was feeling the travails of birth

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

All the people worshipped in one voice JULU!

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

A white figure is seen standing in the middle of the field. The seven maidens scatter back into the crowd. The drums increase in tempo. Their goddess had come. Salvation had come. The people swayed, pumped their fists and began to sing.

Julu nem Julu Neme Julu nem Julu nem bemen
Julu nem Julu Neme Julu nem Julu nem kadem

Which means:

Our moon, our great moon, our moon that we worship
Our moon, our great moon, our moon has come to bless us.

So the goddess danced and danced, silver in her own silvery light. The green beads glittering like little suns on her neck, waist and ankles. The people watched and swayed. They sang and were cleansed of their million years of suffering.

***

That night, while everyone slept happily, we walked. We walked the breadth of the land in search of the goddess. Unlike the people of Konja who had believed without question that their goddess had come, we had our doubts.

Our search took us to the bank of the sacred river which had broken from the confines of that cave and flowed through the land. There we found the goddess kneeling and staring into the distance. She was as strange as midnight sun. The way she sat curled up on the ground was like nothing we had ever seen. She seemed boneless and fragile and her eyes shone in the silvery light of the moon. Then she turns to us and we attempt to rush away but she holds up a hand and beckons us towards her, smiling gently. When she rises, the air around her ripples like a gateway. Then she begins to walk through it, we follow her. It is not every day a goddess walks you through a storyline.

When we enter into the story, we see a world different from the one we just left. A world fascinating enough to almost make us forget our duty as collectors of stories. Almost.

***

(Benin City, Nigeria)

A few months after Julu turned 16 she realizes there’s this devious thing called life, how it creeps up on us and sometimes with the more devious company, like a disease. It was in the month of May that she developed this awareness, she felt it slip around her shoulders like a cold wet rag.

She was sitting in the doctor’s office beside her mother, she remembered feeling small at that moment as if she could flip the rotating chair and move until she became one with thin air. After spending a month at the hospital she was a shadow of herself. She was sucking on a finger like a child, not because her brain had finally given way to dementia but because at some point between finding out she wasn’t in perfect health and finding out just how sick she was, she stopped caring.

***

It happens on a cold rainy evening, Julu does her chores, her homework and decides to take a short nap before dinner. She slides into bed like the agile sixteen-year old she is and cuddles with her teddy bear. When she wakes up, she gets out of bed and stretches but she doesn’t expect the cold pain that slices through her. Her scream brings her parents and siblings rushing into the room. They find her lying in a heap on the floor, howling in pain. It takes the combined efforts of her mother and father to lift her from the floor and carry her into the car. They drive to the hospital, her dad’s eyes sliding from the road to her and her sobbing mother in the back seat.

When they get to the hospital, she is admitted and after a series of questions, tests, and examinations, the doctor tells her and her parents she had a muscle spasm. She is told to go home and rest.

That was one year before the second attack, this time she is in school, sitting quietly in her chair when it comes. Spasm after spasm rocking her body, her classmates stare at her transfixed with horror. Someone screams, she spasms again and slides from her chair, the table falls. Teachers and students come running, the sound of their feet like the frantic beating of a native drum urging her to lose consciousness or herself.

It was also the sound that brought her back, the beep beep of machines, a woman’s low voice and the deep bass sound misery left in its wake. Her mother was sitting in the chair beside the window and talking on the phone. She looked so mournful that Julu felt like reaching for her. She wet her lips and tried to speak but her throat was too dry. Her mother does not see her so she falls asleep.

***

A month after, she was discharged. Doctors diagnosis: Multiple Sclerosis. There was no way to treat the disease, just manage it. Her body would continue to deteriorate, her muscles would stop working and she would be unable to walk and move. Her brain too would give way to dementia. Her family rallied around her but Julu barely saw them. These days she was spending a lot of time thinking of this concept called life. Asking questions like: why does she have to die now? Without an opportunity to do anything with her life. Why had she been born at all if she was to die this young? Where was God? What was her purpose? So this is how she would end, just like that?

***

In the months that follow, Julu becomes confined to her bed. At night, her mother would sleep in her room because of her new fear of the dark. She would scream and point to the walls, saying she saw something dark coming to get her.

Many a night she was paralyzed in her bed, unable to move or speak when that dark thing came to terrorize her. Slowly she begins to lose the shine in her eyes, she loses interest in the card and computer games her parents brought to entertain her. She refuses visitors to her room because she doesn’t want them to see the continuous stream of tears running down the sides of her face, her sunken appearance… And pity her.

It is in this state we meet her that night, standing at the edge of her life. If anyone could have touched her that night they would have shuddered with cold. Never have we seen anyone so ready to die. We watched her open her eyes and stare at the empty wall in panic. She is unable to move or talk. This girl on this bed looks nothing like the one who came to the Konja people. Slowly, we begin to believe the potency of the prophecy. We begin to think that maybe after all there is life after death. Maybe the universe is indeed merciful and allows unfortunates like this girl who will die so young to become something bigger and better than they themselves ever dreamed of.

***

We leave her there and go on our way, the sadness of her situation too much for us to bear. We will hear later that she had lapsed into a coma at some point, woken up after six months only to die the death that was welcoming her. Only to return to Konja as a goddess, silvery salvation.

All images are gotten from unsplash.com