Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [15]
When the schoolboys finished their lessons and ran off—with the tails of their cotton dundikos flapping behind them—to herd the village’s goats out into the brushlands for the day’s grazing, Kunta and his mates tried to act very unconcerned, but the truth was that they envied the older boys’ long shirts as much as they did their important jobs. Though he said nothing, Kunta was not alone in feeling that he was too grown up to be treated like a child and made to go naked any longer. They avoided suckling babies like Lamin as if they were diseased, and the toddlers they regarded as even more unworthy of notice, unless it was to give them a good whack when no adults were watching. Shunning even the attentions of the old grandmothers who had taken care of them for as long as they could remember, Kunta, Sitafa, and the others began to hang around grown-ups of their parents’ age in hopes of being seen underfoot and perhaps sent off on an errand.
It was just before the harvest came that Omoro told Kunta very casually, one night after dinner, that he wanted him up early the next day to help guard the crops. Kunta was so excited he could hardly sleep. After gulping down his breakfast in the morning, he almost burst with joy when Omoro handed him the hoe to carry when they set out for the fields. Kunta and his mates fairly flew up and down the ripe rows, yelling and waving sticks at the wild pigs and baboons that came grunting from the brush to root or snatch up groundnuts. With dirt clods and shouts, they routed whistling flocks of blackbirds as they wheeled low over the couscous, for the grandmothers’ stories had told of ripened fields ruined as quickly by hungry birds as by any animal. Collecting the handfuls of couscous and groundnuts that their fathers had cut or pulled up to test for ripeness, and carrying gourds of cool water for the men to drink, they worked all through the day with a swiftness equaled only by their pride.
Six days later, Allah decreed that the harvest should begin. After the dawn’s suba prayer, the farmers and their sons—some chosen few carrying small tan-tang and souraba drums—went out to the fields and waited with heads cocked, listening. Finally, the village’s great tobalo drum boomed and the farmers leaped to the harvesting. As the jaliba and the other drummers walked among them, beating out a rhythm to match their movements, everyone began to sing. In exhilaration now and then, a farmer would fling his hoe, whirling up on one drumbeat and catch it on the next.
Kunta’s kafo sweated alongside their fathers, shaking the groundnut bushes free of dirt. Halfway through the morning came the first rest—and then, at midday, happy shouts of relief as the women and girls arrived with lunch. Walking in single file, also singing harvest songs, they took the pots from their heads, ladled the contents into calabashes, and served them to the drummers and harvesters, who ate and then napped until the tobalo sounded once again.
Piles of the harvest dotted the fields at the end of that first day. Streaming sweat and mud, the farmers trudged wearily to the nearest stream, where they took off their clothes and leaped into the water, laughing and splashing to cool and clean themselves. Then they headed home, swatting at the biting flies that buzzed around their glistening bodies. The closer they came to the smoke that drifted toward them from the women’s kitchens, the more tantalizing were the smells of the roasted meats that would be served three times daily for however long it took to finish the harvest.
After stuffing himself that night, Kunta noticed—as he had for several nights—that his mother was sewing something. She said nothing about it, nor did Kunta ask. But the next morning, as he picked up his hoe and began to walk out the door, she looked at him and said gruffly, “Why don’t you put on your clothes?”
Kunta jerked around. There, hanging