Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [173]
Kunta searched his mind; there must have been something else of his original self that he could find someplace. And there was: He had kept his dignity. Through everything, he had worn his dignity as once in Juffure he had worn his saphie charms to keep away the evil spirits. He vowed to himself that now more than ever, his dignity must become as a shield between him and all of those who called themselves “niggers.” How ignorant of themselves they were; they knew nothing of their ancestors, as he had been taught from boyhood. Kunta reviewed in his mind the names of the Kintes from the ancient clan in old Mali down across the generations in Mauretania, then in The Gambia all the way to his brothers and himself; and he thought of how the same ancestral knowledge was possessed by every member of his kafo.
It set Kunta to reminiscing about those boyhood friends. At first he was only surprised, but then he grew shocked when he found that he couldn’t remember their names. Their faces came back to him—along with memories of them racing out beyond the village gate like blackbirds to serve as chattering escorts in Juffure for every traveler who passed by; hurling sticks at the scolding monkeys overhead, who promptly hurled them back; of contests they’d held to see who could eat six mangoes the fastest. But try as Kunta might, he couldn’t recall their names, not one of them. He could see his kafo gathered, frowning at him.
In his hut, and driving the massa, Kunta racked his brain. And finally the names did begin to come, one by one: yes, Sitafa Silla—he and Kunta had been best friends! And Kalilu Conteh—he had stalked and caught the parrot at the kintango’s command. Sefo Kela—he had asked the Council of Elders for permission to have a teriya sexual friendship with that widow.
The faces of some of the elders began to come back now, and with them the names he thought he had long since forgotten. The kintango was Silla Ba Dibba! The alimamo was Kujali Demba! The wadanela was Karamo Tamba! Kunta remembered his third-kafo graduating ceremony, where he had read his Koranic verses so well that Omoro and Binta gave a fat goat to the arafang, whose name was Brima Cesay. Remembering them all filled Kunta with joy—until it occurred to him that those elders would have died by now, and his kafo mates whom he remembered as little boys would be his age back in Juffure—and he would never see them again. For the first time in many years, he cried himself to sleep.
In the county seat a few days later, another buggy driver told Kunta that some free blacks up North who called themselves “The Negro Union” had proposed a mass return to Africa of all blacks—both free and slaves. The very thought of it excited Kunta, even as he scoffed that it couldn’t ever happen, with massas not only competing to buy blacks but also paying higher prices than ever. Though he knew the fiddler would almost rather stay a slave in Virginia than go to Africa a free man, Kunta wished he could discuss it with him, for the fiddler always seemed to know all there was to know about what was going on anywhere if it had anything to do with freedom.
But for almost two months now Kunta hadn’t done more than scowl at the fiddler or at Bell and the gardener either. Not that he needed them or even liked them that much, of course—but the feeling of being stranded kept growing within him. By the time the next new moon rose, and he miserably dropped another pebble into his gourd, he was feeling inexpressibly lonely, as if he had cut himself off from the world.
The next time Kunta saw the fiddler pass by, he nodded at him uncertainly, but the fiddler kept walking as if he hadn’t even seen anyone. Kunta was furiously embarrassed. The very next day he and the old gardener saw each other at the same moment, and without missing a step, the gardener turned in another direction. Both hurt and bitter—and with a mounting sense of guilt—Kunta paced back and forth in his hut for more hours that night. The next morning,