Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [74]
Kunta sat hugging his knees in the night’s still air. Not far away, hyenas began yipping. For some time, he diverted himself by identifying the other sounds of the forest. Then three times he faintly heard a melodious horn. He knew it was the next village’s final prayer call, blown by their alimamo through a hollowed elephant’s tooth. He wished that Lamin had been awake to hear its haunting cry, which was almost like a human voice, but then he smiled, for his brother was beyond caring what anything sounded like. Then himself praying, Kunta also slept.
Soon after sunrise, they were passing that village and hearing the drumming rhythm of the women’s pestles pounding couscous for breakfast porridge. Kunta could almost taste it; but they didn’t stop. Not far beyond, down the trail, was another village, and as they went by, the men were leaving their mosque and the women were bustling around their cooking fires. Still farther on, Kunta saw ahead of them an old man sitting beside the trail. He was bent nearly double over a number of cowrie shells, which he was shuffling and reshuffling on a plaited bamboo mat while mumbling to himself. Not to interrupt him, Kunta was about to pass by when the old man looked up and hailed them over to where he sat.
“I come from the village of Kootacunda, which is in the kingdom of Wooli, where the sun rises over the Simbani forest,” he said in a high, cracking voice. “And where may you be from?” Kunta told him the village of Juffure, and the old man nodded. “I have heard of it.” He was consulting his cowries, he said, to learn their next message about his journey to the city of Timbuktu, “which I want to see before I die,” and he wondered if the travelers would care to be of any help to him. “We are poor, but happy to share whatever we have with you, Grandfather,” said Kunta, easing off his headload, reaching within it and withdrawing some dried meat, which he gave the old man, who thanked him and put the food in his lap.
Peering at them both, he asked, “You are brothers traveling?”
“We are, Grandfather,” Kunta replied.
“That is good!” the old man said, and picked up two of his cowries. “Add this to those on your hunting bag, and it will bring you a fine profit,” he said to Kunta, handing him one of the cowries. “And you, young man,” he said to Lamin, giving him the other, “keep this for when you become a man with a bag of your own.” They both thanked him, and he wished them Allah’s blessings.
They had walked on for quite a while when Kunta decided that the time was ripe to break his silence with Lamin. Without stopping or turning, he began to speak: “There is a legend, little brother, that it was traveling Mandinkas who named the place where that old man is bound. They found there a kind of insect they had never seen before and named the place ‘Tumbo Kutu,’ which means ‘new insect.’” When there was no response from Lamin, Kunta turned his head; Lamin was well behind, bent down over his headload—which had fallen open on the ground—and struggling to tie it back together. As Kunta trotted back, he realized that Lamin’s grabbing at his headload had finally caused it to work its bindings loose and that he had somehow eased it off his head without making any noise, not wanting to break the rule of silence by asking Kunta to stop. While Kunta was retying the headload,