Part 3

“Oh, it’s not a nice day,” she said, disappointed.

“That is true,” replied Mdingi; “but it may clear up before we leave this afternoon.”

“I think it’s going to rain,” said Kangata pessimistically.

“Come along, Kangata,” ordered his big brother.

Nomusa was just leaving through the kraal gate when she heard one of her sisters calling, “Nomusa, wait for me!” It was Hlamba, the daughter of her father’s third wife. Nomusa’s mother was his fourth wife. Hlamba, too, was carrying a water jar, which she balanced expertly on her grass-skirted hip.

Nomusa waited until Hlamba caught up with her. “_Sakubona!_” she greeted her. “I am glad to have your company, sister. I see you are already wearing your new beads. They are beautiful! And is that the grass skirt you are wearing to Damasi’s party?”

“Oh, no,” said Hlamba loftily. “I am saving the new one until we go. But I just couldn’t wait to wear the beads.”

Hlamba was taller and plumper than Nomusa. Her body was beginning to take on the form of a woman, and she felt her importance now that her age required her to wear a grass skirt just like her mother’s.

“When I am twelve years old, I suppose I shall have to wear a grass skirt, too,” said Nomusa without any enthusiasm.

“Of course,” said Hlamba. “You will be a woman then.”

“A woman—in two years!” thought Nomusa. Somehow she could not feel happy about it. She wanted so much to play for a long, long time. She walked beside Hlamba for a while, not saying a word, but thinking a great deal. Hlamba kept a steady flow of conversation most of the way, but Nomusa hardly heard her. She kept talking about the designs she would put on her body for the party.

“And what designs and colors shall you paint on your body?” Hlamba was asking. This question interested Nomusa. All the way back to the kraal the conversation continued about the preparations for the party.

“Do you know that our sister Sisiwe has tattooed herself?” asked Nomusa.

“So soon? Did she use a pointed stick, or did she put the glowing embers on the cow dung over the skin?” inquired Hlamba.

“I saw her use a pointed stick. I hope the marks will last at least until the day after the party,” said Nomusa.

“Yes, after all that work and pain of making the tattoo,” said Hlamba sympathetically.

When Nomusa and Hlamba brought their water jars to their huts, the bigger boys were already in the cattle pasture. Only the smaller children were playing about in the kraal space. They were making toy kraals, cattle, and dolls out of clay and baking them in the sun.

There was Themba among the little boys, making clay oxen and cattle kraals and pretending to trade toy cattle for dolls as wives. That was what the men did.

While the small children played, the older girls were busy helping their mothers, and there was great activity inside and outside the huts.

Nomusa had finally finished weeding her mother’s garden and had carried back in her left hand a large pumpkin. In her right she held three long pieces of sugar cane. Out of her mouth stuck a small piece of sugar cane which she was chewing and sucking as she walked briskly to her hut. She had stuck five gray and white porcupine quills in her thick hair. Carefully she dropped the pumpkin and the sugar cane before the hut entrance and pushed them before her as she crawled in.

“Well, today you have returned very quickly, Nomusa,” her mother said approvingly. “Have you weeded the garden well?”

“That I have, my mother,” said Nomusa. “And see what I have brought you”—pointing proudly to the quills in her hair.

Her mother stopped brewing corn beer and came over to examine the porcupine quills. She took one out of Nomusa’s hair and put it into her own, trying it out by gently scratching her head with it.

“Yo! Very sharp point,” she observed. “How did you get the quills?”

“While I was weeding the garden, I saw the porcupine close to the ground trying to creep out from under our thorn fence. So I threw a large yam at it as hard as I could, and although the porcupine got away, the yam lay on the ground with these porcupine quills in it.”

[Illustration: [Girl]]

Her mother laughed aloud. “You are as good a shot as your brothers. You would be a good hunter.”

“I would rather be a good hunter than be allowed to wear a grass skirt,” confessed Nomusa.

“Perhaps you can do both; but you will learn that it is good to be a woman, too. How are the crops? Are any pineapples ripe yet?”

“No, my mother. They are still hard and green. I felt all of them. But the beans will be ready by tomorrow, I am sure. I go now to gather wood for your fire.”

“Very well, Nomusa. Hurry with your chores so you can prepare yourself for the party.”

Nomusa smiled at her mother, grateful to her for understanding what was in her mind.

When she had returned with the firewood and ground some corn, her mother said, “You have done enough. The sun is now high, and it is time for you to paint and grease yourself.”

Nomusa did not have to be urged twice. She took out her little piles of ground stone, which were lying neatly on large leaves, carried them carefully outdoors, and laid them on the shady side of the hut while she got some water and lamb fat. Leaving each color on its separate leaf, Nomusa poured water, drop by drop, first on the red powder, then on the black, then on the white, mixing each with a different thin twig. Into each color she stirred a little fat until it was just the right thickness. As if she were a chemist, she examined each color with the tip of her finger to see that it was neither too thin nor too thick, neither too light nor too dark. From time to time she tried a little of the color on her arm in order to see if it was just the right shade and would stay on well.

Finally Nomusa was satisfied. With some soft dried rabbits’ paws that she used as paintbrushes, she began smearing her body, first putting on the red coat that made her skin a lovely warm copper color. She waited a few minutes for it to dry well. On top of the red paint she began putting the designs she had decided on long ago. The white circles were painted on first, then black circles put around these. Radiating from these she drew shapes of diamonds, squares, a series of wavy lines, and then dots. It was such a balanced pattern of design and color that an artist could not have done better. For her back she needed some help; so she called Sisiwe, who was coming out of her hut.

“What, you are all ready?” asked Sisiwe. “Why, I haven’t even finished my work yet. I still have to get wood and grind some corn. It’s a good thing the tattooing is done.”

“I will help you with the corn, Sisiwe, if you paint my back the way I tell you to.”

“I shall do it gladly, Nomusa.”

Carefully, Nomusa stooped before Sisiwe’s grinding stone, afraid lest she make cracks in the paint on her body. She began grinding the corn, throwing into the scooped stone a handful of dried kernels now and then. Sisiwe, more cheerful now, ran quickly out of the kraal for the wood.

[Illustration: [Girl]]

While Nomusa worked, she could not help admiring herself, and her eyes wandered up and down the front of her body. Nomusa was pleased with her designs. When she had given her body a final layer of grease to protect and bring out the colors of the paint and had put on all her bangles and bracelets, she would look beautiful indeed. She would not forget to wear her new oxhide neck-pocket, either. Already she had put into it most of her best treasures, to be exchanged for even better ones, she hoped, with Damasi’s guests.

It did not seem at all long before Sisiwe was back again, her arms filled with branches and twigs. She dropped her load behind her hut, then carried into the hut as much wood as her mother would need for several hours. Out she ran to Nomusa and squatted beside her, taking the grinding stone out of her hand.

“I can go on grinding if you will get my paints and cover my back with red paint,” said Nomusa.

Sisiwe darted over to Nomusa’s hut to gather up the paints. When she returned, Nomusa said, “I think the paints will need more water. They are a little dry now. When you have used what you need on my back, you may have the rest of the colors for yourself.”

“You are good, Nomusa.” Sisiwe added some water to the paint, stirring water and paint together with great care. She began covering Nomusa’s back with the red color as smoothly as she could. Nomusa giggled as the rabbit’s foot tickled her sides.

After having made the designs and used the colors Nomusa showed her, Sisiwe said, “It is done now, and you look splendid.”

“I can help you with your back, just as you did mine,” said Nomusa. With Nomusa’s help it did not take long for Sisiwe to be completely painted. Nomusa then went back to her hut to get her bangles and beads. She reappeared before Sisiwe wearing them around her waist, her neck, her elbows, her upper arms, her ankles, the calves of her legs, and her knees. She was now well greased, too, and glistened in the sun. Her bulging oxhide neck-pocket, soft and new, hung around her neck. A thin circlet of white, green, and red beads surrounded her pretty head.

As her little brothers and sisters saw Nomusa approach they stopped everything they were doing. Excitedly they crowded around to examine her decorations and adornments and point out to one another the extraordinary designs on her body. They touched her shiny bangles, her beads and bracelets, all of which she had made herself.

“How I wish I could go to Damasi’s party, too,” said one of her small admirers. “Did you make this bracelet?” asked another. “Where did you get those beads?”

Puleng returned from some little adventure he had been having and began to bark at Nomusa, disturbed over her strange appearance. What with his barking and the shouting and loud questions of all the children crowding round Nomusa and Sisiwe, there was such a din that mothers stuck their heads out of the entrance of their huts and crossly commanded, “_Tula!_”

“Hush!” warned Nomusa. “You will wake all the babies.” She stroked Puleng’s head to reassure him and quiet his barking.

“Here come the others, ready for the party,” announced Sisiwe. “Oh, look!”

Nineteen boys and girls—painted, greased, bedecked with all kinds of beads and bangles encircling almost every part of the body—began gathering at the kraal entrance ready to set forth. Some of the girls wore grass skirts; some of the boys were wearing antelope belts for the first time and were proudly fingering and arranging them. Some had feathers stuck in their hair. Faces were painted with designs meant to terrify and amuse.

[Illustration: [Children]]

Nomusa and Sisiwe joined their older sisters and brothers at the kraal entrance. They were ready to start for the party now. The smaller children, who were being left behind, began jumping and shouting around them, cheering as they left.

The morning haze had disappeared, and Damasi’s kraal could now be seen clearly on the hill beyond. As Nomusa walked along with her nineteen excited brothers and sisters, she fingered her neck-pocket and began to think of Damasi and how glad she would be to see him.

[Illustration: [Huts]]

SEVEN: Damasi’s Party

The distance to Damasi’s kraal was quite far, but it did not seem so to Nomusa or to her brothers and sisters as they walked toward it, single file. Far off, they saw a thin line of children coming in their direction. They, too, were on their way to the party. Nomusa wondered how many children would be at Damasi’s party. Maybe a hundred.

Kangata was terribly excited about going to a party in a neighboring kraal. It was his first one.

“We are near now, Nomusa, are we not?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. She began to laugh as she looked at her small brother’s face, for it was marked and painted in such a curious and grotesque manner that his nose looked as if it had been divided in two.

Kangata looked offended and put his grubby hand up to his face to discover the cause of Nomusa’s mirth. Nomusa quickly reassured him. “You have certainly made a design like that of no other. Perhaps you will win a prize.”

When the children neared the thorn fence surrounding Damasi’s kraal, Zabala walked forward quickly to lead the line of twenty brothers and sisters, all children of Nomusa’s father. Zabala, whose mother was called Great Wife because she was Zitu’s first wife, would be chief of Nomusa’s kraal some day, because he was Zitu’s eldest son.

Standing just within the entrance of the kraal to greet the guests as they entered were Damasi’s father and uncle and their wives. They pointed out the huts that had been reserved for the party.

Nomusa found Kangata close at her side, his eyes wide with curiosity, trying to see everything in the strange kraal at once. Delicious smells of food cooking filled the air and made Kangata’s mouth water.

Nomusa began straightening the halo of beads around her head, adjusting some of the bangles that had got twisted on the way. Most of her sisters were arranging their short grass skirts and bead kilts, too.

Zabala walked up to the entrance of Damasi’s hut, followed by his nineteen brothers and sisters. He stood tall before the hut, legs apart, arms by his side, and loudly cleared his throat. “A-hem!” But there was so much noise in the hut, and such excitement, that no one, it seemed, had heard his announcement of their arrival. Again he cleared his throat, this time more loudly, with a reinforcement of “A-hems” from behind him. Zabala glowered at those who had given him this unwanted help.

This time they were heard. There was a sudden hush within. Almost immediately a fantastic-looking head, stuck full of small birds’ feathers, green, blue, yellow, and red, appeared in the entrance. It was Damasi. “_Sakubona! Sakubona!_” he said, smiling.

“_Usaphila! Usaphila!_” called the guests from Nomusa’s kraal.

Chief for the day, Damasi was in charge of everything. He quickly beckoned to everyone to enter. First went Zabala. Then, one by one, all the brothers and sisters crawled in after him on hands and knees.

At first the children from Nomusa’s kraal were shy, but soon they began to mingle freely with the other guests. Waves of noise surged up in the hut. More guests arrived, making the hut hotter and noisier than ever. The boys wandered over to one side of the hut, and the girls stayed at the other.

Nomusa went to look at a calf that was tied in a corner of the hut. It was only a few days old and still too young to be taken to pasture. Together with a young goat, it was being kept as a pet. Girls did not often have a chance to be with cows and calves, and Nomusa enjoyed petting the calf.

Several dogs which had followed some of the children to the party ran in and out, between and over the legs of the smaller guests, looking for pieces of food that had been dropped on the floor. Every little while there was a fight between two dogs when both snatched at the same morsel.

Their barking, snapping, and growling frightened the chickens that had wandered in. Flapping their wings in terror, they crowed and cackled, one or two flying onto the backs of the shrieking children.

[Illustration: [Family]]

This caused more excitement, laughter, and screeching, until the poor little calf began to strain at its grass rope in an effort to get away. Nomusa patted her. “Do not be afraid, little calf. I will not let anyone hurt you.”

While she was talking to the calf, Damasi’s sister Intombi, a year older than Nomusa, came up to her and said, “It is a fine calf. Do you like it?”

“Who would not?” answered Nomusa. “She will be a beautiful cow.” Then, seeing Intombi’s bulging neck-pocket, she pointed to it. “What have you in there?”

“I will gladly show you,” said Intombi. “But you must show me what is in your pocket, too.”

Nomusa opened her neck-pocket and drew from it a red and green feather, now somewhat bent—the one she had found at the stream.

“M-m-m-m!” said Intombi, admiringly. “What else have you?”

Nomusa’s fingers probed the depths of her pocket. She brought out a lovely bead of clay, brown, with a red and yellow border. The bead was no bigger than a small grape. “I made it myself,” explained Nomusa. “I found a very special kind of clay, mixed the colors, and then baked it in the sun. Do you like it?”

“I do,” said Intombi. “If you will part with it, I will give you this.” She quickly loosened her bulging neck-pocket and took out something brown, spotted with white. It looked very soft and furry.

“Why, it’s a deer mouse!” cried Nomusa. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it nibbling in my mother’s garden. If you like it, you may have it in exchange for the bead.”

“Be careful not to drop the bead, for it may break,” Nomusa said, handing it to Intombi and taking the deer mouse.

“It’s not alive, you know,” Intombi said, as she saw Nomusa carefully examining her new treasure.

“Is it still good to eat?” Nomusa asked.

“That I do not know, but the fur can be used.”

Intombi opened her neck-pocket wide and showed Nomusa all the bits of stone, feathers, bangles, and other trinkets that she carried around with her. Suddenly Intombi sprang up. “Oh, they are starting another game. Let us play, too, Nomusa.”

“What are they playing?”

“Husbands and wives. It’s lots of fun. I hope Zabala chooses me.” Intombi moved closer to the line of boys so that Zabala would not fail to see her. She looked smilingly at him until he caught her eye.

How tiresome to play such a game, thought Nomusa. I should much prefer going outside.

She was standing apart, watching the good-natured scramble of the boys picking their girls, not once thinking about a partner for herself. Suddenly she felt someone tapping her shoulder insistently. “You are my wife for this game,” Damasi said. “Now let me see if you are a good one.”

“And let me see if you are a good husband,” replied Nomusa.

The girls picked up little grass mats and baskets and filled them with food for themselves and their “husbands.”

Damasi said to Nomusa, “I hear you can do all the things that a boy can do. Are you a good cook, too? That is more important.”

“You shall see,” answered Nomusa. “But you must promise to go outside with me afterwards to shoot at targets.” She set to work to prepare a dish that would not take very long. Soon she gave Damasi a mixture of chicken, corn, pumpkin, goat meat, and fried locust.

“Very good,” said Damasi. “Now pass me the _amasi_.” These were the delicious curds of clotted milk that Nomusa liked so much. They were excellent for cooling and for quenching one’s thirst. When Damasi had finished, he belched and said, “Soon we’ll see if you are as good a hunter as you are a cook.”

“Let us go outside now,” Nomusa suggested, “if you have finished eating.”

Together they left the hut. Damasi went into one of the other huts and brought out two bows and some arrows. One bow he handed to Nomusa.

“See if you can hit that branch,” he said, pointing.

Nomusa stood straight and drew her right arm back with a quick pull. Off sped the arrow, straight into the middle of the thick branch.

“Good!” shouted Damasi. “We’ll each take five turns and see how many hits we make.”

As Damasi took a shot, Nomusa saw a bird flying about a hundred yards away. Quickly she let the arrow go, and down went the bird.

“Not many boys your age can shoot a bird on the wing,” said Damasi admiringly. “Where did you practice shooting?”

“In my mother’s garden,” answered Nomusa.

Just then Mdingi appeared. “Let me shoot,” he said.

“Let us take turns shooting,” said Nomusa. “You first, Damasi. Then Mdingi, then I.”

Damasi let his arrows fly swiftly, one after the other. “Three out of five,” announced Nomusa, running to pick up the fallen arrows.

“Your turn, Mdingi,” said Damasi.

Taking careful aim, Mdingi shot his five arrows. “Four out of five!” he shouted.

Nomusa aimed and shot. “Three out of five, like me, Nomusa,” Damasi said.

By now the younger children had grown tired of being husbands and wives—especially the girls, since they had to do all the work for the boys. The smaller girls began to play with clay dolls, and the little boys ran outdoors to play horse.

Sisiwe came up to Nomusa. “What will everyone think of you, playing with boys, shooting at a mark,” she scolded. “You make us ridiculous with your tomboy ways! What good will it do you to know how to trap and shoot? You will never be allowed to go on a hunt. It is better for you to know how to be a good wife.”

Nomusa left Damasi and went to sit with the girls from neighboring kraals. Bored, she listened to stories about things that had been going on in their kraals since the last time they had seen each other: about new babies, accidents to brothers or sisters, what vegetables were growing in their mothers’ gardens, and such things. Body designs were compared and discussed, grass skirts felt, beads admired, and new teeth examined.

There was no special hour for eating. Children wandered in and out of the hut to get what they wanted. It was a never-ending feast.

[Illustration: [Huts]]

EIGHT: Runaway Prize

Nomusa went into the warm hut for some pumpkin, but she came out quickly. She drew in a long breath of fresh air and wiped her perspiring brow.

“Oh, how good the night air feels!” she said to Intombi. “The moon is high, and the stars are sparkling already.”

The cry of a very young baby was heard. Nomusa looked at Intombi.

“My uncle’s wife has a new baby, born eight days ago. Should you like to see her?”

Nomusa was glad to accept the invitation. She loved babies, and she was glad to get away from the gossiping girls.

Together they walked over to the hut. In front of the entrance, Intombi turned to Nomusa. “Here are the ashes of the magic herb in which you must rub your feet before entering. You have come a long way, and you may have got something evil on them. With new babies we have to be very careful, you know.”

Nomusa obediently rubbed her feet in the ashes while Intombi gave a polite cough, which was answered from within by a quiet, friendly “_Bayete_.”