out naked and follow that trail – he must be at Lumbedu’s kraal before sunset, and he must be dead by evening.’
As Chikongo dropped his loinskin and took leave of his parents, his mother Manjanja clung desperately to him, her only son, crying bitterly and saying: ‘Oh, Oh light of my fading eyes, my child, why . . . why did you do it?’
‘I do not know, mother,’ whispered Chikongo. ‘Goodbye now, mother.’
‘My son,’ said his father, ‘do not be afraid. Just show that fat bloated dog of a Lumbedu how Timburu’s grandson can die. Die like a warrior, my son; die with a smile on your lips as your warrior grandfather died.’
As Chikongo took the last cowrie-strewn journey of his young life, Mburu drew his weeping wives into his hut and took an Oath of Vengeance in which he swore to kill the witchdoctor Lumbedu one day, even if it took him years of waiting.
It was in the afternoon when Chikongo came through the gate of Lumbedu’s kraal and to his own great surprise he felt utterly unafraid; in fact, he felt very angry and actually wanted to die. As he entered the kraal he saw Ojoyo and the rest of Lumbedu’s wives standing in a scowling semicircle, leering, with bone or copper knives in their hands. Beyond them he saw the tall Avenger standing with folded arms next to Lumbedu and his son Gumbu, who was now armed with one of the metal spears the Strange Ones had left.
‘Come on, you foul bitches,’ cried Chikongo. ‘Come on and get it over with?’
‘No, my boy,’ said Ojoyo, with a nasty smile, ‘we shall come on, but we shall not get it over with in a hurry. You shall suffer a lot before you die. I would like to hear you scream for mercy before we despatch you.’
‘You shall never make me whine, you dirty slut,’ snarled Chikongo. ‘I am not your husband who squeals like a pig when you so much as point a finger at him. Come on, do your worst.’
And do their worst they did. But never once did the brave young man cry out, even when his entire lower abdomen had become one bloody mess of spurting blood and tattered flesh. They held him down, but he never so much as attempted to struggle and at long last he opened his mouth and gave one long shuddering gasp.
‘Now you are going to squeal, my bush-pig. Come on, let us hear you squeal,’ Ojoyo cried.
‘No, you foul she-hyaena,’ gasped Chikongo. ‘I shall not cry out. But I am feeling very sorry for you all. Today you kill me, but tomorrow, or a few moons from now, you . . . you too shall be dying. You have fallen like trapped flies into the web of Death and soon he shall come and consume you all.’
With that, the son of Mburu, son of Timburu, died. He died as his valiant father had told him to die; he died as his grandfather Timburu had died so long ago – bravely, without a murmur.
‘He cursed us . . . he cursed us with his last breath,’ sobbed Vunakwe, who had taken no part in the ghastly execution. ‘We are all cursed.’
‘Be silent, you weak-bellied bitch,’ snarled Ojoyo. ‘Some of you bring out Lulinda quickly.’
Lulinda was dragged out of her hut and flung brutally upon her dead lover’s body and all eyes turned towards the tall masked form of the Tribal Avenger for further instructions.
‘Did you make the raft?’ snapped the Tribal Avenger to Gumbu, the son of Lumbedu.
‘Yes, Mighty One, we did.’
‘Then drag this adultress and this dead dog out of here to the riverside and tie them together face to face. Roll them on to the raft and tie them firmly to it. Then push the raft into the river – the scaly crocodiles shall deal with both dead and living. I have spoken.’
How long Lulinda drifted down the Zambezi she did not know; it seemed like aeons and aeons. Her body was numb and her brain was fast approaching the valley of madness. She kept her eyes tightly shut all the time because whenever she opened them she stared into the wide-open eyes of her dead Chikongo. The cruel leather thongs that tied her to the raft were biting into her flesh like red-hot copper knives, and the wake of blood – Chikongo’s blood – that the raft was leaving behind, was attracting whole tribes of ravaging crocodiles. Something huge, scaly and long-snouted clambered on to the raft and fastened its teeth on the dead man’s leg, towing the raft nearer to the south bank of the river. But just when Lulinda had given herself up for dead, she saw a canoe creep into her limited field of vision, a canoe that turned its prow and bore down upon her raft and the swarming crocodiles clustering about it. Lulinda saw that there was only one man in the canoe – she could see him clearly silhouetted against the last glow of the dying sun.
The darting canoe rammed the raft and tore it out of the crowd of crocodiles swimming around it. Then Lulinda felt a weapon of unbelievable sharpness cutting her bonds to pieces. She felt strong hands snatch her out of the very jaws of a crocodile. She had a glimpse of a smiling thin-lipped mouth, a straight nose and a pair of bright black eyes. She saw a face handsome in a strange alien way – a face she had seen before. It was the face of the odd man who had escaped from the Strange Ones at Lumbedu’s kraal. Lulinda passed into the vale of unconsciousness in the arms of the light brown-skinned foreigner.
The legends say the odd man took Lulinda away to the safety of the great forests in the south of what was in later years to be known as the land of the Varozwi people. There the odd man gathered all the small tribes and clans and welded them into one mighty tribe to which he tried to impart some of the arts and the knowledge of his faraway native land. Even today the tribe this tawny-skinned foreigner founded is known throughout the land of the Black Tribes as the only one that practises the strange art of fortune-telling by gazing at the stars. The Varozwi is the only tribe practising mummification of its chiefs. Before a young Varozwi prince can assume the headdress and kaross of chief, he is forced to spend four nights in a cave in which are the mummified bodies of his father and ancestors. He must pray to each of these desiccated corpses for strength and wisdom and demand from each a blessing and a spiritual light to show him the road of life.
But, apart from the fact that the odd man founded the Varozwi Tribe, no clear details of his adventures and eventual death have reached us from across the gulf of time and his is one of the few stories in the land of the tribes where the story-teller must speak but a few words and be silent, because there is no more left to tell, for Time, that devouring monster, has devoured the rest.
Gumbu, the rascally son of a rascally father, knelt before his fat parents Lumbedu and Ojoyo and gave them advice – advice that was to affect thousands of lives and change the history of the whole southern part of the land of the tribes; advice that was to lead Lumbedu along the downward path to the valley of undoing and a miserable death.
Gumbu told his parents that since they were the only people who knew what the Strange Ones wanted, they should be the only people to trade big baskets full of corn, yams and pots full of milk for the superior iron and bronze weapons of the Strange Ones. With these weapons, Lumbedu could easily seize power and rule the whole land as a High Chief. Gumbu pointed out with jackal-like cunning that a few men armed with these metal weapons could easily rout a whole army armed with bone-tipped spears and stone axes, as was the case with all the armies of the tribal chiefs at this time. It must be remembered that at this time the only metal that Black people knew was copper, with which they made ornaments and knives for stabbing only.
The selfish, ambitious old charlatan
