One of the boys reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of gumballs, one for every color, and dropped them into my hands. I stuffed them all in my mouth. As the boys left, I felt the sweet juice roll down my chin and soak my shirt.
The following day, I was playing under the mango tree when a trader on a bicycle stopped to chat with my father. He said that while on his way to the market the previous morning, he’d dropped one of his bags. By the time he’d realized what had happened and circled back, someone had taken it. The bag was filled with bubble gum, he said. Some fellow traders had told him about the herd boys passing out gum in the villages, and this made him very angry. For two days he’d been riding his bicycle throughout the district looking for the boys. He then issued a chilling threat.
“I’ve gone to see the sing’anga, and whoever ate that gum will soon be sorry.”
The sing’anga was the witch doctor.
I’d swallowed the gum long before. Now the sweet, lingering memory of it soured into poison on my tongue. I began to sweat; my heart was beating fast. Without anyone seeing, I ran into the blue gum grove behind my house, leaned against a tree, and tried to make myself clean. I spit and hocked, shoved my finger into my throat, anything to rid my body of the curse. I came up dry. A bit of saliva colored the leaves at my feet, so I covered them with dirt.
But then, as if a dark cloud had passed over the sun, I felt the great eye of the wizard watching me through the trees. I’d eaten his juju and now his darkness owned me. That night, the witches would come for me in my bed. They’d take me aboard their planes and force me to fight, leaving me for dead along the magic battlefields. And as my soul drifted alone and forsaken above the clouds, my body would be cold by morning. A fear of death swept over me like a fever.
I began crying so hard I couldn’t move my legs. The tears ran hot down my face, and as they did, the smell of poison filled my nose. It was everywhere inside me. I fled the forest as fast as possible, trying to get away from the giant magic eye. I ran all the way home to where my father sat against the house, plucking a pile of maize. I wanted to throw my body under his, so he could protect me from the devil.
“It was me,” I said, the tears drowning my words. “I ate the stolen gum. I don’t want to die, Papa. Don’t let them take me!”
My father looked at me for a second, then shook his head.
“It was you, eh?” he said, then kind of smiled.
Didn’t he realize I was done for?
“Well,” he said, and rose from the chair. His knees popped whenever he stood. My father was a big man. “Don’t worry. I’ll find this trader and explain. I’m sure we can work out something.”
That afternoon, my father walked eight kilometers to a place called Masaka where the trader lived. He told the man what had happened, about the herd boys coming by and giving me the stolen gum. Then without question, my father paid the man for his entire bag, which amounted to a full week’s pay.
That evening after supper, my life having been saved, I asked my father about the curse, and if he’d truly believed I was finished. He straightened his face and became very serious.
“Oh yes, we were just in time,” he said, then started laughing in that way that made me so happy, his big chest heaving and causing the wooden chair to squeal. “William, who knows what was in store for you?”
MY FATHER WAS STRONG and feared no magic, but he knew all the stories. On nights when there was no moon, we’d light a lamp and gather in our living room. My sisters and I would sit at my father’s feet, and he’d explain the ways of the world, how magic had been with us from the beginning. In a land of poor farmers, there were too many troubles for God and man alone. To compensate for this imbalance, he said, magic existed as a third and powerful force. Magic wasn’t something you could see, like a tree, or a woman carrying water. Instead, it was a force invisible and strong like the wind, or a spider’s web spun across the trail. Magic existed in story, and one of our favorites was of Chief Mwase and the Battle of Kasungu.
In the early nineteenth century, and even today, the Chewa people were the rulers of the central plains. We’d fled there many generations before from the highlands of southern Congo during a time of great war and sickness, and settled where the soil was reddish black and fertile as the days were long.
During this time, just northwest of our village, a ferocious black rhino began wreaking terror across the land. He was bigger than a three-ton lorry, with horns the length of my father’s arms and points as sharp as daggers. Back then, the villagers and animals shared the same watering hole, and the rhino would submerge himself in the shallows and wait. Those visiting the spring were mostly women and young girls like my mother and sisters. As they dipped their pails into the water, the rhino would attack, stabbing and stomping them with its mighty hooves, until there was nothing left but bloody rags. Over a period of months, the feared black rhino had killed over a hundred people.
One afternoon, a young girl from the royal Chewa family was stomped to death at the spring. When the chief heard about this, he became very angry and decided to act. He gathered his elders and warriors to make a plan.
“This thing is a real menace,” the chief said. “How can we get rid of it?”
There were many ideas, but none seemed to impress the chief. Finally one of his assistants stood up.
“I know this man in Lilongwe,” he said. “He’s not a chief, but he owns one of the azungu’s guns, and he’s very good at magic. I’m certain his magical calculations are strong enough to defeat this black rhino.”
This man was Mwase Chiphaudzu, whose magic was so superior he was renowned across the kingdom. Mwase was a magic hunter. His very name meant “killer grass” because he was able to disguise himself as a cluster of reeds in the fields, allowing him to ambush his prey. The chief’s people traveled a hundred kilometers to Lilongwe and summoned Mwase, who agreed to assist his brothers in Kasungu.
One morning, Mwase arrived at the watering hole well before the sun. He stood in the tall grass near the shores and sprinkled magic water over his body and rifle. Both of them vanished, becoming only music in the breeze. Minutes later, the black rhino thundered over the hill and made his way toward the spring. As he plunged his heavy body into the shallows, Mwase crept behind him and put a bullet into his skull. The rhino crumpled dead.
The celebrations began immediately. For three days, villagers from across the district feasted on the meat of the terrible beast that had taken so many lives. During the height of the festivities, the chief took Mwase to the top of the highest hill and looked down where the Chewa ruled. This hill was Mwala wa Nyenje, meaning “The Rock of the Edible Flies,” named after the cliffs at its summit and the fat delicious flies that lived in its trees.
Standing atop the Rock of the Edible Flies, the chief pointed down to a giant swath of green earth and turned to Mwase.
“Because you killed that horrible and most feared beast, I have a prize for you,” he said. “I hereby grant you power over this side of the mountain and all that’s visible from its peak. Go get your people and make this your home. This is now your rule.”
So Mwase returned to Lilongwe and got his family, and before long, he’d established a thriving empire. His farmland produced abundant maize and vegetables that fed the entire region. His people were strong, and his warriors were powerful and feared.
But around this time, a great chaos erupted in the Zulu kingdom of South Africa. The army of the Zulu king, Shaka, began a bloody campaign to conquer the land surrounding his kingdom, and this path of terror and destruction caused millions to flee. One such group was the Ngoni.
The Ngoni people marched north for many months and finally stopped in Chewa territory, where the soil was moist and fertile. But because they were constantly on the move, hunger visited them often. When this happened, they would travel farther north and ask for help from Chief Mwase, who always assisted them with maize and goats. One day, after accepting another of Mwase’s handouts, the Ngoni chiefs sat down and said, “How can we always have this kind of food?”
Someone replied, “Eliminate the Chewa.”
The Ngoni were led by Chief Nawambe, whose plan was to capture the Rock of the Edible Flies and all the land visible from its peak. However, the Ngoni did not know how magical Chief Mwase was.
One morning, the Ngoni came up the mountain dressed in animal skins, holding massive shields in one hand and spears in the other. But of course, Chief Mwase’s warriors had spotted them from miles away. By the time the Ngoni reached the hill, the Chewa warriors had disguised themselves as green grass and slayed the intruders with knives and spears. The last man to die was Chief Nawambe. For this reason, the mountain was changed from the Rock of the Edible Flies to Nguru ya Nawambe, which means simply “The Deadly Defeat of Nawambe.” This same hill now casts a long shadow over the city of Kasungu, just near my village.
THESE STORIES HAD BEEN passed down from generation to generation, with my father having learned them from my grandpa. My father’s father was so old he couldn’t remember when he was born. His skin was so dry and wrinkled, his feet looked like they were chiseled from stone. His overcoat and trousers seemed older than he was, the way they were patched and hung on his body like the bark of an ancient tree. He rolled fat cigars from maize husks and field tobacco, and his eyes were red from kachaso, a maize liquor so strong it left weaker men blind.
Grandpa visited us once or twice a month. Whenever he emerged from the edge of the trees in his long coat and hat, a trail of smoke rising from his lips, it was as if the forest itself had taken legs and walked.
The stories Grandpa told were from a different time and place. When he was young—before the government maize and tobacco estates arrived and cleared most of our trees—the forests were so dense a traveler could lose his sense of time and direction in them. Here the invisible world hovered closer to the ground, mixing with the darkness in the groves. The forest was home to many wild beasts, such as antelope, elephant, and wildebeest, as well as hyenas, lions, and leopards, adding even more to the danger.
When Grandpa was a boy, his grandmother was attacked by a lion. She was working in her fields at the forest’s edge, scaring away some monkeys, when a female lion came upon her. Villagers heard her cries and quickly sounded the drum—not the fast, rhythmic beat for dances or ceremonies, but something slow and serious. They call this emergency beat the musadabwe, meaning, “Don’t ask questions, just come!” It’s like dialing 911, but instead of police, you’re calling other villagers.
By the time Grandpa and others arrived with their spears and bows and arrows, it was too late. They saw the lion—its body the size of a cow—drag his grandmother into the thorny trees, then toss her body into the bush like a mouse. It then turned and faced its challengers, let out a terrible roar, and disappeared with its kill. The poor woman’s body was never recovered.
Grandpa says that once a lion gets a taste for human blood, it won’t stop until it’s eaten an entire village. So the next morning someone notified the British authorities, who still controlled our country. They sent soldiers into the forest and shot the lion. Its body was then displayed in the village square for all to see.
Not long after, Grandpa was hunting alone in the forest and came upon a man who’d been bitten by a cobra. The snake had been hiding in the trees and struck the man’s head as he passed. His skin quickly turned gray, and minutes later, he was dead. Grandpa alerted the nearest village, who arrived with their witch doctor. The wizard placed one foot atop the dead man’s chest and tossed some medicines into the forest. Seconds later, the moist ground came alive as hundreds of cobra slithered out from the shadows and gathered around the corpse, hypnotized by the spell.
The wizard crouched on the dead man’s chest and drank a cup of magic porridge, which flowed through his feet and into the lifeless body. The dead man’s fingers began to move, then his hands.
“Let me up,” he said, then stood and faced the army of serpents.
Together, they checked the fangs of every cobra in attendance, searching for the one that had killed the man. Usually, the wizard would quickly cut off the head of the guilty snake, but this time, the dead man took pity and allowed the cobra to live. For his services, the wizard was paid three British pounds. My grandpa saw this with his own eyes.
When my father was a young man, he often went hunting with his father. Even then, the forest was so dangerous that hunters observed a sacred ritual before their outings. Hunts were usually initiated by one man, the mwini chisokole, or owner of the hunt, who called together all the willing men from the surrounding villages. The owner decided where and when the hunt would take place, and in the event of a kill, he’d receive the choicest portion of the meat, usually the hindquarter. Grandpa was often this person.
On the night before the hunt, the leader wasn’t allowed to sleep with his wife, not even in the same room. The purpose was to keep the man’s focus and attention as sharp as possible, and to guarantee a solid night’s rest. Losing focus made you careless in the forest, and worst of all, left you open to bewitching. That night, sleeping alone at a neighbor’s house, or in a separate hut with his sons, the leader would boil a pot of red maize mixed with certain roots and medicines, which he’d distribute the following morning to each hunter in the party. This was part of the magic, because everyone believed this protected them from danger.
Before setting out, the hunters also instructed their wives to stay indoors until the hunt was over, preferably lying in bed and sleeping. They thought this would cause the animals to sleep as well, allowing the hunters to sneak up on them with ease.
WALKING THROUGH THE FOREST as a boy, I didn’t worry so much about cobras or lions, since most of them had vanished. But other dangers were waiting in the forests that remained, and along the quiet, empty fields where the ghosts of trees seemed to whisper their sadness. Walking there alone, one of my greatest fears was the Gule Wamkulu.
The Gule Wamkulu were a secret gang of dancers. They performed at the chief’s request at funerals and initiation ceremonies, when many Chewa boys become men. The Gule Wamkulu were said to be the spirits of our dead ancestors, resurrected from the afterworld and sent to roam the earth. No longer human, they shared the skin of animals, and their faces resembled the beasts of hell—twisted devil birds and demons howling in fright.
When the Gule Wamkulu performed, you dared to watch only from a distance. Often they appeared from the bush walking on stilts, towering above the crowd and screaming in different tongues. Once, I even saw one of them climb a blue gum pole while upside down, like a spider. And when they danced, one thousand men seemed to inhabit their bodies, each moving in the opposite direction.
When the Gule Wamkulu weren’t performing, they traveled the forests and marshes looking for young boys to take back to the graveyards. What happened to you there, I never wanted to know. It was bad luck to even speak about the Gule Wamkulu. And God help you if you were ever caught doubting them, saying, “Look at their hands, they have five fingers like me. These guys are not real.” Doing this would surely get you bewitched, and since the Gule Wamkulu answered only to the chief, there’d be no one to defend you. When they appeared in the village, every woman and child dropped what they were doing and ran.