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LOOKING FOR RAIN GOD
It is lonely at the lands where the people go to plough.
These lands are vast clearings in the bush, and the wild
bush is lonely too. Nearly all the lands are within walking
distance from the village. In some parts of the bush where the
underground water is very near the surface, people made little
rest camps for themselves and dug shallow wells to quench
their thirst while on their journey to their own lands. They
experienced all kinds of things once they left the village. They
could rest at shady watering places full of lush tangled trees
with delicate pale-gold and purple wild flowers springing up
between soft green moss and the children could hunt around
for wild figs and any berries that might be in season. But from
1958, a seven-year drought fell upon the land and even the
watering places began to look as dismal as the dry open
thorn-bush country; the leaves of the trees curled up and
withered; the moss became dry and hard and, under the shade
of the tangled trees, the ground turned a powdery black and
white, because there was no rain. People said rather
humorously that if you tried to catch the rain in a cup it would
only fill a teaspoon. Towards the beginning of the seventh
year of drought, the summer had become an anguish to live
through. The air was so dry and moisture-free that it burned
the skin. No one knew what to do to escape the heat and
tragedy was in the air. At the beginning of that summer, a
number of men just went out of their homes and hung
themselves to death from trees. The majority of the people had lived off crops, but for two years past they had all returned
from the lands with only their rolled-up skin blankets and
cooking utensils. Only the charlatans, incanters, and
witch-doctors made a pile of money during this time because
people were always turning to them in desperation for little
talismans and herbs to rub on the plough for the crops to
grow and the rain to fall.
The rains were late that year. They came in early
November, with a promise of good rain. It wasn't the full,
steady downpour of the years of good rain, but thin, scanty,
misty rain. It softened the earth and a rich growth of green
things sprang up everywhere for the animals to eat. People
were called to the village kgotla to hear the proclamation of
the beginning of the ploughing season; they stirred themselves
and whole families began to move off to the lands to plough.
The family of the old man, Mokgobja, were among those
who left early for the lands. They had a donkey cart and piled
everything onto it, Mokgobja - who was over seventy years
old; two little girls, Neo and Boseyong; their mother Tiro and
an unmarried sister, Nesta; and the father and supporter of
the family, Ramadi, who drove the donkey cart. In the rush of
the first hope of rain, the man, Ramadi, and the two women
cleared the land of thorn-bush and then hedged their vast
ploughing area with this same thorn-bush to protect the future
crop from the goats they had brought along for milk. They
cleared out and deepened the old well with its pool of muddy
water and still in this light, misty rain, Ramadi inspanned two
oxen and turned the earth over with a hand plough.
The land was ready and ploughed, waiting for the crops.
At night, the earth was alive with insects singing and rustling
about in search of food. But suddenly, by mid-November, the
rain fled away; the rain-clouds fled away and left the sky bare.
The sun danced dizzily in the sky, with a strange cruelty. Each
day the land was covered in a haze of mist as the sun sucked
up the last drop of moisture out of the earth. The family sat
down in despair, waiting and waiting. Their hopes had run so
high; the goats had started producing milk, which they had eagerly poured on their porridge, now they ate plain
porridge with no milk. It was impossible to plant the corn,
maize, pumpkin and water-melon seeds in the dry earth. They
sat the whole day in the shadow of the huts and even stopped
thinking, for the rain had fled away. Only the children, Neo
and Boseyong, were quite happy in their little girl world.
They carried on with their game of making house like their
mother and chattered to each other in light, soft tones.
They made children from sticks around which they tied rags
and scolded them severely in an exact imitation of their own
mother. Their voice could he heard scolding the day long:
"You stupid thing, when I send you to draw water, why do you
spill half of it out of the bucket!" "You stupid thing!
Can't you mind the porridge-pot without letting the porridge
burn!" And then they would beat the rag-dolls on their
bottoms with severe expressions.
The adults paid no attention to this; they did not even
hear the funny chatter; they sat waiting for rain; their nerves
were stretched to breaking-point willing the rain to fall out of
the sky. Nothing was important, beyond that. All their animals
had been sold during the bad years to purchase food, and of
all their herd only two goats were left. It was the women of
the family who finally broke down under the strain of waiting
for rain. It was really the two women who caused the death of
the little girls. Each night they started a weird, high-pitched
wailing that began on a low, mournful note and whipped up
to a frenzy. Then they would stamp their feet and shout as
though they had lost their heads. The men sat quiet and
self-controlled; it was important for men to maintain their
self-control at all times but their nerve was breaking too. They
knew the women were haunted by the starvation of the
coming year.
Finally, an ancient memory stirred in the old man,
Mokgobja. When he was very young and the customs of the
ancestors still ruled the land, he had been witness to a
rain-making ceremony. And he came alive a little struggling to
recall the details which had been buried by years and years of
prayer in a Christian church. As soon as the mists cleared a
little, he began consulting in whispers with his youngest son,
Ramadi. There was, he said, a certain rain god who accepted
only the sacrifice of the bodies of children. Then the rain would
fall, then the crops would grow, he said. He explained the
ritual and as lie talked, his memory became a conviction and
he began to talk with unshakeable authority. Ramadi's nerves
were smashed by the wailing of the women and soon the two
men began whispering with the two women. The children
continued their game: "You stupid thing! How could you have
lost the money on the way to the shop! You must have keen
playing again!"
After it was all over and the bodies of the two little girls
had been spread across the land, the rain did not fall. Instead,
there was a deathly silence at night and the devouring heat of
the sun by day. A terror, extreme and deep, overwhelmed the whole family. They
packed, rolling up their skin blankets and pots, and fled
back to the village.
People in the village soon noted the absence of the two
little girls. They had died at the lands and were buried
there, the family said. But people noted their ashen,
terror- stricken faces and a murmur arose. What had killed
the children, they wanted to know? And the family replied
that they had just died. And people said amongst themselves
that it was strange that the two deaths had occurred at the
same time. And there was a feeling of great unease at the
unnatural looks of the family. Soon the police came around.
The family told them the same story of death and burial at
the lands. They did not know what the children had died of.
So the police asked to see the graves. At this, the mother
of the children broke down and told everything.
Throughout that terrible summer, the story of the
children hung like a dark cloud of sorrow over the village
and the sorrow was not assuaged when the old man and Ramadi
were sentenced to death for ritual murder. All they had on
the statute books was that tribal murder was against the law
and must be stamped out with the death penalty. The subtle
story of strain and starvation and breakdown was
inadmissible evidence at court; but all the people who lived
off crops knew in their hearts that only a hair's breadth
had saved them from sharing a fate similar to that of the
Mokgobja family. They could have killed something to make
the rain fall.
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