Ishmael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo

Duty. Where dippermouthed trumpets

Summon de tides

Root-t-toot! Root-t-toot! Root-t-toot!

And de tom toms play in sea shells

Da-bloom, Da-bloom, Da-bloom-a-loom

II

Yonder. What is dat yonder?

What is dat I see ova dare?

Could dat be some sort of white

Liner invading thy sea O Harlem?

Polluting thy waves, dirtying thy crests

O Harlem?

Let us torpedo de mother, O Harlem

Let us get rid of de bitch! (expressions of shock from the audience)

Befo she collides with us

De steamship of de White whore

Dreadful mistress who has ruined

Many a sea

Chumping some of dem. Streaming

Dem making dem into

Rivulets

O Harlem, let me drag you for

Her drowned victims

Capsizing in thy many streets

A demon-headed marlin Harlem

I is. Yass yass I is. I is

A zoot-suited shark avoiding

De narks, harpoon sharp

I tear into thy whale of a mouth

Like a catfish my whiskers bristle

As I drink from

De dark caves at thy bottom

Your octopi wrap thine

Many tentacles about my heart

O Harlem, and do you know what?

Dere’s more. Plenty more O

Harlem inspiration of my pen

I be a minnow, a

Measly, minnow in

Comparison to thy…

But before he can continue the guests are interrupted by an argument emanating from the vestibule. The Hostess’ countenance smiling through the recital becomes a frown as she rushes out to see her servants arguing with PaPa LaBas, Black Herman, T Malice and 6 tall Python men accompanying them.

Why…why get out of here you men you gate-crashers I don’t want no conjure mens’ detectives in this house you ain’t society you ain’t money you ain’t no artist you don’t have no degree.

Move out of the way lady, Black Herman says.

When some of the male guests come to the Hostess’ assistance PaPa LaBas reveals his pearl-handled.22 and the woman faints dead away. LaBas and Herman walk into the room where the poetry reading is taking place and before the startled guests Black Herman announces:

Hinckle Von Vampton and Hubert “Safecracker” Gould? Come quietly.

Some other people rise from their chairs.

What is the meaning of this intrusion? or something on that order, they ask.

Especially pushy, Hank Rollings the Guianese art critic, an authority on Vermeer, especially resents this embarrassment of Hinckle Von Vampton; why, the man looked as if he had connections and might be able to get him a show; after all, there were so few Blacks who were as ready as he was.

Yes…LaBas, Herman, explain your actions.

This is the meaning, LaBas replies, walking over to Hubert “Safecracker” Gould and grazing a quick finger across his face, leaving a white streak. He then displays the black paint on his finger to the audience.

The people are shocked. The room buzzes.

We have come to arrest this man and his sponsor Hinckle Von Vampton.

Von Vampton begins to ease away from the room but is stopped by Buddy Jackson and some of his men.

That’s not enough of an explanation, says the Guianese art critic whose reviews were phony, completely devoid of feeling; some kind of dry uninteresting geometry, intellectual calisthenics for stale Atonists, his way of convincing them that he was “human too.” We won’t yield these gentlemen until you explain rationally and soberly what they are guilty of. This is no kangaroo courtroom, this is a free country.

Hinckle and Gould nod their heads in agreement. Yes…that’s correct, you will have to explain what charges you have against us before we will go anywhere, Hinckle says, emboldened by the Guianese’s support.

Black Herman looks to PaPa LaBas.

Well if you must know, it all began 1000s of years ago in Egypt, according to a high up member in the Haitian aristocracy.

A CERTAIN YOUNG PRINCE who was allergic to thrones attended a university in Nysa, a town in Arabia Felix (now Yemen). It was a land of dates coffee goats sheep wheat barley corn and livestock. Across the Red Sea were Ethiopia and the Sudan where the young man would commute bringing his knowledge of agriculture and comparing notes with the agriculturalists of these lands. There were agricultural celebrations; dancing and singing, and in Egypt this rhythm was known as the Black Mud Sound. At this time in history those who influenced the growth of crops and coaxed the cocks into procreation were seen as sorcerers. The theater accompanying these rites, these agriculturalists’ rites, was a theater of fecundation generation and proliferation, a theater that Victorian Sir James Frazer of The Golden Bough calls “lewd and profligate.” The processes of blooming were acted out by men and women dancers who imitated the process of fertilization. They would play upon instruments, reeded stringed and percussive, as they acted out the process; open their valves, and allow nature to pour through its libation. Osiris was so adept at the mysteries of agriculture that people began to circulate stories that his mother was the sky Nut and the earth his father Geb.

As Osiris danced he would experiment, but the dances were not esoteric, they in fact were quite basic and they caught-on. In the Sudan and Ethiopia he became known as “the man who did dances that caught-on,” infected other people. Well, Osiris lived many years studying under the elders at Nysa until he returned to Egypt. (Some say he was driven out of Ethiopia, where his dances were banned.) In Egypt a dark cloud lay over the land. Cannibalism was still practiced.

Osiris was regarded by his brother Set as a dilletante, a recipient of a far-out education and one who would not know how to deal firmly with the enemies of the Egyptian people. That was Set, the stick crook and flail man. Dealing firmly with enemies, holding them by the hair and chopping off their heads. Set wanted to use the death of their father as an excuse for invading foreign countries. Set hated agriculture and nature which he saw as soiled dirty grimy etc. He was arrogant jealous egotistical and when Osiris issued a ban on men eating men, introducing the techniques he learned from the long-bearded Black men in the university at Nysa, Set began to plot his brother’s downfall. He was also jealous that Osiris was to marry their sister Isis. Fine as she could be. Firm breasts, eloquence, all of those qualities that are later to show up in her spiritual descendant Erzulie (love of mirrors, plumes, combs, an elaborate toilet) whom we in the United States call the girl with the red dress on. (Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker are 2 aspects of Erzulie.) People hated Set. He went down as the 1st man to shut nature out of himself. He called it discipline. He is also the deity of the modern clerk, always tabulating, and perhaps invented taxes.

The eating of barley wheat and corn spread through Egypt like a prairie fire and the people began to do the Black Mud sound, to do alchemical theater (theater of the “Black country”), and that got Set even more annoyed. The people would plant during the day and at night would celebrate dancing singing shaking sistrums and carrying on so that Set couldn’t get sleep and was tired when he went out on the field and drilled marched and gave commands to others. 1 day Osiris performed a miracle. He danced so well that the vines began to imitate a particular slow sinuous movement and from that day to this we have the creeping vine. Osiris was called the Bull by the Egyptians who loved him and greeted him as he toured Egypt with his musicians and their sets of decoration having to do with procreation.