Ishmael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo

Set couldn’t stand it. He would stand off to the side mad, balling his fists and spouting invective. He considered the music “loud” and “boisterous.” Sometimes the dances were performed by pigmies Osiris imported from the South because they were able to execute the “dance of the Gods.” 1 night Set went downstairs and told everybody to “cut out that racket.” He was greeted only by catcalls and boos and when a young woman tried to persuade him to dance with her he hurried from the room to the general amusement of the court. And when later a guard came upon him trying out these dances himself in secret, the gossip leaked all over Egypt and he became the laughing stock of the country. Set can’t dance became the cry. Even Hully Gullying children on the street would point out Set as the man who can’t shake it ’til he breaks it. The freak from Matovani. That did it. Set would show them. Happy all the time. Enjoying themselves when there was hard work to be done, countries to invade, populations to subjugate. Egypt was prospering under Osiris and there was peace.

People were eating good, the crops were abundant, things were going smoothly and Osiris and Isis were happily married. Their sister Nephthys and her husband, their brother Set, didn’t make out so well. He spent most of his time “out with the boys”; legislators, an unpopular group of poets who went about Egypt telling Egyptians that they could do better that they weren’t ready and that they ought to try to make something out of themselves. Make ready for what? 1 man asked at one of their whistle stops. Ready for progress? Invading foreign countries and killing? The people didn’t go for it and sarcastically called them The First Poets because in Egypt at the time of Osiris every man was an artist and every artist a priest; it wasn’t until later that Art became attached to the State to do with it what it pleased.

Then something strange happened. People began to do the dance of Osiris and it would interrupt their tilling of the soil. It would hit them at all times of the day and some of them would wander through the streets talking out of their heads and making strange signs. Set circulated a rumor that this was because Osiris didn’t really know the alchemical arts and had brought a curse upon Egypt. Osiris was worried and the people were grumbling. Well, there was a certain artist down near the harbor who painted arks. He was a man who had once made-out with Osiris’ mother and had a big reputation for his decorative work. He called on Osiris 1 day and argued his theory that the outbreaks occurred because the mysteries had no text to turn to. No litany to feed the spirits that were seizing the people, and that if Osiris would execute these dance steps for Thoth he would illustrate them and then Osirian priests could determine what god or spirit possessed them as well as learn how to make these gods and spirits depart.

And so possessed, Osiris did his basic dances for many days until Thoth had them all down. A Book of Litanies to which people in places like Abydos in Upper Egypt could add their own variations.

Guides were initiated into the Book of Thoth, the 1st anthology written by the 1st choreographer.

Soon after, peace once again restored, Osiris became bored. Sailors had come to him with tales of much suffering and cannibalism in many parts of the world. Osiris announced that he was going to leave his wife Isis in charge of the affairs of Egypt which was a little thing because at that time as 1 historian wrote “The Egyptians had little difficulty in being good.” Set saw this as his chance. He yearned for the old days when he went out to tell the people to “Move that chariot to the side of the road, O.K. where’s your license,” you know, stuff like that. On the day Osiris left there was a big celebration down at the port with guides from all over Egypt doing the dances of the gods. With tons and tons of cereal, Osiris Thoth and a crew and a fleet of 34 papyri boats set sail. It was midsummer, the 10th day of July, that he left.

Osiris toured the world with his International Nile Root Orchestra, dancing agronomy and going from country to country with his band; and a choir directed by a young comer named Dionysus whom you don’t hear very much about in his Egyptian setting because the Egyptian writing is “royalty centered.” With Thoth he taught people to permit nature to speak and dance through them, for so many 1000s of eyes looked through Osiris that he became known as “the many-eyed.”

Just as fast as Osiris would teach these dances the people would mimic him and add their variations to fit their country and their clime. People began to welcome Osiris the Bull, the Seedman, and he became a familiar sight walking down the ramp or rather trucking down the ramp, his pet eagle “Jackie” perched on his shoulder, his faithful Birdman Thoth at his side, taking it all down. And people of all the many ports of the world where he traveled would say “Hey Seedman, what’s going down?”

It was on his 2nd trip to South America that the rumors reached him. Because Osiris was teaching people how to make wine and if they didn’t grow grapes, beer, Set was going about Egypt telling everybody that Osiris was a fraud and that he was traveling the world “drunk” and “fornicating,” disgracing the name of the Fatherland. Set issued a challenge which travelers brought to Osiris. He was saying that if Osiris was so smart and a Human Seed and all, a Germ, would he perform the feat of the Germ. Could he be planted in the Nile and then spring from the waters. Surely if he had learned the arts of the sagacious bearded Black men in Arabia Felix at the University of Nysa he could perform this act. He said if he would do this that he, Set, would go somewhere and sit down and never complain again if people danced and sang. He didn’t want to go down in history as a “party pooper.” The devil was even hitting on Isis because he had eyes for her but she would just look upon her brother with disgust, this man who was going around putting the bad breath on Osiris. Osiris at this time was in Teotihuacán in South America where people of all races and from all over the world had arrived to watch the space ships their astronomers predicted would land. They landed after Osiris made a side trip to Olmeca where he remained long enough to pose for a portrait which was done in terracotta. He attended a 2-week festival as guest of an Inca king. It was here that he practiced Set’s challenge for days at a time. It was easy. Osiris had developed such a fondness and attachment for Nature that people couldn’t tell them apart.

He had never performed this trick but he knew that Nature wouldn’t let him down for long. When Osiris and his band returned to Egypt the people turned out to greet him, dancing and being possessed as the guides led them through. They laughed as Isis blushed because they knew that that night he would give her his “rod of authority.”

Set and his followers watched from the windows. That isn’t a bad piece of tail, Set said commenting upon the attributes of his sister in the presence of Nephthys whom he treated like a dog, and called her a bitch a tomato a heifer a cow and all other words related to the farming he hated so.

That night Osiris and Isis made love and the result of this Union was the child Horus.

The next day was the day of the test. The people gathered at the mouth of the Nile as the legislators placed Osiris in the coffer and drove nails through it. Molten lead was used to keep it airtight. Osiris winked at the people before the lid was closed. The coffer was sunk into the water on October 24th.