Alex Haley - Roots - The Saga of an American Family

She didn’t say a word about it, of course, but Kunta knew he had made his point. He was no longer a boy, and it was time for her to stop acting like his mother. He felt it was his own responsibility to change her in that regard. It wasn’t something to speak to Omoro about, for Kunta knew he couldn’t put himself into the ridiculous position of asking Omoro’s advice on how to make Binta respect her son the same as she did her husband. Kunta thought about discussing his problem with Nyo Boto, but changed his mind when he recalled how peculiarly she had acted toward him upon his return from manhood training.

So Kunta kept his own counsel, and before long he decided not to go any more into Binta’s hut, where he had lived most of his life. And when Binta brought his meals, he would sit stiffly silent while she set his food on the mat before him and left without speaking or even looking at him. Kunta finally began thinking seriously of seeking out some new eating arrangement. Most of the other new young men still ate from their mothers’ kitchens, but some were cooked for by an older sister or a sister-in-law. If Binta got any worse, Kunta told himself, he was going to find some other woman to cook for him—perhaps the widow who had given him the woven basket. He knew without asking that she would gladly cook for him—and yet Kunta didn’t want to let her know that he was even considering such a thing. In the meantime, he and his mother continued to meet at mealtimes—and to act as if they didn’t even see each other.

Early one morning, returning from a night of sentry duty out in the groundnut fields, Kunta saw hurrying along the trail some distance ahead of him three young men whom he could tell were about his own age, and whom he knew had to be travelers from somewhere else. Shouting until they turned around, he went running to meet and greet them. They told Kunta they were from the village of Barra, a day and a night of walking from Juffure, and they were on their way to hunt for gold. They were of the Feloop tribe, which was a branch of Mandinka, but he had to listen carefully to understand them, as they did to understand him. It made Kunta remember his visit with his father to his uncle’s new village, where he couldn’t understand what some people were saying, although they lived only two or three days away from Juffure.

Kunta was intrigued by the trip the young men were taking. He thought it might also interest some of his friends, so he asked the young men to stop in his village for a day of hospitality before they went on. But they graciously refused the invitation, saying that they had to reach the place where the gold could be panned by the third afternoon of travel. “But why don’t you come along with us?” one of the young men asked Kunta.

Never having dreamed of such a thing, Kunta was so taken aback that he found himself saying no, telling them that as much as he appreciated the offer, he had much work to do on his farm, as well as other duties. And the three young men expressed their regret. “If you should change your mind, please join us,” one said. And they got down on their knees and drew in the dust to show Kunta where the gold-hunting place was located—about two days and nights of travel beyond Juffure. The father of one of the boys, a traveling musician, had told them where it was.

Kunta walked along talking with his newfound friends until they came to where the travelers’ trail forked. After the three men took the fork that led on past Juffure—and turned to wave back at him—Kunta walked slowly home. He was thinking hard as he entered his hut and lay down on his bed, and though he had been awake all night, he still couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Perhaps he might go to hunt gold after all if he could find a friend to tend his farm plot. And he knew that someone of his mates would take over his sentry duties if they were only asked—as he would gladly do if they asked him.

Kunta’s next thought hit him so hard it made him leap right up out of bed: As a man now, he could take Lamin along, as his father had once taken him. For the next hour Kunta paced the dirt floor of his hut, his mind wrestling with the questions raised by this exciting thought. First of all, would Omoro permit such a trip for Lamin, who was yet a boy and thus required his father’s approval? It galled Kunta enough, as a man, to have to ask permission for anything, but suppose Omoro said no? And how would his three new friends feel about it if he showed up with his little brother?

Come to think of it, Kunta wondered why he was pacing the floor, and risking serious embarrassment, just to do a favor for Lamin. After all, ever since he had returned from manhood training, Lamin hadn’t even been that close to him any more. But Kunta knew that this wasn’t something that either of them wanted. They had really enjoyed each other before Kunta went away. But now Lamin’s time was taken up by Suwadu, who was always hanging around his bigger brother in the same way that Lamin used to hang around Kunta, full of pride and admiration. But Kunta felt that Lamin had never quit feeling that way about him. If anything, he felt that Lamin admired his big brother even more than before. It was just that some kind of distance had come between them because of his having become a man. Men simply spent no great deal of time with boys; and even if that wasn’t as he and Lamin wanted it, there just seemed no way for either of them to crack through it—until Kunta thought of taking Lamin along on his gold-hunting trip.

“Lamin is a good boy. He displays his home training well. And he takes good care of my goats,” was Kunta’s opening comment to Omoro, for Kunta knew that men almost never began conversations directly with what they meant to discuss. Omoro, of course, knew this, too. He nodded slowly and replied: “Yes, I would say that is true.” As calmly as he could, Kunta then told his father of meeting his three new friends and of their invitation to join them in hunting for gold. Taking a deep breath, Kunta said finally, “I’ve been thinking that Lamin might enjoy the trip.”

Omoro’s face showed not a flicker of expression. A long moment passed before he spoke. “For a boy to travel is good,” he said—and Kunta knew that his father was at least not going to say no absolutely. In some way, Kunta could feel his father’s trust in him, but also his concern, which he knew Omoro didn’t want to express any more strongly than he had to. “It has been rains since I’ve had any travel in that area. I seem not to remember that trail’s route very well,” said Omoro, as casually as if they were merely discussing the weather. Kunta knew that his father—whom Kunta had never known to forget anything—was trying to find out if he knew the route to the gold-hunting place.

Dropping onto his knees in the dust, Kunta drew the trail with a stick as if he had known it for years. He drew circles to show the villages that were both near the trail and at some distance from it along the way. Omoro got down onto his knees as well, and when Kunta had finished drawing the trail, said, “I would go so as to pass close by the most villages. It will take a little longer, but it will be the safest.”

Kunta nodded, hoping that he appeared more confident than he suddenly felt. The thought hit him that though the three friends he had met, traveling together, could catch each other’s mistakes—if they made any—he, traveling with a younger brother for whom he would be responsible, would have no one to help if something went wrong.

Then Kunta saw Omoro’s finger circling the last third of the trail. “In this area, few speak Mandinka,” Omoro said. Kunta remembered the lessons of his manhood training and looked into his father’s eyes. “The sun and the stars will tell me the way,” he said.