Alex Haley - Roots - The Saga of an American Family

A long moment passed, and then Omoro spoke again. “I think I’ll go by your mother’s house.” Kunta’s heart leaped. He knew it was his father’s way of saying that his permission was given, and he felt it best that he personally make his decision known to Binta.

Omoro wasn’t long in Binta’s hut. He had hardly left to return to his own when she burst out her door, hands pressed tightly to her shaking head. “Madi! Suwadu!” she shrieked, and they came rushing to her from among the other children.

Now other mothers came from their huts, and unmarried girls, all rushing behind Binta as she began hollering and pulling the two boys alongside her toward the well. Once there, all of the women crowded about her as she wept and moaned that now she had only two children left, that her others certainly would soon be lost to toubob.

A second-kafo girl, unable to contain the news of Kunta’s trip with Lamin, raced all the way out to where the boys of her kafo were grazing the goats. A short time later, back in the village, heads jerked around with smiles on their faces as a deliriously joyful boy came whooping into the village in a manner fit to wake the ancestors. Catching up with his mother just outside her hut, Lamin—though still a hand’s span shorter than her—bearhugged Binta, planted big kisses on her forehead and swept her whirling up off her feet as she shouted to be put down. Once back on the ground, she ran to pick up a nearby piece of wood and struck Lamin with it. She would have done it again, but he dashed away—feeling no pain—toward Kunta’s hut. He didn’t even knock as he burst inside. It was an unthinkable intrusion into a man’s house—but after a glimpse at his brother’s face, Kunta had to overlook it. Lamin just stood there, looking up into the face of his big brother. The boy’s mouth was trying to say something; indeed, his whole body was trembling, and Kunta had to catch himself to keep from grabbing and hugging Lamin in the rush of love he felt passing between them in that moment.

Kunta heard himself speaking, his tone almost gruff. “I see you’ve already heard. We’ll leave tomorrow after first prayer.”

Man or not, Kunta took care to walk nowhere near Binta as he made several quick calls to see friends about caring for his farm and filling in for him on sentry duty. Kunta could tell where Binta was from the sound of her wailing as she marched around the village holding Madi and Suwadu by the hand. “These two only I have left!” she cried, as loudly as she could. But like everyone else in Juffure, she knew that no matter what she felt or said or did, Omoro had spoken.

At the travelers’ tree, Kunta prayed for their journey to be a safe one. So that it would be a prosperous one as well, he tied the chicken he had brought along to a lower branch by one of its legs, leaving it flapping and squawking there as he and Lamin set forth on the trail. Though he didn’t turn back to look, Kunta knew Lamin was trying very hard to keep pace with him, and to keep his headload balanced—and to keep Kunta from noticing either.

After an hour, the trail took them by a low, spreading tree strung thickly with beads. Kunta wanted to explain to Lamin how such a tree meant that living nearby were some of the few Mandinkas who were kafirs, pagan unbelievers who used snuff and smoked tobacco in pipes made of wood with earthen bowls, and also drank a beer they made of mead. But more important than that knowledge was for Lamin to learn the discipline of silent marching. By noontime, Kunta knew that Lamin’s feet and legs would be hurting him badly, and also his neck under the heavy headload. But it was only by keeping on despite pain that a boy could toughen his body and his spirit. At the same time, Kunta knew that Lamin must stop for rest before he collapsed, which would hurt his pride.

Taking the bypass trail to miss the first village they passed, they soon shook off the naked little first-kafo children who raced out to inspect them. Kunta still didn’t look back, but he knew that Lamin would have quickened his pace and straightened his back for the children’s benefit. But as they left the children and the village behind, Kunta’s mind drifted off Lamin to other things. He thought again of the drum he was going to make for himself—making it first in his mind, as the men did who carved out masks and figures. For the drum’s head, he had a young goat’s skin already scraped and curing in his hut, and he knew just the place—only a short trot beyond the women’s rice fields—where he could find the tough wood he needed for a strong drumframe. Kunta could almost hear how his drum was going to sound.

As the trail took them into a grove of trees close by the path, Kunta tightened his grip on the spear he carried, as he had been taught to do. Cautiously, he continued walking—then stopped and listened very quietly. Lamin stood wide-eyed behind him, afraid to breathe. A moment later, however, his big brother relaxed and began walking again, toward what Kunta recognized—with relief—as the sound of several men singing a working song. Soon he and Lamin came into a clearing and saw twelve men dragging a dugout canoe with ropes. They had felled a tree and burned and chopped it out, and now they were starting to move it the long way to the river. After each haul on the ropes, they sang the next line of the song, each one ending “All together!,” then again, straining hard, as they moved the dugout about another arm’s length. Waving to the men, who waved back, Kunta passed them and made a mental note to tell Lamin later who these men were and why they had made the canoe from a tree that grew here in the forest rather than near the riverbank: They were from the village of Kerewan, where they made the best Mandinka dugouts; and they knew that only forest trees would float.

Kunta thought with a rush of warmth about the three young men from Barra whom they were traveling to meet. It was strange that though they never had seen each other before, they seemed as brothers. Perhaps it was because they too were Mandinkas. They said things differently than he did, but they weren’t different inside. Like them, he had decided to leave his village to seek his fortune—and a little excitement—before returning to their homes ahead of the next big rains.

When the time neared for the alansaro prayer in midafternoon, Kunta stepped off the trail where a small stream ran among trees. Not looking at Lamin, he slipped off his headload, flexed himself, and bent to scoop up handfuls of water in order to splash his face. He drank sparingly, then, in the midst of his prayer, he heard Lamin’s headload thud to the earth. Springing up at the end of the prayer intending to rebuke him, he saw how painfully his brother was crawling toward the water. But Kunta still made his voice hard: “Sip a little at a time!” As Lamin drank, Kunta decided that an hour’s resting here would be long enough. After eating a few bites of food, he thought, Lamin should be able to keep walking until time for the fitiro prayer, at about dusk, when a fuller meal and a night’s rest would be welcomed by them both.

But Lamin was too tired even to eat. He lay where he had drunk from the stream, face down with his arms flung out, palms up. Kunta stepped over quietly to look at the soles of his feet; they weren’t bleeding yet. Then Kunta himself catnapped, and when he got up he took from his headload enough dried meat for two. Shaking Lamin awake, he gave him his meat and ate his own. Soon they were back on the trail, which made all the turns and passed all the landmarks the young men from Barra had drawn for Kunta. Near one village, they saw two old grandmothers and two young girls with some first-kafo children busily catching crabs, darting their hands into a little stream and snatching out their prey.