Alex Haley: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Upon receiving his ordination as a holy man, Kairaba Kunta Kinte had himself wandered for many moons alone, among places in Old Mali such as Keyla, Djeela, Kangaba, and Timbuktu, humbly prostrating himself before very great old holy men and imploring their blessings for his success, which they all freely gave. And Allah then guided the young holy man’s footsteps in a southerly direction, finally to The Gambia, where he stopped first in the village of Pakali N’Ding.

In a short while, the people of this village knew, by the quick results from his prayers, that this young holy man had upon him Allah’s special favor. Talking drums spread the news, and soon other villages tried to lure him away, sending messengers with offers of prime maidens for wives, and slaves and cattle and goats. And before long he did move, this time to the village of Jiffarong, but only because Allah had called him there, for the people of Jiffarong had little to offer him but their gratitude for his prayers. It was here that he heard of the village of Juffure, where people were sick and dying for lack of a big rain. And so at last he came to Juffure, said Grandma Yaisa, where for five days, ceaselessly, he had prayed until Allah sent down the big rain that saved the village.

Learning of Kunta’s grandfather’s great deed, the King of Barra himself, who ruled this part of The Gambia, personally presented a choice virgin for the young holy man’s first wife, and her name was Sireng. By Sireng, Kairaba Kunta Kinte begot two sons—and he named them Janneh and Saloum.

By now, Grandma Yaisa had sat up on her bamboo pallet. “It was then,” she said with shining eyes, “that he saw Yaisa, dancing the seoruba! My age was fifteen rains!” She smiled widely, showing her toothless gums. “He needed no king to choose his next wife!” She looked at Kunta. “It was from my belly that he begot your papa Omoro.”

That night, back in his mother’s hut, Kunta lay awake for a long time, thinking of the things Grandma Yaisa had told him. Many times, Kunta had heard about the grandfather holy man whose prayers had saved the village, and whom later Allah had taken back. But Kunta had never truly understood until now that this man was his father’s father, that Omoro had known him as he knew Omoro, that Grandma Yaisa was Omoro’s mother as Binta was his own. Some day, he too would find a woman such as Binta to bear him a son of his own. And that son, in turn ...

Turning over and closing his eyes, Kunta followed these deep thoughts slowly into sleep.

Just before sundown for the next few days, after returning from the rice field, Binta would send Kunta to the village well for a calabash of fresh water, which she would use to boil a soup from whatever scraps she could find. Then she and Kunta would take some of the soup across the village to Grandma Yaisa. Binta moved more slowly than usual, it seemed to Kunta, and he noticed that her belly was very big and heavy.

While Grandma Yaisa protested weakly that she would soon feel well again, Binta would clean up the hut and arrange things. And they would leave Grandma Yaisa propped up on her bed, eating a bowl of soup along with some of Binta’s hungry-season bread, made from the yellow powder that covered the dry black beans of the wild locust tree.

Then one night, Kunta awakened to find himself being shaken roughly by his father. Binta was making low, moaning sounds on her bed, and also within the hut, moving quickly about, were Nyo Boto and Binta’s friend Jankay Touray. Omoro hurried across the village with Kunta, who, wondering what all of this was about, soon drifted back to sleep on his father’s bed.

In the morning, Omoro again awakened Kunta and said, “You have a new brother.” Scrambling sleepily onto his knees and rubbing his eyes, Kunta thought it must be something very special to so please his usually stern father. In the afternoon, Kunta was with his kafo mates, looking for things to eat, when Nyo Boto called him and took him to see Binta. Looking very tired, she sat on the edge of her bed gently caressing the baby in her lap. Kunta stood a moment studying the little wrinkly black thing, then he looked at the two women smiling at it, and he noticed that the familiar bigness of Binta’s stomach was suddenly gone. Going back outside without a word, Kunta stood for a long moment and then, instead of rejoining his friends, went off to sit by himself behind his father’s hut and think about what he had seen.

Kunta continued sleeping in Omoro’s hut for the next seven nights—not that anyone seemed to notice or care, in their concern for the new baby. He was beginning to think that his mother didn’t want him any more—or his father, either—until, on the evening of the eighth day, Omoro called him before his mother’s hut, along with everyone else in Juffure who was physically able, to hear the new baby given his chosen name, which was Lamin.

That night Kunta slept peacefully and well—back in his own bed beside his mother and his new brother. But within a few days, as soon as her strength had returned, Binta began to take the baby, after cooking and serving something for Omoro’s and Kunta’s breakfast, and spent most of each day in the hut of Grandma Yaisa. From the worried expressions that both Binta and Omoro wore, Kunta knew that Grandma Yaisa was very sick.

Late one afternoon, a few days later, he and his kafo mates were out picking mangoes, which had finally ripened. Bruising the tough, orange-yellow skin against the nearest rock, they would bite open one plump end to squeeze and suck out the soft sweet flesh within. They were collecting basketfuls of monkey apples and wild cashew nuts when Kunta suddenly heard the howling of a familiar voice from the direction of his grandma’s hut. A chill shot through him, for it was the voice of his mother, raised in the death wail that he had heard so often in recent weeks. Other women immediately joined in a keening cry that soon spread all the way across the village. Kunta ran blindly toward his grandmother’s hut.

Amid the milling confusion, Kunta saw an anguished Omoro and a bitterly weeping old Nyo Boto. Within moments, the tobalo drum was being beaten and the jaliba was loudly crying out the good deeds of Grandma Yaisa’s long life in Juffure. Numb with shock, Kunta stood watching blankly as the young unmarried women of the village beat up dust from the ground with wide fans of plaited grass, as was the custom on the occasion of a death. No one seemed to notice Kunta.

As Binta and Nyo Boto and two other shrieking women entered the hut, the crowd outside fell to their knees and bowed their heads. Kunta burst suddenly into tears, as much in fear as in grief. Soon men came with a large, freshly split log and set it down in front of the hut. Kunta watched as the women brought out and laid on the log’s flat surface the body of his grandmother, enclosed from her neck to her feet in a white cotton winding cloth.

Through his tears, Kunta saw the mourners walk seven circles around Yaisa, praying and chanting as the alimamo wailed that she was journeying to spend eternity with Allah and her ancestors. To give her strength for that journey, young unmarried men tenderly placed cattle horns filled with fresh ashes all around her body.

After most of the mourners had filed away, Nyo Boto and other old women took up posts nearby, huddling and weeping and squeezing their heads with their hands. Soon, young women brought the biggest ciboa leaves that could be found, to protect the old women’s heads from rain through their vigil. And as the old women sat, the village drums talked about Grandma Yaisa far into the night.

In the misty morning, according to the custom of the forefathers, only the men of Juffure—those who were able to walk—joined the procession to the burying place, not far past the village, where otherwise none would go, out of the Mandinkas’ fearful respect for the spirits of their ancestors. Behind the men who bore Grandma Yaisa on the log came Omoro, carrying the infant Lamin and holding the hand of little Kunta, who was too frightened to cry. And behind them came the other men of the village. The stiff, white-wrapped body was lowered into the freshly dug hole, and over her went a thick woven cane mat. Next were thorn bushes, to keep out the digging hyenas, and the rest of the hole was packed tight with stones and a mound of fresh earth.