One Cowrie Shell: A Novel

By Reuben Sparks

Fifteen-year-old Jaiye is an African tribesman who has grown up amid constant warring between his tribe, the Yoruba, and their neighbors. As he curiously watches Yoruba prisoners of war paraded to a slave ship, Jaiye contemplates their future and anxiously awaits his foray into manhood when he will fight in the same battles and marry the woman the village elders have chosen for him. Unfortunately, she is not the same woman Jaiye has chosen for himself.

Infatuated with a Yoruba girl named Kembi, Jaiye petitions his high priest father to help him change the elders plans. When his father rejects his offer, Jaiye hatches his own plan to defy his cultures traditions and pursue his fate. When his strategy goes awry, Jaiye is led on a journey across three continents to claim his bride. But when he finally finds her, Kembi gives him unsettling news that sends him on a new path where he witnesses the shocking effects of slavery. When he finally returns home, Jaiye relays an important message to his fellow villagers that proves the difference one child can make on the world.

One Cowrie Shell shares the compelling tale of a young Yoruba tribesmans journey during the 1800s to find his one true love and ultimately his purpose.

This book intertwines and pushes forth the crucial importance of defiance with tact
Ebony Davis, editor

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491780275

Reuben Sparks

Reuben Sparks is a retired United States Air Force Intelligence Officer. He is married and the father of two adult daughters and lives in Panama City, Florida, where he enjoys traveling, bicycling, photography, and playing the piano. One Cowrie Shell is his first novel.

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Copyright © 2015 Reuben Sparks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-8028-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8027-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918629

iUniverse rev. date: 11/20/2015

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

T he battle between the Yoruba and Dahomey ended today as it had ended every time before. For the Yoruba, their wars with the Dahomey over the decades had taken their toll of death and agony on the tribe. But the war that day took a tribal elder and valuable land the tribe had painstakingly cleared for planting crops. Five Yoruba tribesmen were killed in the battle, and another seven were taken as prisoners of war. The seven would undoubtedly be given to the slave traders in exchange for lead tools and cowrie shells to increase the wealth of the Dahomey, which would only make the battles with the Yoruba that much fiercer, as the extra cowrie shells would purchase additional weapons to kill and capture more Yoruba.

The wars went on for what seemed liked decades and centuries with no end in sight. There were no winners in these wars, only losers, and the constant battling wore down both of the tribes. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all was that no one knew why or when the wars first began. The reasons for each war were the results of the previous war.

Jaiye, a young Yoruba tribesman, peeked through a break in the trees to watch the line of the seven Yoruba prisoners being taken to the slave trader’s ship. The seven Yoruba tribesmen were tied together with ropes and walking in a line; five Dahomey warriors with spears guided them through the valley away from the scene of the battle. Jaiye recognized three of the adult men in the line from his village. The slave traders were happy to add to their bounty of slaves bound for the new world with these new additions.

Jaiye’s father said in a quiet voice to avoid notice, Get back from there, Jaiye! This is no place for you.

At fifteen years old, Jaiye, though young, was approaching the age of manhood among the Yoruba and learning the ways of his father and the tribe. He maintained the typical look of the young Yoruba male. He kept his black hair shaven close to his head and wore a long white blouse that reached below his knees and had wide stripes that ran the length of his garment. His skin was a deep brown, and his brown eyes seemed to twinkle with wonder as he strove toward reaching Yoruba manhood.

Get away from there, Jaiye’s father said again as he caught Jaiye watching the Yoruba prisoners of war paraded through the brush. His father’s tone got tenser with each word, but Jaiye tried to steal a last glimpse of the warriors as they traveled through the valleys among the trees and out of sight. He knew it was time to obey his father and get away from the sight of the procession to the slave ship. The Yoruba young were taught to respect their elders, and there was no need to make his father angrier.

He’d wandered away from the field where he was cultivating yams when he heard the screams of war. He was anxious because it wouldn’t be long until it was his turn to join the war. But first, Jaiye’s father wanted him to learn other ways of the Yoruba, such as how to build a hut for the wife the elders have chosen for him.

Jaiye’s father was a leader among the Yoruba in the Shango cult, a Yoruba religious sect. Practitioners of the cult worshiped Shango, the god of thunder. The Yoruba believed that Shango lived in the sky and hurled thunderstones at those who offended him. At the young age of forty-two, Jaiye’s father was already the highest priest of the Shango cult in the village. He had also become an expert craftsman and wood-carver. A few Yoruba men carved wood, although Jaiye’s father had the reputation of being the expert and most masterful wood-carver in the village. He carved sacred ornaments used in worship, as well as wooden utensils for cooking and serving food. Because of their beauty, his carvings for worship were well known and admired throughout the village for bringing pleasure to the gods. Jaiye’s father accumulated many cowrie shells—which the Yoruba used to barter for their everyday goods—for his work.

About 250 people lived in Jaiye’s village. His father’s clan contained about 75 people. Their compound consisted of his own hut plus the huts of his father’s four brothers and their families. Two other groups of brothers also lived in the area of his clan.

Most villagers were farmers whose main crop was yams. A few villagers kept small herds of goats. For the Yoruba, meat was rare at dinner except for special occasions.

Yorubans spent a significant part of each day searching for food, all of which was gathered from the nearby area. The women also tended yam gardens.

The women carved and decorated calabashes and other gourds. The meat of the calabash was sometimes eaten, but the Yoruba planted and harvested calabash crops mainly to use the gourds’ hard shell as containers to carry, store, and serve liquids and food. Jaiye’s mother had gained the reputation of an expert and beautiful decorator of calabashes. Jaiye’s parents had both acquired a proficient talent for their own endeavors, and both had accumulated some moderate wealth in cowrie shells by bartering their wares.

The cowries used for barter in the village were small, curved, white seashells. A small sack could carry about a dozen cowries for trading. Jaiye admired his father’s cowrie shells as the two walked to their garden plot. His father carried a few cowries with him each day in a sack for purchases he would need to make for the family. Each day as Jaiye got older, he occasionally got the courage to ask his father if he could hold and inspect the sack of cowrie shells.

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Side by side, Jaiye and his father performed their daily duties in the field. Why was there a battle today? Jaiye asked his father suddenly, answering his own question before his father could say anything. No one knows anymore.

His father paused from working in the garden and gave his son a grave stare. We have to make sure the Dahomey do not take our land. If they do take our land, we will have less land on which to grow our crops and worship our gods. The Dahomey are seeking to change our way of life, and we cannot let that happen.

What will happen to the Yoruba soldiers who were captured?

The slave traders will take them from the Dahomey to a faraway land. The slave traders give the Dahomey tools and cowrie shells for the prisoners. They do the same for the Yoruba when we have Dahomey prisoners to exchange.

Jaiye’s suspicion grew as he thought about what his father had said. Where will they take them? he pressed. What will become of them? When will they come back to the Yoruba? Will they be eaten over there? Will they be put to work?

You have too many questions for a young man of your age, Jaiye’s father exclaimed. Did you tend your yams today?

I did, Jaiye replied. It was then that he noticed a bruise and, alongside it, a cut that looked fresh and was still bleeding. His father had been in today’s fight with the Dahomey but had escaped with minor injuries. Father, you are bleeding, Jaiye said.

Oh. The war was so brutal I did not feel it. I thought a spear had grazed me, but I did not see that it cut me. That was very close, his father said as he touched the wound on his shoulder with a leaf to stop the small flow of blood.

Jaiye said, I will be ready to fight with you in the next battle.

Your time will come, but you must keep tending your yams and carving your wood for now, Jaiye’s father said, gesturing around the garden. His eyes seemed to stare into a distant past Jaiye could not see. Being a man is more than fighting in a war. If you can only fight, how can you take care of your wives and many children? Where will your family live, and what will they eat if you do not build a hut and have food for them from your garden?

Kembi will be my wife, Jaiye said promptly, and I will build a great kingdom with many cowrie shells.

Kembi is not the one for you, his father told him. The tribe has selected you a wife. The village elders have told you to forget about Kembi. Your time will come, and you will have many wives and many children. But Kembi will not be your wife. Akinya, the wife named for you, will be your wife. Now come. Tonight I will teach you to make wood carvings that honor Shango. You will learn to carve wood so you can grow in priesthood with a great devotion to Shango.

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Jaiye’s mother was thirty-three years old. She was his father’s first wife and had been the senior wife in their family for twelve years. She had a great collection of calabashes that were used to store and serve food. Her calabashes were a favorite among the village. Many Yoruba purchased them, particularly the calabashes she stained with red dye. Her favorite color was red, and she used it often to color her calabashes. She uses the color red unabashedly on every calabash, painting bright designs on each.

Jaiye’s mother’s skin was smooth and a beautiful dark brown. The mark of their clan was a scar below the right eye in the form of a teardrop. The teardrop scar was made on each Yoruba child when they reached the age of 10. The scar was made from a heated instrument. Jaiye’s mother’s teardrop added to her beauty.

Jaiye was the oldest son. As he and his father returned from working that day, his mother asked him, Jaiye, have you been tending your yams?

No. He wandered off from the garden today and went through the valley and watched the battle, Jaiye’s father inserted. He needs to tend to his yams, and he will also begin his lessons tonight to learn to make wooden statues to honor Shango. I hope wood carving will get his mind off battle. His days in the battle with the Dahomey will come later.

Jaiye’s mother brought in a calabash filled with palm oil so she could start cooking. She brought in the cleaned yams and then stirred and added spices to them in a calabash. She cooked them over a small fire outside the hut. After adding some more spices to them after cooking, she then served the batch of yams to the family dinner.

Jaiye’s mother collected many cowrie shells by trading her ornately carved and decorated calabashes throughout the Yoruba village. Her cowrie shells were placed in small pouches in her corner of the hut.

After they finished eating, Jaiye went to the forest for a wood-carving lesson with his father.

First I will teach you how to find the best trees for carving, Jaiye’s father said. His father caressed the trunks and limbs of several trees in the forest. He walked around and searched several areas in the forest. He carefully observed many trees. This is the best one here, he finally said standing next to a tree about 20 feet tall. This tree has reached a good size and will have good wood to make many carvings. We will cut as few trees as possible because it takes a lot of work to get one tree down. When we are ready, we will cut this tree later and begin our carving lesson. I already have wood in the village. We can start our first lesson on the carving process using those pieces. I will show you many more times how to pick the best trees for your carving, and we will cut one down later.

I want to be as great a carver as you are, Father, Jaiye said as they hunted for wood.

His father smiled. That will take time. Tending yams is hard to do, but to be a wood-carver you must really take your time. You are old enough now to have the time to learn the ways of the wood-carver. First, I will show you how to get the best wood to make the best statue. Shango, god of thunder, only gets the best from his people.

Why do we not cut this tree now and carve with this one? Jaiye asked.

Jaiye’s father thought Jaiye had spent too much time thinking about the Yoruba and Dahomey wars already. He worried that cutting a tree now would only let Jaiye’s mind wander, and he would think about the wars again. Jaiye’s father believed that, instead of cutting new wood, working toward a nearly finished product would keep his son’s mind occupied. Because you are a young man and ready to start, he told Jaiye. If we begin with carving wood to cutting down a tree, you will listen better. When you are young, you are anxious to go. If we spend too much time cutting this tree and getting it back to the village, your mind will wander. If you start carving tonight, you will think about your finished product, and it will keep you focused. This is how my father taught me and how his father taught him.

The structure of his father’s plan fell apart because Jaiye’s mind was undoubtedly still on the war. He asked, Father, were there wars when you were young?

Yes, there has always been war.

What were they fighting for then?

It is always the same. One wants to make sure the other does not take the other’s land. One believes the other is trying to change its ways. No one wants to be the one to put an end to the fighting, because his people will believe he is a coward and that the other has taken advantage of him.

It sounds like you are tired of it, Father.

"I am tired of it. But the wars have become a way of life.

Reviews for One Cowrie Shell

[pardamustang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

***This book was reviewed for the San Francisco Book Review***Sparks’ One Cowrie Shell is a tragic coming of age story set amidst the backdrop of a terrible period in humanity’s near history. Jaiye is a member of the Yoruba tribe. He is on the cusp of manhood, tending his yam field, and dreaming of the woman he wants as his wife.Unfortunately for Jaiye, Kembi is already promised to another. It is the custom of the Yoruba that village elders arrange marriages. Kembi is promised to Ekun, and Akinya to Jaiye. Our young protagonist is very inquisitive, and very stubborn. He is ready to go fight the neighbouring Dahomey, as his people have done for as long as any remember. He wants to turn prisoners over to the slave traders and earn cowrie shells. While merely pretty shells to the Europeans and Americans, cowrie shells serve a monetary value to the Yoruba and Dahomey.Jaiye repeatedly insists, with the stubbornness teens anywhere can muster, that he will have Kembi for his wife. Despite the counsel and contrivances of his father, Jaiye will not let go of the foolish idea. He commits a terrible crime, earning him thirty cowries in blood money, and his actions lead to three villagers being taken away by slavers- Ekun, Kembi, and Jaiye’s little brother, Lekan.Jaiye embarks on a perilous journey to find them, crossing the ocean, and stalking plantations like a panther in the dark, careful to stay out of sight. His journey takes him up and down the US coast, across the sea to England, and back home to the Yoruba. Though Jaiye learns of all three who were taken, not one of them makes the journey back home with him. Jaiye returns with a wealth of knowledge, though. He is the first to travel to ’the other world’, and returned to tell of it. He has seen the atrocities inflicted on the slaves- the beatings, the rapes, the senseless killings. Jaiye has a new mission in life, albeit, perhaps a somewhat futile one. He wants to stop the fighting between Yoruba, and Dahomey for goid, something easier said than done. Jaiye goes from being a self-absorbed child, for the most part, to a somewhat respectable man.Fun stuff: I am an anthropologist by schooling, if not active practise, and I loved the glimpses of Yoruba culture and history. These details seem accurate so far as my knowledge goes. This region/cultural milieu isn't my forte, but now I am interested to learn more. The details of slave trading, and this era of slavery, were an accurate reminder of a harsh and senselessly heartbreaking period. One particular point of interest for me were the funerary customs of the Yoruba, and the superstitions regarding daytime burials, such as that the spirit might see their shadow and retaliate against the living.Jaiye slowly learned valuable lessons, such as that the Yoruba and Dahomey should stop fighting and sending people to the slavers, and that the loss of dignity suffered by captives of either side has no monetary value. I was particularly touched when Jaiye found Ekun, and came to the realisation that Ekun had seen him as a friend, not a competitor. Jaiye began to realise the harsh consequences of his actions in relation to what happened to Lekan, Kembi, and Ekun, which were horrific events even hearing about them ‘second-hand’Not so fun stuff: the writing seemed very simplistic at times. There was a good deal of telling, when showing would have been more engaging. Some of the dialogue, and other phrasing, seems stilted. It comes across as forced and unrealistic. There were also descriptions of daily activity that is random and, while interesting, not relevant to the story.I would strongly recommend a professional editing round to help strengthen and tighten the writing. There is a good deal of unnecessary repetition that could be phrased differently, implied in different ways, or eliminated altogether. Point- Jaiye’s father reiterating numerous times that Akinya will be his wife, she is the one chosen for him and it cannot be changed. Jaiye needs a smart Gibbs smack to the back of the head. His poor da has patience to put a saint to shame.Another issue that cropped up often are places where quote marks are missing and should be, or where they are present and should not be. Tense bounced back and forth from present to past in same paragraph, and sometimes even same sentence. Occasionally, things switched to italics for no apparent reason, which jarred me from the story as I attempted to suss out why the change had been made.This story has a lot of potential, and Sparks could take it so much further. There’s certainly room for Sparks to bloom as an author. I hope to see an edited, cleaned up second edition of One Cowrie Shell in the future! I will happily adjust my rating accordingly, and I do intend to keep a weather eye out for new works by the author.