Dusk at Dawn

By Kofi Aidoo

The story unfolds mostly in two imaginary countries in West Africa and North America. Years of military coups and disillusionment after political independence persuade the people of a West African country to take the suggestion of a woman genius, Aberewa Tachiwaa, and go back in their history to retrieve what they have left behind. While the prospects of the new order look promising, the Gyase-hene, Osebo Okoampa plans to subvert them and become the first paramount chief, although he is not of royal lineage. The story shows how the Achem people of the Akan migrated first through Libya and then the Sahel region of the Niger Bend to their current place in the forest region of West Africa. The story also explains how the fabulous kente cloth was created centuries ago and how its name was derived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646286751

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Dusk at Dawn

Kofi Aidoo

Copyright © 2019 Kofi Aidoo

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64628-674-4 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64628-675-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

For my brothers and sisters,

and to the memory of Raymond and Lois McCall.

Prologue

Dzomerku’s narrative, in part, said that in the days of city-states, a luminescent dome always formed above Yendeh at night. A haze, the dome arose from the sheer hints of the riches in the soil beneath the city, and it made Yendeh as golden and splendid as diligent Serwaah, who presided over it. A prominent standing unheard of about a woman in those days, the feat was only marched by her skills as a blacksmith extraordinaire. She had male apprentices who used broken palm kernel shells to fuel her hearths and, under her direction, hammer out impressive implements. And she was a bard into the bargain. It was said that her merry voice healed sick children of their ailments and made flower buds open up at night.

She was tall and of such elegant beauty that her radiance alone was said to melt shea butter an arm’s distance away from her. In fact, it was said that all the gurgles of the brooks and streams that coursed over the pebbles and around the boulders jutting out of the streambeds in Yendeh were, in reality, murmurs about her gracefulness. And to reflect her diligence and beauty, her people worked hard cultivating crops and harvesting abundant long cobs of corn and sunflower seeds from the fields, digging up big and rounded tubers of yams and cocoyams from the loamy soil, and cutting home large sacks of plantain and banana from the plants. The farms were irrigated by streams flowing from the high hills surrounding Yendeh. Some aged folks had repaired into the caves in the hills, for contemplation and other esoteric interests, so the waters were themselves naturally charged with intimations of the lore of the wise as they flowed over nuggets of gold and other precious alloys deposited along the streambeds and their banks.

Three of the streams met in confluence in the center of Yendeh, to form a pool the folks called Adansum. It was their social center. And none of the folks ever had to worry about stepping in dung mud on the banks of it. Outcrops of varied levels covered all the spots around it, except spaces only large enough for neems and figs to have sprouted as shady trees. The folks relaxed in the shades.

Sometimes they did their washings and spread them out to dry on the rocks where the tree canopies allowed rays of sunshine. From that point onward, the waters of Adansum eased away to drop several meters to the low-lying tiered plains leagues away.

One evening, after the copious rains had let up and the streams and pool had receded within their borders, Serwaah climbed onto the highest perch on the banks of Adansum. She had spoken to her folks several times from that perch in previous times. That evening, however, bathed in the flush of the setting sun and backed by the traditional troupe of percussionists and rattlers and flutists, she only belted out songs. Although the tempos of her songs varied, the folks soon realized that it was the same words about liberation that she was rendering in different tunes. And when the renditions were slow, the vibrant energy she displayed sharply contrasted with the energy required by the performance of the slow songs. In fact, the energy she displayed sometimes bordered on desperation. And that made her folks sad. Why was their adorable leader singing mournful tunes about liberation, manifesting signs of madness, when her folks were forever happy, contented, and free from the want of anything?

Some of the aged, wise folks had come down from the hills to listen to Serwaah. From their vantage points in the hills, they had glanced into the distances beyond Yendeh and discerned what was to come. They said that Serwaah was singing neither in isolation nor in vacuum but lamenting the conduct of her counselors, relating it to the streams of water out there. For the innocence with which the water flowed away evaporated leagues away, as it tumbled to the low-lying expanse of tiered land, where a berm obstructed the water from reaching the sea. The sea was supposed to be home to all rivers. If a river was unable to make the journey all the way to the sea, it was considered dead.

Serwaah had not mentioned the parrot in any of the tunes she had been rendering.

However, how so many adults could have misconstrued the words of the wise, couched in delicate woven language, to explain Serwaah’s songs as applauding the parrot for its ability to mimic language could never be fathomed out. Did her people have some more distances to go in reaching the pools of understanding or comprehension? Fatuously believing that their leader was not necessarily sad but praising the parrot, the people began waltzing to Serwaah’s slow songs. As they danced, some of the children who did not know how to move with deliberate slowness to the beat of the music but could only skip and jump to it were asking if Serwaah was not really decrying the parrot’s inability to appreciate what was entailed in language. That was because the wise kept saying that Serwaah was bemoaning the uncertainty of the times to come upon her people, as the berm at the rim of the first tiered mass of land was preventing the waters from reaching the lowest expanse of land adjacent to the coast.

All the same, even as both children and adults might have gotten the interpretation of the words of the wise wrong, it ought to be mentioned that there was something of value to their different perspectives. For with no edgewaters forming a tongue to nose around for a point of least resistance in the berm for the waters to breach, they aimlessly roamed the plains in meandering loops and eventually pooled together to form a bog. And the hints of knowledge borne along by the streams sank to the bottom of the bog to coexist with silt, even as neither had intimations of the other. And that made the coexistence utterly meaningless, but an embrace onto death. For unlike fraternal siblings of sleep and death, water and oil, yin and yang, Atwifo-Akans and Ananse the Spider, all of which were never meant to coexist but did so anyway to generate friction necessary to facilitate the contrasting businesses of rejuvenation and enervation, knowledge stayed forever dormant, submerged by silt.

And because the waters of the bog would not flow as a current, silt became contaminated, tainted by the foulness of all the dead fauna and flora on the plains. And knowledge, submerged by silt, became gangrened and identified completely with the bog. And the bog soon became covered with scum from all the decaying matter inside of it, culminating in unsightly bubbles all over it. And when the bubbles popped, they released a suffocating fetid odor into the atmosphere.

The Tutsis had long said that when water came against a berm of granite, water won in the end; it percolated the rock. Nonetheless, nobody could tell with any degree of certainty how long it would take for the waters in the bog to seep through the berm of clay on the lower fields of Yendeh, because it was no granite. So the wise said again that Serwaah was actually lamenting the times to come upon her people, as the conduct of their counselors, whose inattentiveness to the berm had caused the bog to form in the first place, would cause the stifling exhalation to infuse the airs of Yendeh and make her people miserable. And her people would wonder for years to come what was ailing them.

Meanwhile, the fields of corn and sunflowers on the lowest tier of land were dying from lack of water, even as the agaves and the other succulents interspersed among them were thriving. For the succulents had much deeper and far-reaching insidious roots. They invaded the territories of the corn and sunflowers, even violating the entities of their roots, sucking from them what little moisture they had for their own sustenance. And the corn and sunflowers wilted and died. And only the agaves and the sisals and the other succulents survived the drought to stand incredibly tall as woody stems on the low-lying, flat plains of the coastal lands of Yendeh. Yes, even as Serwaah was singing mournful songs that evening from the highest perch on the banks of Adansum, her people were happy dancing, because they could not understand that Serwaah was crying for her voice to be carried to God by the wind.

Seminal Sections

One

The Gulf of Guinea lay resplendent in the bright sunshine of the morning. The sea was completely bare of any fishing vessels but for a lonely cargo ship far out on it. It was like a day set aside for the sea to be at rest from all fishing activity. Near the coast, however, three young men were swimming as the sea heaved and tossed, rolling waves toward the shore. Adept at swimming, the young men caught a big and long curling wave and let it carry them swiftly on its back to the shore.

They had finished their early-morning ritual of swimming in the sea.

Rising up from the froth-covered waters, they slogged ashore where the wave had broken on the white sands, its frothy fingers rapidly disintegrating in little plosive sounds in the breeze. The three friends stepped away from the meandering strand lines of small shells and plastic bottles and Styrofoam bits and broken pieces of sticks and dry leaves, deposited ashore by the expended waves. They were to dry themselves near the edge of a neem grove. Two of the friends were tall, one short. Being the oldest, the short one was drying himself first, using the single towel they all shared. The taller men waited their turns patiently, even if in mock shivers.

Sometimes, in humor, they would hasten up the small man, saying, Hurry up, short man.

And the short man would aptly reply to them, saying, A short man is no half-man.

And the other two would say, But he shouldn’t take all the time in the world to dry up himself.

And the small man would say, A short man needs enough time to dry all parts of his body well.

They were taxi-driver friends and called one another brother, having grown up together with other teenagers in the same house, under the tutelage of a woman several people had taken to addressing as Pathfinder because, quite often, she drove a rugged utility light truck to reach isolated towns and villages in the hinterland, where she administered prenatal aid and care and counseling to pregnant women and girls. She also assisted them in childbirth. She had advised all the young men and women who had grown up under her to regard knowledge, other than good health, as the greatest asset any person could have. She had told them that, although knowledge had liberally been dispersed everywhere by the Prime Mover, as she called God, it was hard to come by.

However, since knowledge was open and meant to be attained by everyone through schooling or astute observation of nature silently at work, knowledge would eventually come to those who had the disposition to seek it. And when they had found it, they were to share it with a discerning few ready to accept it. Otherwise, those who came into knowledge were to keep it quiet and protect it as they would any precious gem, concealing it where only a few other people could reach it, preferably in the thick forests of the hinterland, or in the depths of the sea in the littoral regions. Hidden thus, knowledge would not be easily accessible to those who did not know its worth and so would not value it.

Under the Pathfinder, the three friends had also come into the understanding that the sea was expansive and open because it was the secret and sacred abode of all universal wisdom. Their theory was simple. The sea, being the recipient of the waters of all the rivers in the world, bore strains of the ethnic wisdom of every people anywhere. A fact borne out by the sea’s salinity, it was that which accounted for it staying clean and as open as it was at all times. And that was how the Prime Mover had made it, like the universe, which was opening up and expanding all the time. Although several other things had been made to be opening up and expanding all the time, the Prime Mover, however, had deliberately constructed the human mind to expand only when opened. Therefore, by swimming in the sea each morning, the three friends hoped not only to avail themselves of that wisdom but also to pay homage to the sanctity of the sea, which, by the unequivocal order of the Prime Mover, had given rise to all forms of life.

In essence, their swim each morning was their daily worship of the Prime Mover.

And they had never missed a swim since they started the ritual several years ago.

The three friends usually did their swimming a long way away at the shores of Hekpe, where they resided. However, they had come to the Monument Beach that morning, just to be in close proximity to the Supreme Court building. The Pathfinder, in urgent cellular phone conversations with them late the previous night, had asked them to meet her there. She would be in the retinue of the Achem king, as part of a grand parade of paramount chiefs later that morning. Closely affiliated with royalty, the Pathfinder had been assumed by several people to be quickened by tutelary gods, since kings and queens were said to be quickened by ancestral spirits all the time. However, as she insisted to all those who had grown up under her tutelage, nothing was farther from the truth. Anything she did emanated from the head with which she had been endowed by the Prime Mover.

After they had dried themselves, the short man collected and stuffed the towel into a plastic shopping bag while the others finished dressing up. The short man then led them up an embankment beneath the neem grove. It stretched between the beach and a section of High Street yonder. Although they had hardly heard any motorized vehicles go by, the neem trees were abuzz with the chirps and tweets of various birds. That in itself was not unusual that time of day. However, the way the birds were erratically flitting from branch to branch and flying from tree to tree with no threatening sounds from the street suggested to the three friends that something peculiar was occurring in the air, making the birds that excited.

When the three friends reached High Street, they understood why the birds were that stirred. A large throng of people had gathered on the sidewalks, even overflowing into certain portions of the street, blocking it. The people obviously were awaiting the parade of the paramount chiefs to pass. Addressed as kings in their ethnic domains in Assikam Republic, they were called paramount chiefs when they came together as a body. That was a protocol established to nullify any friction that could be generated by too many sovereigns in one small nation gathered at one place at the same time.

It was just about seven o’clock, but by the size of the crowd, one would think that the sun had been up several hours before. Indeed, the Supreme Court and the old National Assembly buildings appeared to have drawn into their vicinity all the people from the nearby streets and the market stalls a few blocks away. Those areas, which normally would be teeming with people that time of day, were all empty, whereas it was a sea of humanity as far as the eye could see along High Street. Some people clung to the streetlight poles decked in colorful pennants and banners of Assikam Republic. A few other people, in a bid to show off their powerful digital cameras, had their big and long scopes of lens pointed, ready to snap pictures of the procession when it would be passing on its way to Republic Square, where all grand parades in the Citadel were held.

The crowd kept thickening as the three friends pushed their way through toward the Supreme Court building. All along the way, they kept hearing insinuations about certain individuals in the crowd who would not stand at one place. At the same time, the nostrils of the three friends were being acquainted to all sorts of smells, from delightful talcum-powder scents to foul body odors from unwashed armpits. As the three friends crossed the driveway before the old National Assembly buildings, they saw an array of decorated open palanquins arranged in a line. Four young men stood by each. Their torsos were bare, the pieces of cloth covering their lower parts worn like sarongs. A decorated skewbald, a blaze on its face and slowly whisking around its tail, stood alone among the palanquins. It was being guarded by three young men. One among the set of four men stationed beside the lead palanquin waved at the three friends. Having grown up together with him under the Pathfinder, they acknowledged him and walked on toward the Supreme Court building. It was draped in the huge tricolor banners of Assikam Republic.

Except for the cordoned-off deep spaces dipping inward beside the podium on which stood the columns of the Supreme Court portico, every space around was crammed with people. They were all clad in various dresses and costumes. The massive columns of the Supreme Court building were also wrapped in lush pieces of kente cloth. The three friends carefully jostled their way through the crowd to the broad cobblestone pavement leading to the portico. As they ascended the wide steps to the podium, a policeman standing guard before the portal raised his assault rifle. Until then, it had been slinging from his shoulder. Causing it to make a clicking sound, he swung it slowly before the three friends, pausing in its motion momentarily to point and thrust it briefly at each one of them.

The three friends halted. The crowd drew back, becoming silent. Gripped by fear, the three friends slowly raised their hands. The short one, with the towel in the plastic bag dangling from his outstretched fingers, said in a resonating but tremulous voice, The Pathfinder is expecting us inside.

The policeman looked him over with curiosity. Was he not satisfied with the explanation of the small man, or was he baffled by the small man with such a deep voice? His assault rifle still pointing, he approached the three friends with utmost care. He carefully extended one hand and took the bundle from the small man with the big voice. The policeman cautiously took the wet towel out of the plastic bag and gingerly held it hanging from his fingertips, together with a strap of the plastic bag.

What is this? he asked.

It’s a towel. We used it to dry ourselves, after our swim in the sea, the small man said.

You can’t go inside with that. The policeman tossed both the towel and its plastic bag into a large aluminum bin near one of the massive columns. He then caused his assault rifle to make another clicking sound and dropped it to his side. He said, Yes, the Pathfinder had alerted me about your coming, but she didn’t say you’d be carrying a stinking wet towel. Did you know you could have been shot carrying that ugly thing on these premises?

We’re sorry, the short man apologized in his resonating voice.

Being sorry doesn’t mean a thing here, you hear? The policeman had fatuously tried to mimic the resonating quality of the small man’s voice, but his tone came out completely annoying instead of being authoritative.

Relieved and amused, the crowd drew forward and began talking in murmurs. Not appreciating that the security apparatuses of the nation were on high alert for the parade, some in the crowd said that the policeman was being too strict. Others quipped that he should have had respect for a voice like that from such a small man. Some others laughed. They suggested that the policeman’s wife must have annoyed him greatly early that morning before he left his room.

He turned and opened one side of the portal large enough for the three friends. Trembling in their pants, they slipped into a large hall with a high ceiling, ornate chandeliers hanging from it.

In the soft glow of lights, an elegant middle-aged woman in a pink silk gele turban and a matching frock that descended to her ankle stepped away from the group of people milling around in the hall. She came toward the three friends. They smiled nervously and bowed their heads to her. Her name was Aberewa Tachiwaa, but several people addressed her as Pathfinder. Her looping gold earrings flashed a light as she threw a playful, austere look at the short man, grinning and revealing her diastema, an envious gauge of standard Akan beauty.

What took you so long, Twum? she asked.

The policeman at the door scared us, Twum said. He trained his gun on us. Ask Sasraku.

He let us in only when we said you were expecting us, said Sasraku, one of the two tall friends.

Yes, security is tight around here today, Aberewa Tachiwaa said.

Of all places, did we have to meet you here, Pathfinder? asked the second tall friend.

Tabi, what we have to discuss can’t wait. Aberewa Tachiwaa whisked the friends away from the crowd in the middle of the hall to a corner and, speaking softly to them, said, I need your services urgently. Gather some of your friends and brothers. Go to Nyankomase next weekend. Make plans to stay for two days or more. We have a big project on our hands.

Are you going to be enstooled as queen mother? Tabi asked.

The colonel’s orchard has to be cleared of all weeds, Aberewa Tachiwaa said.

But, ma’am, that can be done in one day, Sasraku said, his voice a little harsh.

Ma’am, is that so urgent as to have called us here to face a gun? Tabi also asked.

Did I detect notes of vexation in your voices? Aberewa Tachiwaa asked.

No, Pathfinder. You heard the sounds of fear from frightened men. Twum was apologetic.

Aberewa Tachiwaa was quiet for a moment, having been made consciously aware of the fright she had caused the three friends. She placed her hand over her mouth and let out a little cough. Then she said, Well, I didn’t want to go to bed without talking to you. I didn’t want to go through another sleepless night. The colonel wants the assignment completed as soon as possible. I don’t know why, but he’s been quite insistent. He wants the cottage refurbished, the outhouse completely revamped.

The colonel? Sasraku asked, his voice rising with incredulity.

Yes, Colonel Nimako. Through her pink turban, Aberewa Tachiwaa scratched the side of her head with her little finger.

The three friends exchanged clumsy glances. They knew that Colonel Nimako, Aberewa Tachiwaa’s husband, had been killed a long time ago on his orchard in the thick forest of the high hills near Nyankomase, her hometown.

Disappointed and irritated, Tabi looked down, tapping the marble floor loudly with his sneakers in rapid succession.

Have you seen the colonel lately? Tabi pointedly looked into Aberewa Tachiwaa’s face.

You aren’t insinuating that I’m losing it, are you, Tabi? Aberewa Tachiwaa stared at him.

No, no, ma’am. Sasraku hesitated. He means the colonel’s been dead for years now.

Don’t you think I know that? Aberewa Tachiwaa pouted. Suddenly, she raised her hand to cover another Akan standard beauty of hers, a long ringed neck, as if protecting it from some cold. Then she clasped her arms over her bosom, gathering the vertical flowing folds in her pink frock to her chest, as if she had had the chills. She spoke more softly to the friends now. The colonel’s appeared to me three nights in a row, in my dreams. The previous two nights, he was on his knees, imploring me to get his request done. And as soon as possible. I don’t know why—maybe because I called to speak to you, intending to tell you about the dreams before I went to bed last night—but I had a sound sleep. So you tell me what I must do. Aberewa Tachiwaa looked at them, from man to man.

The three friends stood silent for a few seconds, looking down at the floor.

Then Twum beckoned the other two to come with him. They stepped out of earshot from Aberewa Tachiwaa and held a whispered conference. When they returned to her, Twum spoke. We’ll be at Nyankomase on Friday, in the evening. With many of our brothers and friends. We’ll bring along some carpenters and masons. Working from sunup to sundown, I’m sure we can get all the work done within two days, Twum said.

Just look for a convenient place where we’ll park the coach we’ll charter, Tabi said.

Or your courtyard is quite large enough? Sasraku laughed.

We’ll see about that, Aberewa Tachiwaa said, smiling. I’m thrilled to hear that.

At that time, they heard noises, like the activity inside the hall had picked up.

I believe the procession is about to begin, Aberewa Tachiwaa said. I have to leave you now.

I’m sorry I was a little insolent, ma’am, Sasraku said.

A little? Aberewa Tachiwaa chuckled. Anyway, your apology’s accepted. If I don’t see you again today, I’ll expect you on Friday. Take care of yourselves. And raising her voice a little, she added with humor, And behave, Tabi. She wagged a playful finger in Tabi’s face, turned, and stepped toward where the people inside the hall had congregated.

She went past the crowd to a door. A policewoman before it touched the crown on her beret and bowed to Aberewa Tachiwaa, opening for her the door to a room that had the seven paramount chiefs of Assikam Republic inside. They stood in a semicircle, their gazes on the kings of Achem and Manshia Traditional States standing before them, their arms locked at their elbows, obviously having concluded some formality. The two kings then hugged each other. They stood in a silent embrace for a while. When they separated from each other and shook hands, the other kings clapped their hands.

They all knew that a long-standing quiet animus reaching back over five centuries had been resolved.

Meanwhile, outside that room in the hall, the three taxi-driver friends had reached the portal and, together, banged on one of the heavy doors. The policeman outside opened one side of the doors large enough for them, then closed it again. As they stepped out, they saw two sets of three men in files near the opposite edges of the podium, away from the columns. Each one of the men had braced against his bare chest an unopened huge umbrella. A seventh man stood alone, near where the broad steps began to go down the podium. He was swiveling the unopened huge umbrella between his hands. Six other stalwart men stood on the cobblestone pavement leading away from the broad steps, their pieces of cloth wrapped around them like loin pieces. Beside them was an outfit. It had a large cast-iron bird mounted on a pole affixed to it in the middle. The bird was gilded, and it had its head turned backward to face its rear, its beak seeming to have been buried in its feathers as if it were preening itself.

A traditional icon, it was known as Sankofa, meaning go back to retrieve.

When the six stalwart men attempted to lift up the outfit bearing the cast-iron bird, they appeared to struggle under its weight. The policeman asked Tabi and Sasraku, who had just emerged from the hall, to give them a hand. They went down the steps and helped the stalwart men hoist the large icon onto their shoulders. A thunderous applause from the crowd greeted that effort. Even the colorful banners draping the Supreme Court building gently flapped in the breeze as though they also were acknowledging the effort of the two friends and the stalwart men. Carrying aloft the icon, they began moving toward the array of palanquins along the driveway of the old National Assembly buildings. Rhythmical sounds of agogô then erupted from the spaces beside the podium. And suddenly, heavy throbs of fontomfrom and atumpan drums, accompanied by sounds of bells and a flourish of ram horns, came from the cordoned-off spaces flanking the podium of the Supreme Court building. As the tall and big drums being carried by men other than those doing the drumming with hooked sticks from behind put in their appearance, everybody saw that the huge drums were draped in calico.

Just as the troupe of musicians burst into the open to line both sides of the cobblestone pavement to the Supreme Court podium, both portal doors flung inward, and they opened ajar. And out stepped the Achem-hene, a contingent of traditional elders behind him. The other six paramount chiefs of the nation, each followed by a retinue of traditional elders, also came out. When the Achem-hene reached the threshold of the podium, the man holding the large umbrella, standing there, unfurled it over him. A spectacular object of brilliant colors, the lower end of its drooping canopy was trimmed in a swath of red velvety cloth. And the men carrying the other ones also kept opening theirs one after the other over the paramount chiefs as they reached the edge of the podium to go down the broad steps.

Each one of the large umbrellas was trimmed in a swath of bright velvety cloth of a color different from the other ones. The men carrying them walked behind the paramount chiefs. Going toward the old National Assembly buildings, the chiefs had large portions of their assorted kente cloth, trailing them on the pavement. Only the Yaa-Naa of the Dagbani was in a large blue and white smock over a bulbous trousers of honor the pouch of which descended to his knees, the crown of his headgear slouched to the side, like a stocking cap. Conspicuously behind the Achem-hene was Aberewa Tachiwaa, smiling broadly and waving both her hands at the throng and blowing them kisses. The crowd applauded wildly, waving handkerchiefs. The paramount chiefs reciprocated, flourishing large pieces of silk kerchiefs in varied colors at the people.

The headgears of the paramount chiefs, shaped like garrison caps, were velvet. In various colors, each one was embellished with traditional gold symbols. That of the Achem-hene had motifs in gold of stalking or crouching leopards all around it. A few men skipped about on the pavement, television cameras on their shoulders. Others, holding assorted video and digital cameras, scrambled around for best spots to take pictures. However, the regal waves of large silk kerchiefs at the cheering crowd by the paramount chiefs had about them an uncertain quality of decorum, like the weight of all the gold rings on their fingers, coupled with the wide gold bangles on their upper arms, were a restraint on the vigor they intended to display in their hand movements. Similarly, although majestic, their steps appeared irresolute, as if the paramount chiefs were unsure of where their steps were going to land next. Indeed, it was as if the heaviness of all the gold ornaments embossed on the glossy black straps of their princeling sandals was a hindrance to the purposeful strides they had meant to take.

For the moment, though, everything was all in good measure for the occasion, meant to usher in the paramount chiefs as supreme leaders of Assikam Republic. After a referendum, an amendment to the national constitution had been made. It stipulated that the paramount chiefs of the various ethnic groups of the nation form a council over and above the elected president, whose designation was hence to become prime minister. Of course, there always would be a legislative body of elected members of Parliament. And seen as an innovative approach to ending ethnic tensions and rigged national elections, all the media and institutions of higher learning in the country had touted the prospective system as long overdue. In an unparalleled display of leadership without any dissension, the paramount chiefs met a month after the amendment was ratified. They drew straws to select the first chair in a two-year rotation. And that fell on the Achem-hene.

That was why he was in the lead of the royal procession, the others following him in line of succession. They had selected that day to show their appreciation and gratitude to the nation for having reposed in chiefdom, trust, and confidence. Amid the flourish of traditional horns and the heavy throbs of drums as the paramount chiefs made their way toward the palanquins, the firing of muskets could be heard somewhere along High Street. That also was symbolic. As ironic as it sounded, the musket reports were signaling nails being pounded into the coffin of military coups; the coup to end all coups in Assikam Republic had been accomplished without the firing of military artillery.

Meanwhile, among the throng along the driveway before the old National Assembly buildings, two friends—one with a chewing stick in his mouth, and the other munching on a buffloaf—were discussing the sole woman walking behind the Achem-hene.

Who is that woman in the pink outfit? asked the one eating the buffloaf.

Don’t you know the woman they call Pathfinder? said the man chewing the stick.

She’s the one we saw on TV, and the chief justice was opening a car door for her?

The one and only, quipped the man with the chewing stick in his mouth.

Why is she walking in the shadow of the Achem-hene? the buffloaf-eater asked.

She’s the king’s shadow. He scrubbed his cuspid with the fluffy end of the chewing stick.

Oh, she was the woman married to the king’s brother? He bit off a piece of his buffloaf.

Her brainchild is the new political order. He kept scrubbing his teeth.

No, a journalism student on his practicals suggested it, said the buffloaf-eater.

That student was one of the many children of the Pathfinder, if you must know.

I hear she’s had over sixty children. He threw the last bit of the buffloaf into his mouth.

You’re in this world but know nothing of what happens around you. The other chuckled.

I heard that student vanished into thin air. He noisily smacked his lips.

He isn’t dead, trust me. He smiled, shelving the chewing stick behind his right ear.

And amid several other rumors floating among the throng, the paramount chiefs made their way to the array of palanquins. Each one of them went and stood beside his respective palanquin, still under a huge umbrella. The Yaa-Naa went to the skewbald. Immediately some men raised large pieces of cloth around them, screening them from public view, and when the screens came down, the paramount chiefs were aloft in their palanquins, the Yaa-Naa atop his horse. With the gilded icon of Sankofa ahead of the paramount chiefs, the procession began moving toward High Street, on its way to Republic Square, where high officials in the country and other dignitaries, including members of the Diplomatic Corps, were waiting for the grand durbar. The panoply of huge colorful umbrellas bobbing up and down over the train of palanquins accommodating the gorgeous regal personages looked so splendid in the bright sunshine of the morning that some people were overcome with emotion.

Some wiped away tears from their faces on the sleeves of their shirts and parts of their cloths, while others dabbed away their beads of tears with the handkerchiefs they were waving at the passing procession. Some other people just cheered wildly, snapping pictures, flinging and tossing talcum powder in the air toward the paramount chiefs. The throbs of the drums became heavier, the sounds of the agogô livelier. The ram horns blared more loudly. And moved, the Achem-hene sat up in his palanquin, his torso erect. In his right hand, he had a short gilded traditional sword meant for swearing oaths. Its hilt was two knobbed, its dull blade broadening out toward the tip, where it curved downward sharply, like the beak of a raptor. Like a template, the traditional sword had cutout patterns of three three-pointed stars in it.

The Achem-hene raised the traditional sword, showing it to the skies, then to the three points of the earth, two on his sides and ahead of him, each time bowing his torso in obeisance to the sky and extending his hand to show the sword to the crowd. The people cheered loudly. Pointing the sword at himself, he began dancing in his palanquin, weaving intricate hand movements with the sword, bending his torso low with an inward wave and roll of his arms toward his bosom, symbolically claiming proprietary ownership of all the land in Assikam. The man holding aloft the huge umbrella over him kept heaving it up with a frenzy into the air and lowering it, causing the dome-shaped canopy to flare and contract, as if it wanted to close. In the wind, the swath of red velvety cloth trimming the large umbrella kept flapping up and down. The throng along the sidewalks went wild with cheers, knowing that the paramount chief next in line to become the chair of the National Council of Paramount Chiefs would have his turn in two years to show off his stuff.

The new political order had begun as an innocent moment of bafflement for the president of the republic in a roast some months ago. Organized by his People’s National Party to celebrate its fourth successive rule of the country for another four-year term, the roast was held at the National Banquet Hall, where several parliamentarians were in attendance. There were also ministers of state, some paramount chiefs and foreign dignitaries, including the dean of the Diplomatic Corps and some of its members. The government obviously wanted to quell the impression floating around that it had cheated in the national elections once more. However, that moment of presidential bafflement became a movement of the people when the fourth estate ran off with it.

Everybody at the roast was having a good time, people mingling with others, enjoying their food and champagne, when the president of the republic rose and went to the podium to take and reply to jokes by the press. All the guests took their seats at that time. After a few jokes the president made light of, a young journalism student on his practicals asked an off-the-cuff question.

Mr. President, in view of the current deplorable conditions in the country, will you be patriotic enough to stand aside for progress to spring through the nation? the journalism student asked.

What? the president asked. Caught unawares, he looked to his left side, where one of his advisers opened both his hands to indicate he did not know from where that had come. Then he looked to his right. Another adviser shrugged his shoulders. Then with a spontaneous, disarming smile, the president suddenly appeared cheerful. He said, I don’t think our nation’s in a static condition. The hall broke into generous guffaws and applause. I sincerely believe our nation is an unmitigated flowing current running swiftly on a progressive course toward the sea of progress. Unless, of course, I’m not relating well to what you’re driving at. In which case I ask you for an elaboration. He beamed at the crowd from behind the podium.

I will elaborate, sir, the journalism student said. This is your second term, but your party’s been in power for twelve years continuously. Apart from matchboxes stuffed with small dollar bills and passed around to some individuals before elections, nobody seems to understand what happens during the elections—

It’s simple. The electorate gives us the mandate, the president said, to more cheers.

But you’re yet to pick up from where the Progressive Party left off on road construction twelve years ago. Unfinished overpasses from that era are crumbling, the student said. The hall fell silent, and even as he was speaking, he could hear heavy footfalls crunching along the marble floor in step, approaching him from afar in the hall. He did not turn his head to look but continued talking.

"Where the roads are yet to be paved with asphalt, citizens’ food fill with dust. Clothes hung on lines to dry become filthy again from the dust blown by vehicles plying those sections of the roads. When it rains, people can’t collect water washed down from rooftops to use, because it’s muddy. And that’s been for twelve years now. Your predecessor said he hadn’t been left any money to finish any roads.

"Meanwhile, the railway lines are overgrown with weeds. Roads elsewhere are impassable. Foodstuff rots in the countryside. The National Health Insurance Program, instituted by the Progressive Party government, is in disarray. Businesses are failing because of too much blackouts, sometimes for three continuous days. And if the lights come on at all, they stay on for just a couple of hours.

If you can’t lead, why contest for the leadership role? Some of our major rivers are a sludge of mud, thick with the blood of our earth, all because of illegal alluvial mining activities by foreigners—

Some big hands seized him from behind, manhandling him for a moment.

Who invited you here? an unfriendly voice from one of the manhandlers demanded.

Let go of me! the student shouted, jostling to free himself. Is this a police state or what?

The president drew his mouth much closer to the microphone and said quietly, Leave him alone. He raised his hand to quiet the murmurs that had filled the hall as the two policemen let go of the student and marched off. Ours is a democracy. Everyone speaks their mind. Anyway, aren’t we at a function running on practical jokes? the president asked.

The people clapped and laughed. Yeah, yeah! some said.

May I know your name? the president asked when the noises had died down.

Oware, the journalism student said.

Oware? The president chuckled into the microphone, shaking his head. You aren’t as tall as your name implies, he said, to more laughter and applause from the crowd in the hall. Be that as it may, let me school you in statecraft. Our country’s guided by a constitution. I can’t do what you ask. Only chiefs do that. They can change traditions. Arbitrarily, I must add. For now, the people have asked me to complete another four-year term. And so it shall be. But just out of curiosity, if I were to step aside, who would you advocate for to take my place?

No one person, sir, but a Supreme Council of Paramount Chiefs, to be above your office.

The president fell silent. As the hall broke out in an uproar, he rested his elbow on the podium, lowering his chin between his thumb and his fingers on his propped-up hand. He kept nodding, staring at the journalism student. Some other members of the press rushed out the doors, and having been put on the spot, the paramount chiefs present at the function just reclined in their regal cabrioles. The young journalism student sat down. Those around him at his table said to him that he had been quite audacious. And the whole hall became a babble of noises. Around the next table, the guests talked in low tones about the issue raised.

Does any person get away with such an affront in our part of the world? a lawyer asked.

Not unless the president’s in on it, said a college teacher.

Yeah, the president must have put the young man up to that, said a party functionary.

That won’t surprise me, judging by our state of affairs, a minister of state said.

Yes, that could be a smart move by the president, to wiggle his way out—

A proposition nonetheless smelling propitious, a parliamentarian said.

Original roaches, what shall we do but adjust to another new order? said an old man parliamentarian, chewing on a roasted drumstick. Yeah, how would it feel like if the chiefs were to be in charge? He raised his flute of champagne to his mouth and gulped it down.

In the meantime, when the journalism student realized that there were too many eyes staring at him, he left the hall through a side door, ostensibly to use the restroom. As soon as he stepped into a hallway, the two policemen who had earlier on seized him inside the hall grabbed him again. They were, however, friendly with him that time. They gently pushed him into a stairwell and soon emerged outside, in a back alley. They took him to a police Jeep. It had another policeman in it beside the driver. He helped the others on the ground shove Oware into the space between the back seats and the front ones. Its engine running already, the Jeep took off, making its way to the highway leading to the hinterland, where it was said that the forests could conceal secrets, just like the mask. However, unlike the mask, which was said to reveal even as it concealed, the forest did not reveal anything.

By the next morning, all the radio stations and the television channels of Assikam Republic were talking about the institution of chiefdom. The newspapers were asking in banner headlines why chieftaincy was never allowed to become a viable alternative to running the nation during the noisome days of military juntas. The truth was that chieftaincy had never been given a chance by any of the previous military regimes, let alone by the party that had led the nation to political independence. And three years after self-governance, when Assikam became a republic, the president introduced a political ideology called Kankantoanism.

An eponym from the president’s own name, Kojo Kankantoa, the implementation of the ideology was not a complete surprise. During the years of political agitation for independence, the chiefs and some scholars had warned the nation that the ideas Kojo Kankantoa was espousing entailed noxious elements that could careen the country toward disaster, if he became the leader. Indeed, there was a subtle indication that the expedition the nation of Assikam was to embark on had been doomed to failure right from the onset.

Because most members of the opposition to Kankantoa were lawyers and college professors and teachers, they were naturally identified with erudition and scholarly pursuits. However, majority of the masses were not educated at all at that time. And either they did not comprehend the zeal of democracy to entail the give-and-take in partisan politics as obtained in parliamentary assembly, they failed to appreciate the opposition to Kankantoa entirely. And whipped into frenzy by a firebrand advocating for accelerated political freedom, supporters of Kankantoa insulted leaders of the opposition, relating them to poisonous boletus grown on rubbish dump in one of the mmobome choral songs the supporters of Kankantoa sang in the streets, flourishing white handkerchiefs and tossing talcum powder into the air, to symbolize victory. They gutted the word democracy and instead stuffed it with domo-krachie. In Akan, domo had a dual meaning of poisonous boletus and offal, while krachie was the term for a scholarly man. And they sang with gusto, clapping their hands:

Domo-krachie, whatever you do, and however you do it,

It won’t matter to anybody in the end.

For you won’t enter National Assembly,

To pollute the air with your stench,

But instead will be tossed on the refuse dump,

Where all your erudition really belongs.

Intoxicated by the propaganda of Kankantoa, his supporters certainly became blind to the gin traps he had set to entrap them in his wildwood. In the end, through a series of bogus referendums, Kankantoa was able to change the national constitution to that of a one-party state. The banner of his political party came to replace the national flag, and he declared himself president for life over the country.

The first order of Kankantoanism was to relegate chieftaincy to the vain status of pomp and pageantry in national affairs. Chieftaincy, which had been the true measure of leadership for the people and the heart of their cultural heritage and identity, became, in effect, reduced to a pauper institution. It existed at the mercy and whim of the president. The embodiment of national character, through which the erstwhile colonial government had ruled the people by its policy of indirect rule, chieftaincy was forced to take a back seat in national affairs. The chiefs naturally protested. In asking for a meaningful role in national government, they spoke of the centuries of exceptional leadership provided for the people. The president, on the other hand, gave the chiefs a dire warning: Kankantoanism was the order of the day, and if they did not conform to it, the president would make them run from their motherland, leaving behind their royal sandals.

Laced with elements of communalism already familiar to the people, Kankantoanism was entirely alien in its brunt form of tyranny and dictatorship. It quickly took advantage of a restrictive act the erstwhile colonial government had imposed to stifle the spread of anticolonial sentiment and propaganda. Kojo Kankantoa had vehemently condemned it during the struggle for independence. When he became the president, he found the restrictive act quite expedient for his cause. He modified and branded it the Preventive Detention Act. He used it not only to suppress individual rights and liberties but also to quash dissent in any form. Ironically, the inscription under the coat of arms of the republic said, Freedom and Justice. Intellectuals and scholars who were able to sneak out of the country were branded traitors.

Completely foreign in character and sharply in contrast with the people’s free spirit of doing things, the strange, new way throttled individual entrepreneurship, advocating state control and ownership of industry and commerce. When Kankantoa noticed that things were not going as he desired, he surreptitiously slipped out of the country for a six-month understudying of his ideology in a far-off country in the coldest regions of the world. During that time, Assikam descended into chaos. Railway workers and others embarked on strikes. Kojo Kankantoa slipped back into the country briefly just to remove or jail some of the striking employees and went back to finish his understudying. When he finally returned to Assikam, rumors abounded that he had brought back two strange birds, gifts from his host country. They would lay clutches of golden eggs to solve all the economic woes of Assikam.

However, to achieve that, his first order of business was to slash the producer price of ackee fruits, the leading cash crop of the country, from a dollar a kilogram down to twenty cents. Then, in a strange twist, in a move of protest against the international producer price, he caused a mountain of the produce to be raised on the Simpa plains. The heap was doused with petrol and set ablaze. The two leading national newspapers asked for the rationale behind that, and one editor went even further, stating that there must be some restraining factors in freedom that the people were not familiar with as yet if freedom could allow detention without trial in a nation whose coat of arms proclaimed Freedom and Justice for all its citizens. And rubbing salt into a raw sore, the editor went on to ask how a small nation like Assikam could sustain the insatiable appetites of a nanny state when there was no robust capitalist economy to tax.

The following morning, as National Security agents were arresting the two editors, there was a front-page story in The Vanguard, the mouthpiece of the party, showing a doctored bold picture of the editors sitting by the perimeter wall of the Maharaja restaurant, discussing their conspiratorial ideas. The Vanguard, in its own editorial that day, egged on other publications to use their resources to unearth saboteurs of the cause, harping on the noble ideas of Kankantoanism and extolling the Young Patriots Movement the government had formed a couple of years back to be eyes for and extend the ears of the security agencies. Indeed, the Young Patriots began squinting and scanning the horizons for questionable activities, their ears perked like those of dogs, listening for disagreeable noises from any quarter of the nation. Ordinary citizens had to be wary of what they said and where they said it.

The collective voice for protest of the general populace was thus muted. And like the proverbial boulder, the populace became stuck in the open with no shelter, resigned to a fate of enduring relentless abuse from the inclement weather. Unlike the boulder, though, the populace had their humor to sustain them. The adult folk resorted to the parlance dubbed native tongue as much as possible in their conversations. And such was the background to general affairs, when a drummer and a trumpet player met at a palm wine drinking bar during a recess. They had been performing to raise funds for a colleague who had had his arm broken as he was being questioned by the security agencies.

It’s drizzling, but our cocoyam leaves are still wilting, the trumpet player said to the drummer as they sat down on a bench to wait for the palm wine they had ordered. But be advised: do not blame the soil.

Yes, it’s been sustaining our other crops all these years, the drummer said, receiving a large calabash of palm wine from the seller. He placed it in a dimple in the ground. Anyway, cocoyams wish they were the palm wine tapper’s gourd. It has a better life. It’s held high above the palm wine tapper’s torch. So it doesn’t feel the heat.

Why envy the tapper’s gourd? Who wants a rope held around his neck, as if in perpetual strangulation? asked the trumpeter, fetching some of the palm wine in the large calabash on the ground. If you don’t have the appetite to eat, take a shot of gin.

Does that rectify the fact that the food isn’t palatable? The drummer dipped his small finger into his palm wine to remove a bit of something black floating in it. We can’t even drink palm wine without feeling head throbs. It’s all mixed with sugar-sweetened water and boosted with generous amounts of snuff.

If you complain too much about pepper in your food, the wind picks up a quarrel with you. And that gives you a vicious punch from your wife, to realign your cheekbones, the trumpeter said. Cheer up! Things are going to get better soon. I hear the chief priest returned from his tour of flourishing farms, bringing two geese. They’re going to lay golden eggs to take us out of our woes.

Now, it’s you who sound like you believe the hocus-pocus the chief fetish priest is spreading around. The drummer gave a hollow laugh. Those birds aren’t geese, but snipes. And they’re both female. So how are they going to mate?

Nature of the times we live in, I guess. The trumpeter drank some of his palm wine. But if you complain too much, the wind will pick up your grievance. And that’ll spell more trouble for you.

Some of us are able to walk away from abuse, the drummer said. It’s only when you shake the chickweed that you smell its pungent odor.

Either you didn’t say it correctly or it’s the wrong metaphor. The trumpeter fetched some more palm wine and drank it. How can you survive a cold night without a comforter? I’ll tell you something: this tree shelter is as bad as anywhere else. Wherever you go to seek shelter, so long as it’ll be under a tree, if it rains, you’ll get wet.

What about under the broad leaves of plantain or banana? the drummer asked.

As if you don’t know how easily they’re shredded by people who will pelt you with stones. The trumpeter laughed. Just bury your head in your calabash of adulterated palm wine. Fix your eyes on the milky color of the stuff while imbibing it. If you don’t say a thing, you pick no quarrel with the wind. That’s the way to survive.

Oh, how I wish for the days of old, the drummer said, smacking his lips after drinking some of the palm wine in his calabash. We only had to breathe in deeply and become invigorated, just by the wholesomeness of the air.

Now who is being unrealistic? asked the trumpeter, laughing. Thank your stars you have something you can call palm wine now. What is gone is gone. It can never be retrieved. If you have no idea what death is like, reflect on sleep after you wake up.

But I just don’t want survival. I want to live. The air we had been breathing had always been clean and free. What has happened? Oh, spirit of life, please grant me my wish. The drummer dipped his calabash into the big one on the floor, scooping from it some more palm wine. Showing it to the skies, he said, If things get worse, I may seek refuge at the royal courts. In case someone sees me coming from there, he might think I’ve dined with royal dignitaries.

Are you a stranger in your own land? the trumpeter asked. There’s no solace anywhere. A subterranean current’s eroding the structures from the ancient times. The people at royal houses are themselves subsisting on pins and needles now.

How does anyone survive on the spicule bones of fish? the drummer asked.

Then you don’t know that it isn’t nutrition that we seek now, said the trumpeter. Any fillable stuff for the tummy is good, so long as it keeps hunger pangs at bay.

My friend, let’s go back to our gig, the drummer said, rising. There we know something has us occupied. In the end, we’ll look for some poultice from somewhere to nurse our pains.

There were some aspects of Kankantoanism that were noble in intention, even if dubious in the end. Kankantoanism brought government-sponsored health care. Kankantoanism introduced free education for all children up to the university level. Kankantoanism established a mass education effort to make adult persons not familiar with classroom culture literate. There was also an ambitious project to provide affordable housing for workers. Unfortunately, all these came not without their drawbacks, since they lent themselves to the whims of the president and corruption as a whole. The free education was to expose children to the glorious ideas of the ideology, which, at that time, was claiming that the president was a messiah. When children prayed to him in groups, candy rained on them from balconies. And it was mostly the children of party officials and their favorites who benefited from the scholarship programs to