I am a boy of the jungle. When I was young, I heard of a place where there were no trees, no vines, no forest animals. I could not imagine such a place. I had only left my village once — with Grandpapa four years ago.
My village was small, and everybody in it was in one way or another a relative of mine. When my father needed a wife, he had to go to another village to find her. In the same way, young men come to my village for wives. When a wife is selected, she has no choice. She must go. In that way, the people of the jungle continue to thrive.
I am the oldest of Grandpapa’s grandchildren. When I was born, my mother was afraid that I was some kind of monster. All the children she had ever seen were dark-skinned. But Grandpapa assured her that I was not a monster but was special, and I would have a very special place in our family. “Perhaps,” he had said, “he will become a healer.” I heard that story often, but I never really believed it. I was just a boy like the other boys in the village, only I had very white, sensitive skin and sometimes my eyes seemed pink.
I spent many happy hours with the other children in my village. We played games; we ran races. We especially enjoyed playing at hunting. I became very skilled with my small bow and my child-sized spear in catching small game for food.
When we were old enough, we swam in the river. The river flowed swiftly and could be dangerous, especially in the rainy season. We were told to be very careful because we could be swept away by the river and never seen again. Once I asked if that had ever happened but was only told that it was never spoken of. Then, when I was seven rainy-seasons old, my best friend, Pargo, was swept away. One minute we were playing happily by the edge of the river. The next minute I heard a cry. I looked up and saw only an arm being swept away. My question had been answered. I missed him and mourned him for a long time. There was not even a body to bury. From then on, I gave the river spirit more respect and, being one of the older children, looked out for the younger ones.
My grandpapa was the head man of our village. He told me many stories about the spirits that lived in the trees, the river, the animals, the birds, the fish. I loved to listen to him talk. He was always gentle and wise.
One day he told me that when his grandpapa was a boy, a huge ship had come to the shore and strange pale men landed on the sands. “They were not white like you,” he said. “Their skin was not sensitive like yours, and they had dark hair and dark eyes.” I tried to picture them and their ship but could not. I had never heard of nor seen a ship. The only boats I knew were hollowed-out logs. And people with pale skin? Were they ghosts?
“The people of the jungle had been friendly to them,” he continued, “and at first, they were friendly in return. But in time people began to disappear from the jungle. It was only later that the villagers learned that their friends and relatives had been taken and forced to be slaves. We called the pale people, The Conquerors, and they now rule all the land. They cleared away trees and planted crops, they let their animals eat the grass, and they built their own houses and two huge buildings. One is a palace where the head Conqueror lives; the other is where they worship their gods.
“Usually they have left us alone and we have had nothing to do with them. Occasionally, however, they have made raids on some of the villages to get slaves. Never trust them, and always hide if you see one in the forest.”
When I had lived twelve rainy seasons and become a man, my grandpapa took me on a journey. It was the first and, until now, the only time I had been away from our village.
Before we left, he spent many hours making a boat out of a huge log. Using fire and scrapers he hollowed out the insides. He made paddles, two of them — one big one for him and one smaller one for me. I didn’t understand what he was doing until he told me that we would ride in the log down the river to the sea.
The night before we left, I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid of the river. What would happen if the log turned over? What would happen if I fell out? At the same time, I was excited, for this was to be an adventure, and I was proud that he thought I was old enough for it.
In the morning, with the help of other men in the village, my grandpapa and I packed the log with food, our spears, and our bows and arrows and slid it to the edge of the river. I hugged my mama goodbye. She was crying, and I was trying to be brave. We both knew I might not come back, but we never said anything. At Grandpapa’s command, I sat in the front of the log while he and the men pushed it into the river in a sheltered little cove. Then he climbed in, stroked hard with his paddle, and we were off.
Immediately, the river seized us and carried us downstream. We really only needed the paddles for steering. When we were thirsty, we took handfuls of water from the river; when we were hungry we ate of our provisions. Grandpapa cautioned me not to eat too much because the food would have to last us for many days.
As we sped floating down the river, I was fascinated by the ever-changing jungle. There were places where the trees hung so far over the water that it grew quite dark. In other places, the trees were more sparse, and light filtered through the leaves.
Mama had made me a special hat and cape because the sun could burn my sensitive skin badly. I wore them for the whole journey, squinting when the sun was bright and opening my eyes wide in the darker stretches.
I do not know how far we traveled. In time it grew dark, and we guided the log boat by the light of the full moon. Sometimes at the water’s edge I would see little, bright glowing lights which Grandpapa said were the eyes of animals come to the water to drink. While there were many fierce animals in the jungle, animals which had been known to eat people, he said we were safe in the middle of the river.
As the sun rose on our second day, I began to wonder how we were going to return to our village. Certainly we could never paddle the log back up the river. When I asked Grandpapa he said, “We will walk.” That frightened me because of the animals, but I trusted him and his wisdom.
Towards the end of the second day, the trees began to thin out. I heard a roaring sound and the air had a different smell, which Grandpapa told me was the smell of sea water. Suddenly, the log burst out of the trees and carried us through a large sandy area to the edge of the sea. Grandpapa guided the log to the sand, and we got out, taking our provisions with us. Then he pushed the log back into the river, and it floated out into the sea.
I stood gazing at the sea in awe. It appeared to stretch on forever. I wondered if it flowed over the edge of the earth. Near the shore, huge waves thundered and broke against the sand and then flowed back into the sea with a sucking sound. We walked to the edge of the water. He told me to taste it. I did, and it was salty. He cautioned me to be careful of the waves, which were higher than I was, for he said they could pull me out into the water. But he let me wade in the shallow water and enjoy the coolness of it and the sand squelching under my toes. Far in the distance I saw a tiny boat with white wings. Grandpapa told me it only looked tiny because it was so far away. I didn’t understand that, but I accepted it because I knew he would only tell me the truth.
When we tired of the shore, we went back to where the trees met the sand. We sat in the shade and ate while Grandpapa told me about seeing one of the Conquerors’ huge ships which had run onto the sand in a storm; he watched the sea slowly tear it to pieces. He said that for years he could find the backbone of that ship buried in the sand.
“Where did the Conquerors come from, and why did they come?” I asked.
“We do not know. We only know that they are clever and cruel, and they tame the jungle for their own use. From time to time, big ships come to their huge village and bring more people to live. They also bring strange animals, which serve the men. Then they need more slaves for the new arrivals, so they raid our villages. It has been several years since that has happened, so perhaps they now have all they need.”
When we had eaten and drunk from the river, we picked up the remaining sacks of food, our spears, our bows and arrows, and began to walk into the jungle beside the river. Often it was hard going and we had to fight through the vines and the undergrowth. Once I nearly slipped into the river. Grandpapa told me that every boy born to the village would make this journey. It was part of becoming a man. He said that he had made the journey many times and that soon he would be too old, so Papa would have to bring the boys.
“Men,” he said, reminding me thereby that I was now a man, “must never talk about this journey with anybody except their sponsor, the man who brought them to the sea.”
“Why?” I asked.
He was silent for a few steps and then said, “That is just the custom of our people. It is part of what we do.”
When it began to grow dark, Grandpapa and I gathered fallen wood and built a huge fire to keep the animals away in the night. “One of us must always stay awake to feed the fire,” he said. “If we don’t, then our bodies will feed one of the animals.”
That frightened me, but since I was a man, I couldn’t show fear, so I simply nodded.
The journey home took many days. Each night we built our fire and took turns keeping watch. One night, as we sat by the fire I asked, “Grandpapa, have all the boys who went on this trip returned home?” I had remembered my mama crying and thinking at the time that I might not return.
“No,” he said. “The spirits have taken three from me.”
“What happened?”
He was reluctant at first to tell me, but finally he said, “One boy stood up in the log to get something from his pack, and he fell in the water. The river spirit took him very quickly before I could do anything. One boy died of a fever as we walked back, and there was nothing I could do for him. The third boy disappeared one night. I awoke to a terrible scream from close by. I could do nothing until daylight. In the morning I searched and searched and eventually found his bones, gnawed clean by animals. He must have wandered off in the night. Perhaps he was walking in his sleep; I do not know.”
“Why did I never hear of these boys?” I asked.
“Because people who are taken by the spirits are never spoken of again. That is also true of those who have been captured by the Conquerors. We do not speak their names. That is our way.”
Grandpapa’s stories frightened me, but they also warned me about dangers that I faced. Nevertheless, one night while it was my turn to keep watch, I must have dozed off. I awoke to feel something sniffing at my neck. I screamed and the creature fell back as I grabbed my spear and thrust at him. Immediately, Grandpapa was at my side and together we killed a huge black panther.
Exhausted, we sank down by the dwindling fire, which it had been my task to feed. My grandpapa said nothing for so long I wondered if he had gone back to sleep. Finally he said, “We must leave. The other animals of the forest will smell the panther’s blood.” So, although it was still dark, we packed up our belongings. We took long branches and used them as torches as we trudged silently through the night.
We did not stop until we were miles away from the killing place. Finally, Grandpapa put down his pack, threw his torch into the river, and sat without speaking. At last he said, “You know what you did.”
I nodded, disconsolate.
“Then we will speak of it no more except to say that you must learn from this. In the jungle everybody’s life depends on each person doing his or her task. If one person fails, many can die. Remember that.”
Again I nodded.
We walked many, many days. At first I tried to count, but eventually I gave up. We returned safely to the village to be welcomed by all our relatives. Mama hugged me as though I had been gone for years. Tears ran down both our faces. Papa smiled at me in satisfaction. That was all the praise I needed.
Thus I grew until the end of my fifteenth rainy season and beyond. While I still played with the children, I also was given more of the work of the village to do, for, as Grandpapa had said, we all had tasks to do.
Then one day, as I was by the river watching some of the children in the water, I felt hands grab me roughly from behind and another hand cover my mouth before I could cry out.
And so I was taken to the Conquerors’ village and sold as a slave.