TWO: A House with One Room
When she returned with the water, Nomusa saw her little brother Themba rolling in the dust in front of their hut. His chubby body was covered with dirt, and he looked like a brown gingerbread boy covered with gray powdered sugar.
“What a story I have for you, Themba!”
But Themba spied the water jar. “I want a drink. Give me a drink! Give me a drink, Nomusa!”
Nomusa brought the edge of the water jar to her small brother’s eager lips. Water ran down his chin and over his fat body as he drank noisily.
Nomusa’s dog, Puleng, came running out of thehut. He showed his happiness at seeing Nomusa by running around her in crazy circles.
“Thirsty, Puleng?” Nomusa cupped her hand and poured some water into it for the dog to drink.
Just then Nomusa heard a voice behind her.
“Sakubona, Nomusa!”
It was her half sister, Sisiwe, who lived in the hut next to Nomusa’s. They had the same father but not the same mother.
“What is the story, Nomusa?” Themba broke in eagerly. If his sisters began talking, he might never hear it.
“Well,” Nomusa began, showing them the beautiful red and green feather, “it all began with this.”
Sisiwe exclaimed over the parrot feather, but Themba clamored for the story.
Nomusa described her encounter with the imamba with lively words and gestures. Her audience was much impressed.
“And you went back for the feather!” said Sisiwe. “I should never have dared.
“You are lucky to have escaped—and to have thebeautiful feather,” Sisiwe said, touching it admiringly.
“I have something else,” added Nomusa. She opened the little deerskin bag that hung about her neck. This bag was her only pocket, and into it went all Nomusa’s small treasures.
She took out a golden-yellow pebble, smooth and round, about the size of her thumbnail.
“How lovely!” Sisiwe exclaimed. “Where did you get it?”
“I found it on the ground as I returned from the stream.”
“The most exciting things always happen to you, Nomusa,” Sisiwe said. “How did you happen to be so early today?”
“I am early because our father is coming to visit us today, Sisiwe.”
“He visited our hut yesterday. He wore a new belt of wildcat tails and looked very handsome,” Sisiwe said proudly.
Nomusa was very proud of their father, too. Zitu was one of the most powerful Zulu chiefs, and head of the Zulu king’s council. He was rich, rich enough tohave six wives, and this was why Nomusa was lucky enough to have thirty brothers and sisters.
“I heard our father talking to my mother about the elephant hunt,” Sisiwe went on. “This time he is taking some of our older brothers with him.”
Nomusa’s brown eyes grew big with excitement. “Oh, Sisiwe, how I should love to go! Do you suppose I could?”
Sisiwe opened her eyes in astonishment. “A girl go on an elephant hunt? Who ever heard of such a thing? Why, Nomusa, you talk as if you were our brother Mdingi!”
“It is true that I do not like girls’ work,” Nomusa said sadly.
“Nomusa!” Makanya called out sharply from within the hut.
“I am here, my mother,” answered Nomusa, quickly crawling through the low opening of the hut. A delicious smell of food cooking enveloped her as she entered. Corn mush and bananas were steaming in a pot over the fire.
After the dazzling sunshine outdoors, it took one’seyes several seconds to be able to see inside the dark hut. It was just one large room; on the long pole extending from one end of the hut to the other hung baskets, wooden milk pails, gourds, and other things used in the vegetable gardens.
There was a saucerlike hole in the middle of the floor. Here they made the fire for cooking. Nomusa and her mother had gone to great trouble to pound a mixture of ant-heap sand, clay, and cow dung into the dirt floor, pounding and rubbing it with large smooth stones so it would gleam and glisten. She hoped her father would notice that they were good housekeepers.
“What kept you so long, my daughter?” asked Makanya. “I have been waiting for the water. Did you forget your father is coming to visit us? Stir the fire while I feed Bala.”
Nomusa’s mother gently laid the baby on a mat while she took an earthenware jar from the cool earth on one side of the room. In this jar was milk that had been left to sour into thick, large clots. The milk was cold and curdlike. Then Makanya picked up Bala and held her on her grass-skirted lap. The fat baby beganto coo expectantly, holding up her brown, dimpled hands to her mother. Like a bird she opened her mouth, uttering cooing sounds. Makanya slowly poured some of the clotted milk into the baby’s mouth. Bala began to smack her lips happily, but suddenly her expression turned into one of disappointment and disgust. She did not like her new food, and she would not swallow it, but began spitting it out as fast as she could. The clotted milk dribbled over her chin and down her chubby body.
But the thick sour clots were good for babies, and Nomusa’s mother was determined that Bala should swallow them. She tried again to pour some of the nourishing clotted milk into the baby’s mouth. This time Bala held her lips tightly closed.
Looking on anxiously, Nomusa thought it a pity that the baby did not yet have sense enough to know how good clotted milk tasted. She and her brothers loved it and did not get it half often enough.
“Nomusa!” called her mother. “Hold Bala’s arms.”
“Oh, Mother, I do not like to do this,” said Nomusa. She was always unhappy when her little sister cried.
Makanya pinched together Bala’s nostrils so thatshe could not breathe. At once the baby opened her mouth for air, and when she did so, her mother quickly poured in some of the clotted milk. Bala choked and spluttered, but finally she had to swallow what was in her mouth. Frantically she struggled, and tiny as she was, she showed a strength that grew out of terror and desperation. She let out a fierce cry of rage which almost brought tears to Nomusa’s sorrowful eyes.
“Yo, I am glad that’s over,” said Nomusa.
By this time Bala was covered with white splashes, and some of the clots had fallen on her mother’s skirt.
“Here, Puleng!” called Nomusa.
Into the hut he came running, followed by Themba, who was not yet tall enough to have to crawl in through the low entrance of the hut, but did it to imitate the older children and to show he was grown up.
The dog did not have to be told what he had been called for. Without delay, he began licking off the milk splashes from Bala’s naked little body, leaving her skin smooth and moist. The baby seemed to enjoy the dog’s warm tongue on her body. It soothed her and made her forget how miserable she had been.
“Now the water, Nomusa,” said her mother.
Nomusa brought it to her. Her mother took a large mouthful of the water, held it in her mouth a little until it was warm, and then squirted it on Bala. She did this over and over again until the delighted baby was thoroughly washed. She was then laid on her mother’s mat, where she promptly stuck two fingers in her mouth and fell asleep.
[Mother]
Seeing that the clotted milk jar had not been put away, Themba begged softly, “I’m hungry, Nomusa. Me, too.”
Nomusa poured some of the milk into his mouth.
“Here, little greedy. But then you must let me wash you.”
She filled a hollow gourd with water and held it high over Themba’s head, letting the water trickle over him. Themba danced up and down holding his hands over his head and shouting, “It’s raining, it’s raining!”
“Tula!” warned his mother. “You’ll wake the baby.”
Nomusa began rubbing her hand up and down his sturdy little body to clean him. She loved all her little sisters and brothers, even those belonging to Zitu’s other wives.
“I’m going to eat now, Themba. Run outdoors. When I have finished and done some work for mother, I’ll come and playHlunguluwith you.”
This was Themba’s favorite game; so he ran out of the hut, forgetting in his haste that he should have crawled out if he was to be thought grown up.
[Baby]
[Huts]