CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
The other villagers,who had been working stopped to watch the fun and soon everyone began taking their turn against the chief, who was the prevailing champion.
Caught up in the excitement, I jumped up to face him. I latched hold of his forearms, bracing myself against the shaking of my balance. Sago clung to his short beard and fro, like a dusting of snow. His wide mouth pressed into a smile and his eyes flickered with play.
“Do you not remember the last time you played against me, Sid-de-nee?” he said, grunting, his hand grasping my arms. I pushed with all my strength, but he was solid. The crowd around us chattered noisily.
“You can’t win if you don’t try,” I grunted, trying to disrupt his balance.
The magnetic force between the two of us was hot enough to cook any food.
I felt it in the tightness of my skin and the closeness of our bodies, and I laughed and squealed as we played.
My Chocos were no match for his strong, bare feet and long toes.
His strength completely outmatched my own, but his gentleness allowed me a few moments of perceived victory until he wrapped his arms around me and picked me up, placing me on the ground, securing his win.
I forgot to ask him about returning to Makia.`
v
One of the huts in the main part of the village had been decorated in bright orange and red flowers and long light green grasses in a beautiful canopy of color. Sali told me weddings were very special occasions and all the clans gathered, as they were able, to come witness and bring their blessing.
I was lucky enough to be brought into the inner circle of women who helped prepare the bride for her special day. We helped bathe her, rubbing her body with a sweet smelling oil that left her caramel skin shining beautifully.
M’lea, Talula’s grandmother, allowed me to help with the face painting. Traditionally, the bride and her family gather in one part of the village and the groom with his family, in another. So Talula and Stahgan had their faces painted separately.
In addition to pumpkin and taro plants, betel nut and papaya trees, the village grew lipstick trees and gaharu.
I pinched a prickly pod of the lipstick tree and out spurt red paint that we used to paint her face, making her appear as a wild animal.
Then there was a ceremony where Talula’s outfit was brought to her and gifted, piece by piece, by members of her family.
She wore a large, three-tired, colorful grass skirt and an intricate bodice made of cowrie shells that dangled all around her.
Arm bracelets and ankle bracelets made of shell and beads, and a headpiece of shell, twine, and feathers crowned her short, wiry hairstyle, giving her the look of a primordial tribal princess when it was all complete.
I joined Sali in my own preparation, accepting a new dress made from a light fabric that felt cool on my skin.
It was sleeveless and short, barely reaching the top of my knees, and fluttered in the wind.
Its red background dotted with tiny white flowers reminded me of a dress you might buy at a roadside market.
It was cheaply made, but infinitely more becoming than the brown tunic I had worn for the past few weeks.
Sali pulled my hair halfway up and filled the clasp with little white flowers that matched the dress. She painted my face with little white dots that ran the length of my nose and across my cheek bones. I actually felt beautiful for the first time in a while.
“I remember my own weddings like they were just yesterday,” Sali sighed. “My first, to Mechow, was much like this. All the clans gather. Much feasting and celebration and only a month after, I was with child.” I remembered Sali’s first son had died young.
“What about with Robert?” I asked, wanting to distract her from her sorrow. I brushed paint on her wrinkled skin, transforming her to look like a wild tiger. Everyone wore some form of face paint for the celebration.
“Oh, the wedding much smaller, then. I was already a woman with children. But Robert was my true love. I was marrit to him much longer then to Mechow. But no children. Robert could not make them. But he raised mine like his own,” she was thoughtful.
I took the opportunity to ask something I’d thought about, “Talula is your great-granddaughter, and M’Lea’s granddaughter…so where is her mother?”
“My granddaughter, Jara died from the sickness that took Jahnu’s father and wife. We lost so many that year…”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, stunned. “The Hundi have lived with so much loss.”
“Our losses make our love even more meaningful,” the old woman said. “And you, pikinini? Have you ever loved?”
Her question caught me off guard, halting my painting.
Yes, I suppose I had. I loved Greg, didn’t I?
I had said yes to him and waited for years so we could finally have the one thing I never got as a child—a normal family.
But true love, like Sali mentioned. Is that how I loved Greg?
Did I even know what that felt like? I’d never been a big feeler, because feelings never led anywhere good.
Was love even a feeling anyway? Or was it just a choice to continue to say yes to the person you vowed yourself to, day after day?
That was more how I saw things, and yet, had I vowed myself to Greg or was I resigned to him?
I thought of Jahnu and how the past few weeks had me doubting everything I’d ever thought about my emotions and the control I possessed over them.
That’s why feelings couldn’t be trusted.
Emotions were too fickle and I was uncomfortable with this line of conversation because I knew what I felt for Jahnu was growing past what I could control.
“I’ve loved plenty in my life,” I said quickly, before Sali asked about my losses. “I think that does it,” I said, attaching a single flower behind the old woman’s ear. “You are beautiful and we are ready, and we don’t want to be late,” I smiled inwardly.
We exited the bridal hut to a hundred or more Hundi gathered in all their various colors, their faces painted, their palm skirts twirling.
The procession began.
Bamboo drums beat a constant rhythm and the tinkling of shells mixed with the tribal singing of the clan as they made their way down the path to the wedding hut.
Sali, M’lea, and Talula’s father carried large bowls on their heads filled with coconut husks lit on fire.
Smoke billowed, surrounding the bride. Her maidens waved large, wooden fans around her, causing the smoke to rise and soar overhead.
Children ran in and out of the procession, shouting and laughing. I was caught up in the joyous occasion.
We reached the hut, entering under another beautifully decorated arch, and Talula’s procession mixed with the family who had come for Stahgan.
There were now easily over two-hundred souls crowding the yard, both young and old alike, singing, dancing, yipping in their native language—awash in a sea of brilliant colored clothes, bright painted faces, intricate head pieces, and wide, white-toothed smiles.
Jahnu mingled with the crowd. He wore the same tribal thong I’d seen him in before, with freshly cut palm leaves tucked in at his waist in a vibrant green skirt that covered his nakedness.
Shell and feather necklaces stacked across his muscled chest, and on his head he wore the tribal crown, a woven detail of shells and horn, with a plume of black Cassowary feathers making him appear two feet taller than he was.
He was…beautiful. Regal. Breathtaking. He smiled at me, that grin that spread across his entire face, creasing his cheeks with long, wide smile-lines.
A grin that made me feel like I was home.
I smiled back, and a knowledge settled in my mind just as sure as the butterflies stirred in my stomach. I had fallen for him.
Talula grasped Stahgan’s hands and their families surrounded them, placing their hands together in a circle, like a sports team before a big game. The crowd quieted, and Jahnu spoke a wedding blessing in their native language, finally announcing they were now husband and wife.
Two families had become one new family, and the group dispersed, leading Talula and Stahgan inside the open hut to sit next to each other to receive gifts.
Stahgan’s family hauled the bride-price and presented it to Talula’s parents.
A large pig, trussed upside down and carried on a long pole by two men.
Others brought handmade carvings painted in beautiful colors, woven mats, clothing, performance art including demonstrations by master-weavers and carvers, as gifts to the bride and groom.
And of course, food. Tons and tons of food, spread out in front of the hut, filling bowls and baskets, overflowing onto the palm branches that had been spread out like picnic blankets at a park.
Several of the men in the tribe presented Stahgan with the skin of a crocodile, a pukpuk, they had called it.
To my amazement, I’d seen them bring the croc into the village this morning.
It had taken seven of them to carry it on their shoulders, though it was small, probably about four feet long.
There was much excitement over their kill.
They’d spent all day skinning it, and I guessed, had begun to cook it, because the unmistakable scent of roasting meat over an open fire carried on the wind.
The dancing lasted long into the evening and soon the families spread out, taking their share of the delicious food that had cooked in the mumu all day.
I sat with Sali amongst the family of the bride, and we ate, surrounded by laughter and joy, and I was hugged around the neck by adults and children alike, as if I was one of them.