A White Woman To The Congo: The Tale of Sumpi, a traditional Chief's Man & Ears

Letter

1. Bingo

Our story starts in a small village called Bingo nestled in the heart of Central Africa. It had been built by an American Presbyterian missionary around the year 1900. Pastor Ritis Brown and his wife had actually first been welcomed in Katele, a nearby village. After a few months of their stay there, the young pastor had already become fairly familiar with the surrounding areas that supported the people of Katele. The villagers were surviving mostly on maize, cassava leaves and roots of the yucca plant also called manioc. The savanna provided resources for the hunters. Fish and crocodile meat were obtained from the nearby Busela river and the many small streams meandering through the vast plain and the dense rainforest. The Momu stream was of particular interest to pastor Ritis Brown. One day, while following the women who were passing by to fetch water with vase-like pots on their heads, he ventured further than usual to discover that the Momu carried water of extraordinary clarity. He could see the pebbles on the bottom of the river as the crystalline cool rushed by. Looking up, rising before his eyes, he saw an impressive hill, covered in lush tropical forest. He interrupted the women who were singing while filling their pots with fresh water. In his broken Luba language he inquired what was to be found at the top of the elevation. Bingo cried the women in dismay, Bingo they gesticulated repeatedly with ardent signs of warning. His first reaction was to believe that Bingo was some kind of wild animal deity that frightened the locals. Soon enough the women explained to him that right there, on top of the hill, was lying in very high concentration a particular type of rock that the locals called Bingo. This rock seemed to have a most unusual connection with the sky. Each time that rain poured down, thunderstorms seemed to form, concentrate and hover lengthily above the summit. The troubled women reported that early residents of the hilltop had had to move away after several accidental deaths by lightning. Bingo, the stone on top of the hill was quite obviously attracting lightning, thus making it inhospitable, if not completely uninhabitable. Pastor Ritis Brown was ever more intrigued by such a fascinating tale and when he found out that the early settlers of the Bingo hill had left a trail, albeit over time overgrown by the abundant rainforest vegetation, he insisted that the reluctant women show him the beginning of that early path.

So, one Sunday after having held mass at the church of Katele, Pastor Ritis Brown could not help it anymore and decided to venture at last beyond the Momu stream and up the hill along the remains of the ancient trail. After four hours of battling the brush, he eventually reached the rather wide and flat top of the hill. There he was quick to notice the infamous Bingo rock formations that looked like crusty patches on a well baked dish. Trees were sparse. Pastor Ritis Brown smiled. A man still young at heart, he started jumping from one rock to another. Then he found a rock formation higher than all the others and felt compelled to climb atop. The panoramic view from up there was breathtaking. He looked down into the valley, forward of Katele. He could see the individual huts looking tiny, like toys. The sprawl of his little town seemed rather surrealistic seen from so high above. Here and there by the huts he could spot whiffs of smoke as the locals cooked their daily meal over wood fires. Pastor Brown smiled again, his curiosity finally satisfied. And he was thankful that no rain clouds were looming at the horizon so that he did not have to fear any lightning.

After this first acquaintance with the hilltop, Pastor Ritis Brown returned to Bingo many more times. First camping out there alone, but soon in the company of some villagers whose curiosity had helped them conquer their fear of the scary hill top. He also returned there many times to camp out with his wife Katy.

What had initially been an occasional escape for solitary meditation became a lively hub as Pastor Brown had managed to convince some friendly parishioners to build him a small hut with its own enclosed yard. This second residence was set well on the side of the hill in order to keep a safe distance from the core rocks that seemed to be attracting the lightning. By the hut he planted a solid sixteen foot metal pipe for added protection from lightning. Confident of the installation, he started spending nights in the hut.

One such night, as he lay there in deep reflection, all of a sudden heavy rain drops started hammering onto the tin roof and he was blinded by the flashes of lightning through the little round window opening in the wall. The flashes were so bright that he could see them even through the narrow slits in the wooden door panel. The rage of the storm was growing in strength and moving frighteningly close to his modest abode. One lightning strike in particular was just like a bundle of white fire, darting down at the very center of his little dirt yard, awash with the downpour. The surrounding area was lit up brighter than in the broadest of daylights and the horrific thunder that followed within a split second left Ritis deaf for a lengthy moment, long and terrifying enough to urge him to get up and stumble out of his hut and start to race head over heels in direction of Katele. After a few steps into the pitch black and soaked darkness he halted, realizing that without a proper kerosene storm lamp he would well be incapable of finding the path back to Katele, in a night where he could not even make out the back of his hand yet alone see his feet. Drenched to his bones, he scrambled back into his humble shelter and spent the rest of the night praying for survival and trusting that the metal rod would divert the electrical discharge from lightning bolts as he remembered from physics class at college. He was faithful that God and his teachers were watching over him.

A pioneering spirit by nature, Pastor Brown kept dreaming of establishing a new settlement on the hilltop. Turning such a dream into reality, however, was all but easy. Convincing the people of Katele to come to work at the devilish hill top was a challenge in its own right. To his dismay, even the Chief of Katele declined to intervene and make use of his powers. Birth and expansion of the village on the Bingo hill definitely was not going to happen overnight. Despite the positive survival experience of the pastor up in his hut during the fierce storm, most of the villagers of Katele still had a clinging fear of the Bingo. But quietly, patiently, Pastor Ritis Brown finally managed to convince the elite of Katele to support him with local manpower to build a little church with dirt and Bingo rocks hewn into brick shape. The blessing of the first Presbyterian Church on Bingo made the wind turn in favor of Pastor Brown's projects. The local population started to take the trail to come and pray there together. With some further government intervention and the added pressure of colonial power, a school and a dozen houses for the new dwellers were constructed. Pastor Brown was struggling with the fact of having used colonial powers. But the steady progress on the development soon dissipated his doubts. As buildings rose up, Brown went from feelings of uneasy feelings of guilt to a sense of genuine joy, fulfillment and even personal satisfaction. Another major accomplishment was the opening of the first medical center. The Presbyterian Church had even sent an American nurse who soon did more than nursing. With her help and her tireless hard work and perseverance, the medical center of Bingo was to become, through many more trials and tribulations, the hospital of Bingo. In the meantime, Katele, in the plain, had grown into a full-size town. And Bingo, the village, was clearly born again. This time it was to last.

Pastor Brown and his wife took the initiative to plant mango and orange trees and soon, in summer, there was plenty of juicy fruit freely available to the villagers. In order to avoid becoming a political figure, Pastor Brown had agreed to let one of the sons of the Katele Chief become the leader of Bingo. The first Chief of the new Bingo village was named Shupa and must have been elected around the year 1917. Ever since the empowerment of the first Chief, the story of Bingo was faithfully transmitted from generation to generation according to African oral tradition.

So, over the course of almost eighty years, Bingo had developed into a prosperous modern village, where Pastor Brown's modest house could still be found. The Momu stream had been equipped with a dam and a small hydro-electric pump to provide electrical power. The single track had been turned into a wide dirt road. The workers, wanting to be closer to their jobs in Bingo and benefit from the food offered at the church kitchen, started to build red mud brick dwellings, disseminated along the road. In its last section, the road split itself into two branches that encircled the heart of the village with its hospital, church and school. The missionaries who had followed in Pastor Brown's steps had initiated the construction of eight modern style houses. The new pastor, a trained local, lived in one of the brick lodges, where also two peace corps volunteers and the principal of the school were comfortably accommodated. The two doctors working at the hospital shared a split town house located beyond the main circle at the opposite end of the arriving road.

By 1980, three generations of Chiefs from the descendants of the Katele village Chiefs had reigned over Bingo. When the last of these Chiefs died, his son, Kazadi, was to come into power. The young man was attending school in a nearby town when four men showed up to announce the death of his father and lead him back to Katele. There, all villagers had already gathered to keep vigil with him until dark to allow him to enter Bingo without having to fear enemies and remain safely under the protection of the spirits. During that night, the elders of Bingo would, in secret ritual, empower their new and young Chief. That same night, the new Chief would also be introduced to his first wife who was traditionally offered by neighboring villages in turn. Several Chiefs would gather in emergency council and designate a virgin to be sent to the new Chief. This ensured introduction of new genes and the rotation of donating villages would avoid tensions between local families and among the counselors who elected the new Queen.

The first wife was not going to remain the only one. She would, nevertheless, always enjoy a superior position and always have her word to say in the selection, training and final approval of new wives after their probationary period in the Chief's compound. All the women of a Chief had to behave and cooperate within this well established hierarchy. It simply was an unspoken set of rules, but fully accepted by all.

2. The Chief

It was in the fifth year of his reign that Chief Kazadi was called to the capital city of the country to hear new instructions from the government. In order to widely promote its new policies and streamline its developmental efforts, the government had invited all village chiefs to attend a national conference in Kinshasa where government rooms had been set up to house them in the part of town called N'Sele. Most chiefs disposed of enough money to afford the trip. So did Chief Kazadi who had also planned to take the rare opportunity of being in the capital to visit some relatives and old school friends. The conference took its course and at the end, Chief Kazadi travelled back home. On his return to Bingo, however, everyone in the village could clearly sense that Chief Kazadi, somehow, had changed. The members of the Council noted his changed demeanor and wondered if it was the difficulty of the mission requested by the government that caused the Chief to be so markedly distant and aloof. His wives could not do enough to satisfy him. He became uneasy and irritable. His first wife Mwadi suspected, from previous experience, the existence of another, new woman who would soon be in toe. She braced herself for that always dreaded moment, even though it was part of her tribe's traditions and had to be accepted. But the days passed. Two weeks went by, uneventfully. Nothing at all happened. No new woman was announced for the Chief. Yet, he was increasingly erratic and unpredictable in his behavior. Mwadi was really worried and started questioning the possibility of the Chief having fallen seriously ill with some invisible germ caught during his stay in the capital city. He had not fetched for her since his return, and he was not touring the huts of his other wives in his compound either. Mwadi was at a loss to understand her husband's change in attitude. In Central Africa, a Chief's compound , like Kazadi's was typically surrounded by a small fence made of sticks and mud. The wide space in the center was the meeting place of the Elders, and also the place to hold celebrations for and by the Chief. The dwellings of his wives and children were lined up along the inner side of the fence. By tradition, the Chief moved from one hut to another on different nights for reasons of security, and to change partners. Only the first wife, the Mukulu, was able to know the Chief's planned whereabouts at night. Outside his compound, the Chief's powers were, even in those days, highly respected and the villagers would consult with him as it had been for dozens of generations. But in recent years, the holders of the regional colonial stakes had decided to decrease the power and influence of village Chiefs. The extreme situation being that some Chiefs ended up doing time in jail in major city prisons for having tried to resist those ever more powerful regional and colonial authorities. As such arrests seemed to occur more frequently, the village Chiefs had decided to fight back in collective protest. A process was established where at least some immunity was now granted to the local Chiefs in compensation for their responsibility