How Our Elders Would Have Coped With ”Dumsor” At Night

Actually, our “elders” would not have known what DUMSOR was!

For they did not even have what our learned Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, irrelevantly calls “access to electricity”, much less know that electricity is only useful when it is on tap; i.e. that it powers appliances into life when summoned to do so by the pressing of a switch. For what is the point of having “access” to electricity, if it’s not there when required to perform?

It’s like a man keeping a woman in his bed who resolutely insists on “locking” her vital body parts, right?

I mean -- imagine asking one’s bachelor friends with an embarrassed air, ”Hey guys, anyone got any – um -‘flesh’ to -- um -- spare? For pressing purposes, you know?”

”Ho, but you are married, man! You keep reminding us of that fact whenever we ask you to join us at a w---w---w--ild party!?!”

”Well, the wife has repudiated that part of her marriage vows that relate to “obeying” me. Ever since I refused to allow her younger brother to transform the ”hall” part of our tiny "chamber-and-hall" into a hotel for himself and his friends, she turns away from me disdainfully whenever I try to press her flesh !!”

“Oh—h—h—h—h—h--h! Poor old Joe! He's become a by-force eunuch ohhh!!!"

HAHAHAHAHAHA!
"He’s being pussy-whipped ohhhhh!!”

(HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
"His adored wife is fighting with him: "Saa ye ohhhhhhh!"

(HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
“Yie-e-e-e-e-e! Is this you? You used to mock Ernest Hemingway for being a 'macho' guy who, you claimed, had become impotent in his later life, and that his book, To have and have not, was autobiographical, didn't you?”

(HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
“Ei, the man has got Lysistrataherself installed in his bed o!”

(UPROAR)
“His wife has turned into the bird, Asantorofie;if you pick it up, you have collected taboo; yet if you let it go, you have left behind a treasured entity!” (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

“What? Asantorofie bird? I love that. The saying captures the idea of a paradoxical conundrum immaculately! You can’t take it and yet you can’t leave it!”

”Ah, Tu Bra! Where did you lift that story from?”

HAHAHAHAHAHA!
“From an uncle of mine called Kofi Bunto. He was an illiterate Shakespeare, I tell you!

"And he could verbalise a linguistic monstrostiy like the conumdrum of a paradox?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"You'd be shocked to learn that many of our elders like him wrote their ideas into the brains of those of amongst the young children who had ears to hear with. But, of course, some were so stupid that they allowed what they had been taught at home to overthrow or jettison what they learnt in school! The consequence is that many of us can can recite Shakespeare and Tennyson at the drop of a hat. Without batting an eyelid. But when we hear talking drums reciting our own history, we are left standing. Dead! Even what we heard from our elders, which they took pains to explain to us -- where is it all today?”

(UNEASY PAUSE)
“Hmm -- I can hear you thinking! But let me go on: back in the days when oil wicker-lamps and flaming wood were our only source of light in the evenings…."

"Yes?"
“.... But before I go any further, let me tell you that the background to the stiry I am about to tell you is that some of the elders in my house artlessly betrayed their fascination with the onset of Darkness at night, without meaning to! Papa Kofi Bunto, for instance, used to describe “bundles” or “loads” he claims to have seen swimming about in the night sky. He said he had observed them pass over the roofs of houses, twirling round and round, and going on to land somewhere unseen.

“He was very convincing you know! Yet? I mean – come on: "bundles” of exactly what? “Swimming about” in the sky? And – conveniently -- only he saw them? At night?

“Well, nowadays, I am no longer dismissive of such stories. Why would anyone else be there when he saw those things? Obviously, he must have been walking by himself in the night. For if he had been walking with someone else, they would have engaged in conversation, wouldn't they, in which case, the heavenly object(s) would have sailed by unseen?"

"I must admit you're making a convincing case!"

"I am glad to hear you say that. But I'd add this: ask yourself, why would the guy lie? And lie to kids -- with whom, unlike his peers, he wasn't competing for anything -- such as social status?

"Also remember that being alone in the dark sharpens the senses! I mean, one is always slightly afraid of “The Dark”, no matter how brave one thinks one is, No?! And so, one’s eyes begin to see things in a “sharper” focus, so to speak, as the hidden fear tries to help one to prepare to defend oneself -- in case dwarfs suddenly appear!"

(HAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
"I prefer the idea of ghosts! Do you know that the ghosts of people who die through motor-car accidents aren't supposed to stay dead but hang about, frightening people? Such a ghost is sometimes called Osaman Twentwen -- the ghost who "waits-and-waits" before making it to The Other World!! Another name for them is Osaman-te-fie (the ghost who stays at home!) Other ghosts are called Osaman-kwankyen (the ghostthat lurks about in the pathways)."

(HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
"A ghost waiting? Waiting for what?"
"Well, some of them are said to have enjoyed life so much that when they die, they don't want to leave behind, the life that they used to enjoy! Being cut off so suddenly by an accident fazes them and they try to stay around as long as possible. Until one day, Sasabonsamhimself, king of "The Underworld," comes with his long legs and arms, to pluck them up, up and away, to let them know that dade bi twa dade bim' -- some "iron can cut through iron" -- and so, some spirits are more more powerful than than other spirits!"

"Agyei! Here comes The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses!!"

(UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER)
“In any case, is the idea of “loads” swimming about in the sky (if I may return to the subject) really such a “load” of crap? I mean, is it not possible that what Papa Kofi Bunto had witnessed was the fall of what we know as “asteroid” fragments? When asteroids break up in the sky as they leave outer space and enter the earth’s atmosphere, can't they take the shape of "bundles?"? I mean a guy who has never seen anything like that could assume it was a "bundle" of some sort -- anything that comes to his mind, in fact. And if he believed in supernatural things, a "bundle" was perfect! I mean -- isn't the Tigare bosom or fetish supposed to reside inside a mysterious "bundle" [botor] covered with red leather and smeared with blood and kola-nuts?

"I mean, when a rookie fetish priest completes his apprenticeship and is initiated by the Tigare chief priest at Nkwatanang, in the Kwahu District, or Iphala in the North, what do they say of him? "Wakogye botor!" [He has gone and collected a bundle!] So, there's nothing strange or extraordinary in Papa Kofi Bunto saying that what he saw -- which he didn't know were asteroid fragments -- falling to the ground, were in the shape of a "bundle", is there?

“I mean -- what prevents the splinters of space matter from taking on the shape of “bundles”, some big and some small – in the eyes of a person with an impressionable mind fed on a weird, eerie mixture of creatures from "Another Dimension", such as ghosts, dwarfs, Sasabonsam and angels? Especially in The Deep Darkness of Night? I mean -- doesn’t the human eye try to accustom what it is seeing for the first time to what it has seen before, in order to make sense of it?

“So, I think that because Papa Kofi knew what a bortor looked like, he used that word to describe what he saw -- even if it wasn't exactly a bortor as we know it!!"

At this point, someone interjected: "Bortor! I like that word! It sounds mysterious; it conveys the idea of something not known! For instance: who knows exactly what is inside a Tigare bortor? Behind that blood-smeared leather? And who knows what is inside thebortor or baggy pockets of a Zabrama man's long twakoto [half-length trousers] ?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"You've reminded me of Zawuni, the Zabrama man who carried his pampam store [tray of goods] on his head to our village every now and then and sold us tae [strips of rubber] for our catapults."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
“You can laugh, but I want you to seriously consider the fact that scientists -- especially geologists and archaeologists -- come upon fascinating, space-originated objects all the time. These things are usually found in craters formed on the earth’s surface when the objects land and split up. Besides, what are “shooting stars” anyway? Or “comets”?

“Would your Papa Kofi Bunto not have been pleased if told that no less a person than ‘Paa Willy’ Shakespeare himself had corroborated his observations?"

"Good man! You're right -- ‘Paa Willy’ Shakespeare was basically talking about flaming ”bundles” in the sky when he wrote inJulius Caesar:

"When beggars die,
There are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves
Blaze forth the death of princes."
“You know, when Shakespeare writes such things, we embrace it and chew it by heart so well that we can recall it without batting an eyelid. But when the Kofi Buntos of this world say it, then we laugh at them and call them "superstitious", or at best “fantasists” who “imagine” things they thought they had seen in The Dark! Blast it! -- I ask you-- what was Shakespeare, if not a “fantasist” whoimagined all manner of “Dark Happenings” -- such as in kingdoms like Denmark, if you still remember your Hamlet?”

HAHAHAHAHAHA!
"Remember Hamlet? Who could forget Hamlet?"

"Okay, then, was Hamlet The Prince of Denmark any the less real because Shakespeare imagined him into existence? Listen to this: what could be more true than that?:

Heaven and earth,
Must I remember?
Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on ’t. Frailty, thy name is woman!

(LOUD APPLAUSE)
"Hey, the cobwebs haven't reached that part of the guy's brain yet!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
" Haha! I strongly believe that Papa Kofi Bunto and other elders in my household were very good at telling us very interesting truths – mainly when we gathered around the fire at night. Some of these were things they had seen with their own eyes. But others were pure fiction – Anansesem -- a term which, if you recall, is derived originally from the "doings" and "words about" the ever-present, mythical figure of Kwaku Ananse, but was later broadened to encompass all our folk tales.

"Now listen -- was this next story fiction or fact-based? As for me, I don't know and I don't care which it was. I don’t know! I am only interested in the illumination it provides for some of the happenings in life. It goes like this: A married woman who, unlike the one we met earlier, hadn't withdrawn her services from her husband...."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
" Indeed, she was so much in love with him that she was anxious to cook a “super-sweet” soup for him. So what she did was to pile into the soup, everything that she had heard could make a soup delicious – goat meat, chicken meat, akrantier [grass-cutter] snails, prawns, salted pork trotters (prako ntwereh) dried fish (including koobi (!) and a lot of other "sweet" additives. All together!

"Afterwards, she tasted the soup to see whether she had achieved her aim. But what she tasted on her tongue was very bitter! And then, just as she was wondering what she could do to rescue the soup, her husband arrives home.

Desperate, the woman got hold of a pot of honey she’d bought to eat koko (porridge) with. Honey was sweeter than anything on earth, wasn’t it? That was what everybody said. Yeah -- that would rescue the soup.

"So, she poured the pot of honey into the soup. Then she served the soup, with the cocoyam fufuoher husband loved so much, to him. Then she modestly went to sit in her kitchen to await the words of endearment that she thought her husband would be addressing to her momentarily.

"But what she heard was her husband spitting soup out of his mouth with a mighty splutter and yelling as if he was in deep pain.

“Hohh!Whath kind of thoup ith thith?” the husband exploded.

The woman quickly rushed to his side and enquired, ”Oh why, don’t you like this most delicious soup I have cooked for you? I took so much trouble over it! I put in....”

"SHUTH UP, WOMAN!" the man shouted. “Delithious thoup? If this is whath you call delithious thoup, then what would you call thoup made with quinine?” He quickly got up and began to wash his mouth with water.

”Quinine? Did you say quinine?” the woman roared. She was now sobbing uncontrollably.

“Yeth!” the man shouted, disappointment having turned him quite sadistic. He could not conceive of the idea that his wife might have made a mistake but had meant no harm.

"Waxing even more eloquent, he continued: "That thoup tastes as if it conthains not just quinine, but quinine with the bile of an aperseradded to it!” (An aperser is a member of the grass-cutter family. Its meat is tender and extremely tasty, but the animal is endowed with a bile that is so overpowering in its bitterness that if, on cutting up its body, one makes a mistake and cuts open the bile by accident, the entire body would be suffused with a bitter taste and become inedible.)

"At that final insult, the woman began to pack her bags. She was convinced that her husband no longer loved her and had used the soup as an excuse to get rid of her in favour of a new woman he had met whom she didn't know about.

"The man, for his part, thought that no woman who could put such a horrible soup before him could possibly love him. So he watched her unmoved as she packed her pots and pans and her clothes and made her way back to her family home...

What the poor woman had not appreciated was that when some types of sweetness are piled on to other types, the superfluity of it all creates an end-result that is utterly opposite to what was envisaged. And that is why our elders told us that "Bebirebe ye mmusuo!", meaning: “Too much of everything is bad!”

"Now, do you see how our elders used to teach us wisdom around the fireside? Imagine children sitting in a circle by a fire and hearing ten such stories per night! All enveloped in a little lesson -- or "moral" -- that taught us what life was about!

"Can we ever get back, that noble art of oral story-telling that we have allowed ourselves -- so stupidly -- to just lose? Had we not lost that art, we would be welcoming "dumsc" each night, instead of cursing it!

Editor's Note: Indeed: What is done these days when DUMSↃ” strikes, and the television and radio can no longer tell stories to their owners? Ten Cedis for the most convincing and entertaining answer!