Majesty Baobab

A Short Story by LJ Kundananji

 

The main character in Majesty Baobab is Kalulu.'Kalulu' is the Bemba word for Bunny or rabbit. 'Kalulu' is a common figure in most Zambian folklore and is well-known for his wit and whimsicality.

For Zilinde

They say Kalulu was the cleverest of all the animals in the jungle. They just say so, but I believe it is true. He was the cleverest, they say, not because he had the biggest brain, but because he saw things clearly and was never deceived by mere outward appearances.

All the animals in the jungle were very religious and had contrived all sorts of rituals to appease god. The biggest of this ritual was the ‘bog pit baptism’ ritual.

Every morning, the animals immersed themselves, body and whole, for about five minutes in the bog pit that stood next to the wise old Baobab tree. The tree was called wise because it had lived a very long time. In fact, it had outlived all the other animals in the jungle. It had seen many days and in all its lifetime, it had been a silent observer of all the things done under the sun—the good things and the bad things; the small things and the big things; the foolish things and the wise things. Indeed, it knew the answers to all of life’s big questions. This tree, addressed reverently as Majesty Baobab, was their god. It was this god that they appeased, or thought they appeased, each morning when they performed the bog pit baptism.

Each morning, the lion king would lead all the animals to the bog pit and would observe with a strict eye as every animal immersed itself. This ritual, unlike the others, was a compulsory pious activity and no animal was supposed to miss it under any circumstances. Even the sick, no matter how ill, were supposed to immerse themselves in the bog pit.

After the immersion, though dripping wet of mud, sludge and slime, the animals would gather at the base of the tree for prayer. King Lion, in all his majesty and splendor, would then lead the animals in prayer. Each time he roared, all the animals would bow down and utter: “Long live Majesty Baobab! Long live Majesty Baobab! Long live Majesty Baobab!” They would do this seven times.

Afterwards, the lion king would leave the sacrifice, a pot of the most delicious and tender meat, at the base of the tree. Then he would disperse the animals with a majestic and frightful roar. When the animals returned the following morning, they would find the pot empty. This was an indication that Majesty Baobab had accepted the sacrifice. He always accepted the sacrifice.

Any animal who for one reason or another missed the bog pit baptism was killed and offered as a sacrifice to mighty Majesty Baobab.

At first Kalulu went along with this ritual like everyone else without so much as raising an eyebrow, that is, if he did have an eyebrow to raise. After all, who would want to get killed?

It was not long, however, before some things began to bother little Kalulu. He soon started to ask his parents questions.

“Dad,” he asked one day, “why is it that we get ill and itchy after the bog pit baptism?”

“It is a sign that we are being healed spiritually.” His father said.

“But I thought that if we get healed, we should feel good and happy, not ill.”

“Sometimes, when a person is healed, he should get ill before he gets better.”

At first, he was satisfied with this answer and did not ask anymore about it. In fact, he attended the baptism with more enthusiasm than before. And afterwards, when he would get all ill and itchy, he would feel happy about it because he knew he was being cleansed by Majesty Baobab.

Soon, however, he was bothered by the way the animals that refused to attend the baptism were killed.

“Why would Majesty Baobab demand such a cruel thing?” he asked.

“It is not Majesty Baobab who demands it; it is the animals themselves who bring it upon themselves,” his mother told him. “By refusing to be baptized, they choose death for themselves.”

Again, this answer satisfied little Kalulu and he would skip happily to get baptized.

A little while later, his little brain got curious again, and once more, he was asking.

“Dad, trees don’t hear, do they?”

“No…” his father replied without thinking.

“Then why do we bow down to Majesty Baobab and shout praises to him seven times?”

Putting his paw around him, his father, with a tense look on his face and perhaps a bead of sweat or two under his fur, said: “Majesty Baobab is a special tree. He is the only tree that can hear us. He has to hear so that he can help us with our problems…”

Once again, he was content with this answer and never asked questions for a long time, much to his parents’ happiness. They were getting afraid that one day, he would ask a question that they would never answer.

The annoying thing about Kalulu, they say, was that he got cleverer as he grew up. The other animals got more dull and gullible as they aged, but not Kalulu. They just say so, but I believe it. He began to think seriously about their way of worshipping Majesty Baobab and he now had even more questions than before; questions even more difficult.

“Trees don’t eat like we do, do they?” he asked his father, all grey with age now.

“NO…” his father replied sleepily.

“Then where does that food that we put in the pot at the base of Majesty Baobab go?”

His father started, the sleepy expression on his face suddenly vanishing. He coughed long and hard, so hard that he almost coughed out his lungs.

“Are you alright father?” he asked worriedly.

“Do not ask any more irreverent questions,” he stammered with annoyance. “Don’t, or else Majesty Baobab will strike you dead!”

Hence from that day, Kalulu did not ask any more questions, not because he was afraid of being struck by Majesty Baobab, but because he did not want to annoy his father any further. He had learnt from observation that trees never struck animals. It was king Lion that did. So he decided to find his own answers and not bother his aged parents anymore.

The answers that Kalulu found disturbed him very much. He discovered that all that he had devotedly believed in from childhood was far from the truth. Eventually, he got tired. He got tired of doing things just because he was afraid of being killed. He was tired of getting all ill and itchy after the bog pit baptisms. He was tired of screaming his lungs out every morning to a deaf tree. Yes, he was tired of believing that Majesty Baobab could see, hear, speak and strike animals dead.

One day, when his mother woke him up for the morning worship, he just turned and faced the wall.

“I am not going anymore,” he said with his eyes closed.

His mother burst into tears. “Don’t be foolish my son; you don’t want to die, do you?”

Kalulu did not respond. His mother ran out of the burrow screaming. A few moments later, she scurried down the burrow with his father just behind her. They were dismayed to find their dear son still sleeping.

“Son! What is the meaning of this foolishness?” his father boomed, his grey hairs standing on end. Kalulu turned lazily and faced them. He opened one eye.

“I have decided not to do it anymore… I don’t care what happens to me…”

“I am sure you know the consequences…” his father said in a sober tone.

“Let that come upon me.” Kalulu said with a yawn.

“Please my son! Do come with us!”

“Nope!”

“Let’s go,” his father said taking his wife’s paw. “There was a grim expression on his face. “He had decided to bring this evil on his own little self…”

They left with utter sadness, his mother crying all the way.

After the morning worship, King Lion commanded father and mother Kalulu to be brought before him. The king’s body guards, a pack of ravenous wild dogs, dragged them before him. Every part of their body, including their ears, was trembling from fear.

“Where is your son?” the king roared.

“Back at home,” Kalulu’s father said, with his face so low to the ground that he was licking up dust with his tongue as he spoke.

“Why is he at home when he was supposed to be here worshiping with us?”

“He refused to come.”

“Refused?” the king smirked with pleasure.

“Yes your majesty.”

“Guards, go and fetch Kalulu… he will die today.”

The dogs raced off excitedly.

“Now, get off from before my face…or else you will die too.” He yelled. Kalulu’s parents ran off to join the other animals.

A few moments later, Kalulu was brought before the king. He looked surprisingly imperturbable.

“Kalulu,” King Lion began, waving his mane majestically, “before I pass my sentence, do you have anything that you would like to say to explain your foolish behaviour?”

“King Lion,” Kalulu began, standing erect. “You and I both know the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is that Majesty Baobab under whose shade you seat sprawled like the majesty you are, hears nothing of what we say and sees nothing of what we do.”

The rest of the animals murmured with amazement. There were looks of terror on everyone’s faces.

“Blasphemy, how dare you!” King Lion shouted in fury. He got up to his feet. “How dare you insult god!”

“This insult that you speak of,” Kalulu continued with a great calmness, “Majesty Baobab does not feel its sting, but only you…because he is nothing but a mere tree.”

“You are going to die with no mercy!”

“Die I have chosen. I prefer to die than to live with the lies. And these are the lies: that wallowing in dirt cleanses us; that this ancient tree hears what we say; that the meat that we place at the base of this dear old baobab tree is eaten by the tree while we sleep. This is a lie that we’ve been made to believe all our lives. The unpalatable truth is that at night, while we slumber, King Lion and his body guards dine on those tasty morsels. It is no wonder they are so healthy!”

“This is high treason!” King Lion boomed, jumping at Kalulu. He pinned him to the ground with a paw on his chest and glared at him in the face. His sharp nail tore into his skin. The animals gasped in shock.

“I will kill you myself!”

“If Majesty Baobab is really the god that you say he is,” Kalulu said, “then let him kill me himself. Why should you, o king, do everything for him? Let him display his power.”

The King stared at him goggle-eyed. He appeared stunned. He lifted his paw and stuck out his razor sharp claws. Kalulu shut his eyes and prepared to die.

Suddenly, Kalulu felt the king lift off his heavy paw from his chest. He next heard the most dreadful noise that he had never heard before. He opened his eyes and was shocked to find that all the animals had vanished. He jumped to his feet and looked around thoroughly.

“Where on earth is that dreadful noise coming from?” he wondered with dismay.

Then he saw it, the strangest creature he had ever seen. It was monstrously large and was moving at a furious pace towards him. It was making noise as if of a giant elephant sucking up water from a lake through its giant trunk. Full of dread and fright, Kalulu ran to take cover in the long grass. The huge monster ran all the way to Majesty Baobab on its large round legs. It came to a stop within a few inches of the tree.

Kalulu watched with horror as its side opened and several creatures jumped out. They looked extremely peculiar and walked upright on their hinds.

“Humans!” Kalulu whispered to himself. “They must be humans!”

His heart banged wildly against his chest. He felt a strange excitement. The humans gathered around the trees. They were about thirty of them. Kalulu could not see exactly what it was that they were doing, but after while, he heard a loud buzzing sound, like that of a giant bee. He shuddered.

The humans were now all over the tree. Some were climbing and tying ropes on its brunches. After several minutes of intense activity, Kalulu watched with intense shock as Majesty Baobab crushed to the ground with a deafening noise. He gaped on in utter disbelief. A cloud of dust shot up into the air.

The humans jumped back into the creature and it galloped away furiously.

Slowly and cautiously, the animals crept out of their hiding place one by one. They were too shocked for words. They stared sorrowfully at their fallen god. King Lion walked towards the tree and scrutinised the stump and the fallen tree. There was a look of extreme horror on his face. He stared around mournfully and slowly walked away, his pack of body guards followed behind with their heads hanging low and their tails between their legs. They say that is the last any one saw of him.

“This your god,” Kalulu shouted with a smirk, “could not save itself; how could it save you? A god has to protect and save its worshippers and as it had been shown today, it did nothing of that!”

The animals, with long faces, nodded their heads in agreement. Kalulu’s parents ran up to him, their eyes soaked with tears of joy.

“Are you happy that your god is dead, or that I am still alive?” Kalulu asked.

“That you are alive,” his mother exclaimed hugging him.

“Don’t know what to say, son—about what has happened today.” father Kalulu said, shaking his head in disbelief, “It seemed what you said; it’s been proved true. But it almost cost you your life.”

“It had to take the death of your god to believe,” Kalulu said with a slight smile. “If a person is right, he has to endure in his belief even if the whole world is against him. Always, in the end, the truth is vindicated. Even if the person dies, the truth is always vindicated.”

As the humans galloped away in the belly of the creature, one of them said to his companion who was steering the monstrous creature: “But why that tree? It could have been a tourist attraction and earned us quite a lot of money!”

Said he: “I was just following the orders. The tree was in the way; right in the middle of where the new road is going to run.”

They say Kalulu was made king because of his wit and articulation. They just say so, I don’t know if it is true. But you know what I think? I think he refused and embarked on a journey to find answers to his many questions. He knew that no tree, no matter how old, was going to find answers for him.

They say Kalulu was the cleverest animal in the jungle. They just say so. But I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was true.

© 2008 Kundananji Creations

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