The Next One to Die
I have something to tell you my dear friends, but I don't know where to start, and every time I find myself in this situation, I take an approach that resembles the one of an eagle turning around in the sky and observing an unsuspecting chick that is scratching the ground in search of some worms. This is always good for the eagle on the condition that the chick remains unaware of what is going to happen. The chick will pick some worm or seeds; he will get fat and become good for the stomach of the eagle. So, I am that eagle who calculates and measures patiently. Humph! People say that this could be a flaw in that eagle: its arrogance, its confidence in its strength and in its method of hunting.
The popular wisdom in the Dogon lands is that the eagle and the vulture were very good friends. One day the eagle asked the vulture why he always feeds on carcasses of other animals. "Me," said the vulture, "I eat only what the Gods killed for me". To that response the eagle exploded in a huge crazy laughter and said, "I myself rely only on my strength and my intelligence." While he was talking he noticed on the ground a chick that was searching the soil by a dead tree. The eagle then turned to the vulture and said,"you see that chick there? I shall plunge with all my strength towards him and, before he understands what is happening, I shall have taken him in my claws and eaten him."
The eagle turned and circled in the sky, measured and took his aim before he shot like an arrow towards the chick. But at the last moment, the chick saw him coming and quickly ran under the roots of the dead tree. The eagle who was descending at the speed of lightning could not change his direction. He plunged straight towards the tree and ran into its roots with all his strength. The shock was so strong that he fell dead in the instant. As the chick ran away, the vulture came down from the sky, but before he started eating the eagle, he said, "I told you my dear friend that I only eat what the Gods killed. Now they have killed you." The vulture ate and enjoyed the carcass of the eagle. It is utter impatience that pushes a human being into buying the head of a dog. As long as we live, there will always be a chance for us to find a complete dog if we exercise a little patience.
This is the dilemma of my approach. I circle around my story and sometimes I myself become the story I am trying to tell. I just wanted to talk about the human being facing the destiny of death. Nature has conditioned the human being to attachments and to a sense of habit to the point that it is difficult for us to let this life go without feeling regret despite the troubles and frustrations we experience as living beings. It is simply difficult for us to accept the end of life and to see it as an episode in our existence or a page that we must turn in order to access another one. It is said that if the world of the dead had a window through which we could peek, we would be better prepared for that sleep we are dreading.
The story I am going to tell happened in the depth of the Kemetic Continent. It is a true story in its entirety. It happened long ago in a small forest village. In that village, there was an old lady who lived alone with her granddaughter. The old lady had a reputation of a psychic and was respected for her prophecies to the point that she became a member of the community of the wise members of the village. Because everything she predicted happened, the community of the wise always asked her opinion before taking any decisions affecting the community. Every morning the chief of the village goes personally to the house of the old lady. He usually finds her sitting in front of her room with her granddaughter. He always greets her respectfully and before finding out if there was any serious news for the village, he plays with the granddaughter. The granddaughter was not particularly intelligent: she was one of those young kids raised by their grandmothers and generally too spoiled and protected to understand the realities of the adult world. We know that children know only how to play and eat, but the chief always asks questions "How is the village today?" or "Shall we be lucky this week?" etc., and the young girl immediately runs and hides behind her grandmother who always pushes her away laughing and saying, "But the chief is talking to you..."
The old lady was an important personality of the village. Her gifts of prophecy were undeniable. People were coming from very far to seek her advice. She could predict fortunes and disasters. She could also suggest ways to avoid misfortune for the community. For the chief of the village, she represented a sort of assurance. For a very long time the elders of the village did not have to face unpredicted situations because she had put her talent into service for the community. Good luck or misfortunes always found the community prepared for it.
One day when the chief of the village visited the house of the old lady, he found her lying down, and he asked her if she was not feeling well. To assure him, the old lady answered, "Fatigue...at my age it is normal; I believe it is just fatigue." She took a deep breath before she continued, "I will drink some of my herbal teas and everything will be fine." Her voice hardly hid her suffering, but the chief returned home a bit reassured.
The next morning the old lady was found dead on her mat, and the news spread very quickly. All the elders converged around the body of the old lady. Villagers were crying. The old lady who had done so much for the community had just died. The entire community spent the whole night mourning. People spent the whole night telling the good that this old lady had done for the village, and in the morning they prepared her body for burial. All the men followed the coffin to the cemetery. The chief and the elders holding their canes walked directly behind those carrying the coffin.
When they reached the cemetery the elders and the old men sat under the shade of the tree while the young men were digging the grave. At the end of the burial, the chief suggested that all of them present in the cemetery come and bow down around the tomb of the old lady and pay homage to what she has done for the community. All of them came and placed themselves around and with their knees on the grave.
Each one of them was talking about the personal experiences of the old lady. The whole community felt as orphans often feel in having to face the uncertainties of the future… "What shall we do now that we have lost our psychic?" asked a voice in the public." Didn't she talk to somebody before she died?" asked another voice. The chief then ordered the granddaughter to be brought to him. "Maybe the old lady has left some prophecies for us," he said with hope.
The granddaughter was brought to the king. She was obviously troubled by the event. The chief then, from his position on his knees, held the granddaughter towards him to comfort her. He then asked with a sweet voice, "What did your grandmother tell you before she died?" The young girl obviously confused said, "She told me to observe that at her burial everybody will come and bow down around her grave." The entire audience became quiet shocked by the prediction of the old lady. The chief continued, "Is that all? "No" answered the young girl while touching her head, "She told me to observe the first person to get up." What she now said excited everybody and the whole public asked with one voice, "And?" The young girl waited a second before she said, "My grandmother told me the first person to rise will be the next one to die."
To that news a heavy silence fell on the group. The chief in a momentum of anger which he was hiding very badly reacted in panic. "This young girl is stupid. She never paid attention to anything; do not listen to her." He then turned towards his secretary and asked him to give him back his cane that was hanging on the branch of a tree. The secretary simply refused and said, "Chief, I don't want to be the next person to die." The whole group stayed on its knees for hours and hours waiting for one of them to sacrifice by simply getting up. Obviously the chief did not succeed in convincing the group to ignore what the young girl said.
It is said that towards the evening the women of the village saw the men arriving from the cemetery all of them crawling or walking on their knees. The elders were forced to abandon their canes hanging in the cemetery. One could see them crawling on their big bubus (Kemetic clothes) all covered with dust and mud. The youths were advancing walking like ducks all carefully avoiding rising up above a certain height. This made anybody that saw them coming laugh to tears, and one wondered for how many days they would stay in that position. Those most eager to avoid being the next one to die lay flat on their stomachs and crawled like turtles to the village.
The destiny of one part of the village was being played out under the amused watch of the other part. While the women of the village were laughing, the chief and the elders could not stop cursing the young girls. From time to time a voice would rise from a group lying on their stomachs blaming the chief for posing to an idiot girl a question of great importance to the village. The chief said immediately, "I could not know that this young girl was stupid." Somehow, whether the young girl was stupid or not, nobody knew what to believe. It was the life of the first person to get up that hung in the balance. The men of the village crawled for days and weeks. No one knows how this story ended. But for the months that followed the young girl became a public enemy and was abused by anyone seeking vengeance for the humiliation.
The popular wisdom says that prophets of a bad event are not the ones that cause it, but how many of us are capable of separating a prophet from his prophecy? For us, as superstitious human beings, to announce happiness or a disaster is to open the door to that event, and it is with this kind of deduction that our emotions condemn wisdom and intelligence.
My story will end here, and like a vulture, I'm saying that I eat only what the Gods have already killed. But my biggest problem is to know if what I just said is the expression of an emotion or the expression of wisdom and intelligence. The reality of things is so illusory that it erases from our path anything that could allow us to express with certitude what we understand of the universe and the world of the Gods. But for now, we can laugh at the story of a whole community that crawled, once upon a time, just because a young girl said that the first person to stand up would be the next person to die.