Mary did not know what to do. Her new patient was a chief, and if he died—or was already dead when they returned to the village—serious trouble could come of it. There would be many deaths and wild, drunken parties and Mary would be caught in the middle of it all. She might even be blamed for the chief’s death. On the other hand, she had never refused to help a person who asked. Mary visited Chief Edem and Ma Eme to ask them what to do.
“You must not go,” said the chief. “My power to protect you only extends an hour’s walk in each direction from this village. You would be on your own, and if the chief dies, you will be blamed. Besides, it is the rainy season; the trails are flooded, and large trees have fallen in the forest. You would never make it through.”
“Not only that,” added Ma Eme, “if the chief dies, their village will come and pay us back for sending you to them. We could all be dead before this matter is over.”
Although she respected their advice, Mary was beginning to feel like she should go. “What if it were you, Chief Edem?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you want me to come and help you?”
The chief shrugged and repeated his warning. “Do not go.”
That night Mary tossed and turned as she wrestled with what to do. Someone had come to ask her for help, but if she went, she could be putting the entire village of Ekenge in danger. But by the time a scrawny rooster began crowing at the first rays of sunlight peaking over the horizon, she had made up her mind. She would go and treat the ailing chief.
Mary knew that Chief Edem would not be pleased, and the chief showed his displeasure as she announced her decision. Still, short of having her killed, there was nothing he could do to stop her. Mary left instructions for the care of her children and followed the runner westward into the jungle.
Mary prayed as she walked. She was concerned about the sick chief and about getting to him in time. She was also concerned about the ordeal of getting to the village: having to avoid the potentially deadly leopards, crocodiles, and snakes, not to mention having to cross numerous tribal boundaries. Also, it had been raining for days, and the normally trickling streams they needed to cross had been transformed into raging torrents.
The rain continued to pour down, making even walking increasingly difficult. Mary’s lace-up boots stuck in the mud, and it took tremendous effort to pull them free with each step. After two hours of struggling on like this, Mary signaled for the runner to stop. It was time to get practical! She took off her boots and stockings, and the runner offered to carry them for her. Then she inspected the hems of her brown woolen dress and her frilly white outer petticoat. Both were caked in mud. As Mary lifted them, she decided they must each contain five or six pounds of mud. She took them off, too, leaving her standing in the middle of the African jungle wearing only a calico slip that went from her neck to her knees, revealing her legs and bare arms, something that would have been scandalous in public back in Scotland.
“Now that feels better,” Mary said to the runner.
Mary and the runner continued walking, with Mary keeping up much better now that she had fewer clothes to weigh her down. They passed through several villages, where the people simply stood in shock and stared at the red-haired white woman dressed in a calico slip.
By the time Mary and the runner arrived at the village late in the afternoon, it had stopped raining, and shafts of golden sunlight had pierced the billowing mat of clouds above. Crowds of armed men stood around the chief’s hut while the women huddled in small groups and wept softly. Mary wondered whether they were weeping for the chief or over the fact that his death would mean their death as well.
Mary was escorted into the chief’s hut, a smoky room with a pile of human skulls arranged neatly in the far corner. “May I have a lantern, please,” she asked. One was instantly produced for her. Mary stepped forward to examine the chief, who was very weak and seemed to have some kind of stomach problem. Mary took some medicine from her bag and mixed it with water. “Drink this,” she told the chief, “and then I will pray for you.”
Mary ordered one of the women to make some yam soup, and when it arrived, she spooned a few drops of it into the chief’s mouth. She guessed that the chief had not eaten for days, probably because no one wanted to be the last person to feed him before he died. That would make the person an obvious suspect for poisoning the chief. Mary fed the chief through the night, a drop or two at a time. By the time the sun had risen, the chief seemed a little better.
The chief continued to improve throughout the day, and that night, after conducting a Christian service, Mary fell into a fitful sleep. On the third day, she felt confident that the chief would recover fully. When she announced the news to the village, the women began to sob. They rushed up to her and knelt down, their heads touching the damp ground.
“You have saved our lives,” they said, grabbing at her feet. “If you had not come, we would all have perished with our chief. How can we thank you? You will always be our mother, and we will be your children.”
The journey back to Ekenge was very different from the journey to the village. About forty people from the village insisted on escorting Mary the entire way. They sang and made up poems about their white ma as they walked, and in every village they passed through, they stopped to tell of Mary’s care for their chief. Mary had never liked being made a fuss of, but she knew she had made new friends along the trail, and out here in the African jungle she needed all the friends she could get.
Chapter 14
Eka Kpukpru Owo
Mary returned to Ekenge, and Chief Edem seemed pleased that she was safe. No doubt, she decided, it gave him prestige in the surrounding area to have a missionary who knew about medicine living in his village. However, much to her dismay, it didn’t give Mary enough clout to get anyone to build the mission compound she had been promised before moving to the village. Mary often asked Chief Edem if he would order work to begin on her new hut and school, but the chief always gave the same answer: “Have patience; it is not building season yet.” Mary wasn’t at all sure that there was such a thing as building season! She wondered why the men of the village who spent hours each day lying around drunk couldn’t be ordered to work on the project. Still, since she knew better than to force the point, she busied herself in other ways.
From the time Mary arrived in Ekenge, people asked her when she would begin teaching “Book”—their way of referring to reading and writing. Now, in late 1888, Mary felt that the medical needs of the village were sufficiently under control that she could concentrate on teaching the people. Chief Edem gave her his permission to begin. Virtually everyone in the village, including Chief Edem, Ma Eme, nobles, slaves, children, and dogs, showed up for the first school lesson. Excitement ran high, though no one could really grasp the meaning of reading and writing. No one in the village had much of an idea of what reading was, except that it involved speaking to a piece of paper. The people had observed Mary doing this for long periods at a time, and now they all wanted to be able to do the same.
Within a couple of weeks, most of the people had dropped out of the class. Learning to read was just too much work for them. Since they had expected to be able to read fluently after just a few lessons, most of the men went back to drinking and lying around all day. This left Mary to teach a handful of slave children who had been ordered by their masters to continue classes. Despite the falloff in numbers attending lessons, Mary wasn’t discouraged. The children she was left with were intelligent and appreciated the hour or so a day they spent in school away from their chores.
About the same time that she started to teach reading and writing, Mary made contact with the neighboring village of Ifako, about a thirty-minute walk along a rough, muddy track. When the chief there had learned that Mary was teaching the people of Ekenge “Book,” he had invited her to teach his people as well. Mary accepted his offer, regularly trekking to Ifako. Of course, by now she had long since given up wearing boots, preferring to trudge barefoot along the muddy jungle trails. As a result, the soles of her feet had become as tough as leather.
Mary had great success with the Bible studies she began holding in the evenings in the villages. Everyone loved the old English and Scottish hymns she had translated into their language. Mary played the organ while the children played drums and tambourines. What these tribal singers lacked in carrying an English tune they made up for in sheer volume and enthusiasm!
In Ekenge, one night after Bible study, Mary heard a lot of noise around the palaver hut, where special councils were held. She wondered what was happening. Since she knew about most of the social events that went on in the village, she decided to investigate. As she got closer to the noise, she could see that almost the whole village had gathered around in a circle. The villagers were in a frenzy, yelling and screaming. The beating of drums throbbed in her ears and the smoke from reed torches burned her nostrils as Mary stood at the back of the crowd.
Suddenly a scream pierced the air. A feeling of dread swept over Mary—was this another one of their cruel punishments? Mary pushed her way to the front of the crowd, where she saw a young woman lying naked on the ground, her hands and feet tied to stakes. Beside the woman was a large pot of boiling oil, with a warrior in a jaguar costume dancing around it. Instantly, Mary knew what was about to happen. The woman on the ground was about to have boiling oil ladled over her. Without stopping to think it through, Mary ran and stood between the warrior and the woman. Instantly, the drumming stopped, and the laugher and cheering subsided. All eyes were focused on the petite redhead who was interfering in a matter of tribal justice.
Mary glared at the warrior holding a ladle filled with hot oil. For a moment, the warrior stood with a look of confusion on his face. Then with a warlike yell, he began dancing menacingly towards Mary. For an instant, Mary was again the young woman in the backstreets of Dundee with the bully swinging his sharpened piece of metal at her. Just as she had then, she knew she could not back down; the warrior must not see any fear in her face. Mary prayed silently as the warrior came closer, the hot oil gleaming ominously in the bowl of the ladle. Except for the shuffling of the warrior’s feet and the swish of the ladle, everything was totally quiet.
Finally, the moment came when Mary and the warrior stood face to face. They could not get any closer to each other. Either the warrior would hit Mary with the ladle of oil, or he would have to back away. He stared at Mary, and Mary stared back at him. Then, with a cry of disgust, the warrior threw the ladle on the ground and stepped away from Mary.
A collective gasp rose from the crowd. The white ma had stood up to a warrior, and the warrior had backed down! Chaos erupted. Everyone began talking at once. It was the most amazing scene the crowd had ever witnessed. In the midst of the confusion, the warrior scuttled away, and Mary turned to Chief Edem to plead for the woman’s life. The chief would not answer Mary. Mary had stood against their customs and won! Sensing that no one would stop her, Mary bent down and untied the woman and helped her to her feet. The crowd parted, and Mary escorted the woman back to the mud hut.
The woman suffered more from shock than from anything else. In fact, the whole village was in shock for days. How, the villagers asked, could a white woman defy the power of their customs? Was her religion more powerful than theirs? Both religions believed in an all-powerful, all-knowing creator. The Africans called him Abassi. But they believed that Abassi wanted them to do cruel things and to be governed by superstition and magic. Now they wondered whether they might be mistaken, that perhaps Abassi was more like the God Mary described, not only all powerful but also good and kind. The thought captivated the whole tribe. Men and women, slaves and freemen, debated the question endlessly while the story of what Mary had done was passed from village to village.
