Chapter 3

Jungle

Eku woke up excited, as he always did at the start of a new day.

Lying quietly on his bed mat.

Yat and Yathi breathing deep on either side.

All around, a tangle of arms and legs and bodies, the occasional snoring mixed with the sounds of Uwama’s caress.

There were bird calls from the direction of the forest and the water.

Eku stood and shivered, away from Yat and Yathi, but his body quickly adjusted.

Figuring he could take care of his bed mat later, Eku stepped carefully through rows of people cuddled together for warmth.

Ulanga was still hiding below Uwama, but his first glow brightened the horizon, making the water a choppy dark gray, the beach flat and pale and featureless.

Eku wandered toward the feast area, liking the way the sand felt crisp and cool.

Felt an urge to run, but knew better.

An army of crawling crabs and bickering seagulls poked through the litter of fruit rinds, empty bladders, bones and varied scraps.

Eku looked back over his shoulder, past waka-waka sleeping bodies and saw a few couples wandering the beach in the opposite direction.

Tiuti, no doubt, was amongst the many bodies sleeping off the effects of the fermented juice.

Before him, in the direction of the mangroves, the sand spread wide and empty, having turned a light brown as Ulanga’s slim eye of yellow peeked over a fast brightening horizon.

Eku dashed into the water up to his ankles and lifted his loincloth to pee.

Finished and splashed back to sand and continued away from the encampment.

Ulayo’s breath was steady with a briny scent, the sky cloudless and pale, like the ivory of an elephant tusk.

The pristine beach stretched flat to the mangroves and waka-waka birds used it as a throughway.

Brown and white pelicans flew close enough overhead for Eku to hear the wingbeats.

Looked up at the big bodies, with enormous orange gulars the same color as their tucked feet, big beaks pulled back and pointed straight into the breath of Ulayo as they flapped three or four strokes to rise and then glide, slowly sinking.

And repeat.

White egrets with narrow yellow beaks sped past in the opposite direction, single file in staggered formation, riding Ulayo’s breath with wings held on a plane. Only the elbows betrayed constant adjustments.

Sandpipers, ivory with narrow, v-shaped wings raced past Eku at knee level, the dark feathers at the tips almost but never touching the sand.

Tiuti said that birds, with their wings and tails and feathers, feel the breath of Ulayo the same way Eku’s hands and feet and skin felt the water of Uwama when swimming, only lighter.

Eku thought it would be exhilarating to be a bird.

If he had to be something other than an Abantu, of course.

A bird would be good.

The flying part, especially.

But if he had to be a bird, Eku wouldn’t be a silly squawking seabird, he would be a fish eagle—but still with his own mind and thoughts, of course.

He followed a group of gulls streaming low across the beach and saw people.

At first, Eku thought his mind was playing tricks.

As though materialized from the green-shadowed wall of mangroves at the end of the beach, he counted seven vertical figures, Ulanga casting their shadows long.

Maybe some of the tallest Abantu wandered away from camp last night and were only now returning?

But the approaching figures were not Abantu.

Seven males approached at a leisurely pace, wearing simple loincloths that only covered the genital area.

Too far to see their features, Eku could tell they were different, all of them with hair cut like a melon husk bowl around their head, but with long hair at the top of the head, tied in a bunch that stuck straight up.

They carried long spears, but nothing else.

Eku sprinted back to camp.

***

“Strange Abantu,” Eku cried at a run.

“Abantu are coming who are not Abantu-Uwama,” he bellowed at the first awake adult he saw, which luckily was Nibamaz, a stalwart hunter and ikanabe to his father, which made Nibamaz more like an uncle.

Having woken just after Eku, he crouched in front of a small fire pit used for the feast preparation, away from the mass of sleeping people.

Nibamaz wore a plain and well-worn loincloth; a thick, leopard-skin strap circled his waist, from which hung a holster with a long knife and ax.

As a hunter, he wore no jewelry other than the hunter’s necklace: a simple strap with one or more talons of the fish eagle.

Nibamaz, like Eku’s father, had all four talons, an accomplishment rare across the entirety of the southern shores.

Eku was proud that his father and Nibamaz were considered by the elders to be the most capable ikanabe in memory.

Ibe-bonakalio in the bush and masters of their weapons.

When Nibamaz saw Eku running full speed, he quickly stood, holding out a hand in a way to show all was well.

“We are expecting visitors, Eku. That would be the Abantu-Mantel.”

“People of the forest!?” he exclaimed, digging heels into the sand for a skidding halt.

The word mantel was for the forests where the Abantu sheltered through the chilliest part of sika-yaka, north of the coast, where the southern plateau rose to mountains.

Nibamaz smiled at his excitement and said, “Mantel means to their tribe what Abantu means to us. They are here to guide us. They know this land, Eku. This is where they live. Your father and I have seen them many times. We are friends.”

He crouched to toss sticks onto the fire.

Still breathing hard from the run, Eku blurted, “They are very tall!”

Nibamaz burst into laughter, though Eku didn’t understand why. At first.

Shortly after the Mantel entered camp, he recognized his mistake, realizing his eyes had played tricks on him: the Mantel were barely taller than he was; in fact, the tallest was still shorter than Eku’s father Kaleni, who was average height for an Abantu.

***

The Mantel of the forest, like the Abantu of the ocean, survived the terrible times, maintaining a population amidst a sheltered plain that descended from western hills, a mosaic of forested lakes and ponds between the jungles of thick and inhospitable river deltas to the north and south, and the mangrove forest that buttressed the ocean to the east.

As they explored up the coast, the Abantu hunters eventually encountered the Mantel and the meetings were friendly.

The Mantel language shared some of the same root words as the Abantu and a strong friendship developed.

Hunters from each tribe combined to send scouting parties ever further up the coast.

The co-discovery of the land of legend had the Mantel eager to join the Abantu to establish a foothold in the new region.

The plan was for the two groups to unite at the Limpopo River, the first of several, massive rivers the people would encounter during their inexorable push north.

***

Looking where the mangroves merged with dark forest caused Eku trepidation.

One could only imagine what lay within the shadows of such tangled growth.

The tribe had spent enough time on the beach for the wall of the jungle to become almost a protective barrier, separating the friendly beach world from … whatever lay on the other side of the green wall.

The tribe was gathered where the beach ended and organized into three groups.

Each group would include at least one of the Mantel as a guide.

Eku learned a Mantel named Umthi would accompany his father and Nibamaz, who made this jungle trek before. Those three would lead the first group of hunters, all of whom wore two or more eagle talons.

The lead group would chart the path that everyone else followed.

Close behind the lead group were waka-waka hunters, all very capable, but wearing only a single talon. The group of young hunters included Kozik, Yathi’s older brother.

The last group included everyone else and was the largest by far.

“This is strange, with no more travois,” Eku said.

“For sure,” Yathi replied, fidgeting and looking about nervously.

They stood with everyone else, in a triangular area at the end of the beach, where sand, mangroves and forest met at a kind of corner.

Eku wore his springhair loincloth. A wrap of skin hung over a shoulder and wrapped around his torso and waist, where it was tied with cordage. A rolled bed mat and sealskin satchel hung down his back; his trusty keri stick dangled off a hip. He proudly carried his ula-konto at his side, a wrap of hide secured over the pointy end.

Yathi was similarly equipped, but did not carry a spear.

Adults wore full sacks across their backs.

Axes, knives, keri sticks and other tools hung from loincloths or from wraps strapped around the waist or over the shoulder, tied with cordage straps.

“I do not want to go in there,” Yathi said, motioning with both hands, as he often did when excited or nervous.

Eku and Yathi peered over the heads of the adults all around, toward the green leafed wall.

“It is safe,” Eku said, sounding more confident than he felt.

“I know,” Yathi said, “But I do not like it.”

Eku felt pride when the lead group of hunters went into the wall of green to melt out of sight.

There was much clicking and calls of good fortune, but the hunters disappeared so quickly into the dense growth that clicking and talking stopped abruptly.

After a heartbeat of silence a voice cried, isipor-kee!, which was a powerful Abantu phrase that could mean ancestor or spirit in a good or bad way, depending on how and when the phrase was used and the inflection when using it.

***

The Abantu spoke in a tonal language and substituted clicks for simple words.

Clicks were mostly made using the tongue against the roof of the mouth.

High-pitched snaps generally meant something positive, such as yes or agreement.

A dull click meant something bad or disagreement or simply no.

The meaning of clicks could depend on the circumstances and was often customized between friends and siblings to mean almost anything.

Eku glanced at Krele, his mother, standing with other mothers along with Yat, Tar and Maz. The young females wore loincloths of soft springhare.

Their hair was tightly coiled on top of their heads and each had a good-sized satchel strapped to her back.

Eku noted that Maz had a small ax hanging off her hip.

He liked Maz. Her father was Juka, a hunter he admired. He realized that Maz had rather nice and strong looking thighs, something he had never noticed before.

For some reason.

Eku checked Yathi again. He looked sadly where Shona stood with his mother and Doagu, Yathi’s sister.

Doagu was matched with Iti, one of the young hunters in the second group, about to enter the jungle. She wore a wrap of soft seal skin with the yellow heron feathers she favored sewn into the shoulders.

A satchel hung down her back. Her loincloth was small and triangular and a thick belt of ferret wound around her hips, to support the jutting belly. Twisted kudu tails dangled from one hip, an ax from the other.

Tall for a female and pregnant, Doago wore a cap with spirals of ostrich beads for decoration, cleverly designed to look as though she had a new kind of hair.

Eku said, “I remember Doago with hair like Yat’s.”

“And now she is with child,” Yathi said, still looking toward his mother and sister, full of concern. “Maybe we should stay here. Longer. Maybe even for all of lobo-yaka. I like this beach.”

“For sure,” Eku said.

Feeling her little brother’s gaze, Doago looked where the young males stood. Smiled and winked at the two of them.

Everyone knew Yathi preferred the open spaces of the coast, which made sense, as Lume loved to sing songs about their ancestors, said to have been an island people.

Eku poked Yathi in the arm and pointed where the second group of hunters was ready to depart, each individual with a backpack of supplies, an ax hanging off a hip and carrying an ula-konto with a blade of isipo-gazi.

Iti and Kozik stood amongst the second group of hunters.

Being one of the tallest, Kozik resembled his mother Shona in bearing and contenance and had brown eyes; whereas, Yathi favored his father.

Whatever mysteries the jungle may conceal, Eku knew it could not possibly be a match for so many strong Abantu, especially with his father and Nibamaz leading the way.

Yathi said, “I do not want to see any snakes.”

“We follow the same path as everyone else,” Eku said. “We will be safe.”

Yathi stuck out his lower lip. “I am glad we are in the last group. I do not want to be a hunter, like Kozik.” Looked at Eku apologetically and added, “Like you do.”

He slapped Yathi’s sturdy shoulder and clicked not to worry. Adding, “My father and Nibamaz were here before. And Juka and Lopi and some of the other hunters.”

“I am scared because we are leaving Uwama.”

“We do that all the time.”

“I know. This is different.”

***

The group in which Eku and Yathi marched included all of the young people and many adults, including izik-kosa at the tail of the parade, who would carry the javelins and tree-felling axes.

Eku saw Dokuk and Odi winding through the crowd, Goguk trailing.

They sidled up to Eku, Dokuk grinning, but Goguk looked nervous, like Yathi.

Odi looked contemplative, as he generally did, wearing the sealskin vest he painstakingly decorated with ostrich shell beads. A black and white striped tail of a genet hung down the spine and squirrel tails hung from the waistline.

Odi was quiet and occasionally teased by other males his age; though, it was affectionate teasing, as no one dared take it too far because that would mean answering to Dokuk.

Eku always found Odi interesting, despite—or perhaps because of—his reflective quietness.

Like Yathi, Odi did not aspire to be a hunter, which made Eku feel guilty for thinking certain thoughts.

Seeing that neither Yathi nor Odi wanted to be hunters, both Eku and Dokuk would need a hunting ikanabe; thus, if somehow, they could both become hunters together … Well, then Dokuk and Eku could be hunting ikanabe.

Eku tried hard to rid his mind of such ideas. He was much younger than Dokuk. Besides, when something is meant to be, something happens.

Dokuk, mostly for the sake of Goguk and Yathi, said, “The five of us will march together.”

“This is almost like the forests close to the mountains, at home,” Yat said.

She had trailed Dokuk over with Tar and Maz at each side.

Eku thought it was miraculous how the three females fit all that hair into netted buns. Yat surprised him with a friendly click and sidled close to Dokuk, who looked suddenly silly, instead of confident.

“This land is different,” Yathi said. “It is scary.”

“For sure,” Yat replied. “But our father has been here. And Nibimaz and Juka and Lopi. I heard them talk of the Mantel many times. They know these forests. They live here. We will travel in the jungle for a few days and then there will be more savannah.”

As always, Eku was impressed by Yat (even though she drove him crazy) and asked, “Are we going where the Mantel live?”

Yat clicked yes and said, “After we cross a great river, we will be in the part of Umawa the Mantel call home. We will travel through their land and some of them will come with us to the land of legend.”

***

All sense of foreboding was forgotten with the hard work of hiking through the densest forest most of the Abantu had ever encountered.

Eku marveled at the size of the trees, three or four times the size of the trees in the forested regions of home—trees he once thought of as large!

The jungle trees’ roots started well above the ground, gripping into Umawa like the talons of a giant eagle to support an enormous trunk of roughly textured, dark gray bark. Each trunk rose into upright thrusting branches to a canopy so dense, only the smallest specks of Ulanga occasionally glimmered through.

Eku knew the day was bright, but within the canopy was permanent twilight, the air rank with a scent not unlike seaweed washed to shore to cook under Ulanga’s gaze.

And the noise!

A cacophony of birds, but loudest of all—monkeys!

With no baboons around, this must be a monkey’s paradise, Eku thought.

A troop greeted them as soon as they entered the jungle, racing along the mid-canopy branches to screech at the trespassers.

Similar in body to the brown and gray vervet monkeys found across the Abantu homeland, but larger; the legs and arms were solid black, but the rest of the fur was stippled with white, suggesting a hue of laza.

Eku noted small, yellowish eyes set close over a snout shorter than a baboon’s. Their cheeks puffed out like a squirrel’s when overloaded, giving them, he thought, a permanent look of indignant surprise.

Obviously, they did not appreciate the intrusion. Screaming and throwing sticks and even pieces of excrement.

Yathi, laughing, shouted, “Those monkeys are worse than Yat when she gets angry.”

“I heard that!” came Yat’s voice from somewhere out of the greenery ahead.

Yathi brought a hand to his mouth, eyes widening.

Dokuk, watching out of the corner of his eye, smirked. He would gain favor by telling Yat of Yathi’s reaction later. He and Odi led the younger males amidst the parade of people. Eku, Yathi and Goguk staying close, never farther apart than the reach of an arm.

***

Green.

And birds.

At least the sounds of many birds.

Sightings were rare because vegetation was so thick.

Other than the fantastically large and grayish tree trunks, everything was green.

Different shades and textures of green, but always green, the only glimpse of color surreptitious and fleeting.

Slender, light green vines wreathed with clusters of orange, star-shaped flowers appeared draped across the mid-level canopy.

And were gone.

Passing beneath dark green vines thick as his finger, Eku spotted conical flowers of sky blue, but when he turned for a second look it was as though they disappeared.

Into the green.

Large vines, thick as his arm, grew like small trees, rising from the snarls of tree roots to disappear into a solid mass of leafage. Some of the vines sprouted branches the length of Eku’s arm, with triangular leaves with puffs of white flowers covered with tiny, blood red ants the Mantel warned the Abantu to never touch.

A tumult of bird noise constantly rose and fell.

Songs and calls.

To pass the time, Eku tried to distinguish the different types emerging from the multi-textured ceiling of green.

Songs were chirps and short or long melodious notes.

Calls were between mated pairs or squabbling rivals: sweet whistles, harsh shrieks, a conversant croak or an abrasive rattle.

Eku and Yathi enjoyed when the path was cut through giant ferns, the people filing through no more than two or three astride, Eku and Yathi holding out their hands so their fingers brushed across the symmetrically distinct fronds that lined the tunnel walls.

Wherever one of the great trees recently fell, the tribe circumvented impenetrable bamboo, the culms so closely-packed that not even a tiny child could squeeze through.

The ground was strange. Eku did not like mud squeezing between his toes and with so many feet treading before him, the earth was squishy and mucky.

Thick roots criss-crossed in every direction, either rough and grippy or smooth and slippery.

Insects hovered and buzzed, particularly mosquitoes that Eku found larger and more aggressive than at home.

The first time the tribe stopped, bladders with a thick liquid were passed around, the liquid being the result of the mangrove bark mix cooked on the beach.

Eku and Yathi slapped the paste on each other, not minding the rank smell because the bugs instantly disappeared.

Progress was a difficult, slow plod through thick vegetation, with an occasional, unavoidable slog through swamp, where they used spears and ax handles to pull each other through the muck.

The swamp portions were disgusting, but there was always a narrow, clear running stream near the middle, the water delicious and refreshing, where only a handbreadth away, it became fetid, choked with weeds and algae.

Above all else, the first day in the jungle was exhausting.

When the lead hunters found an area flat and dry enough, the tribe stopped and cut away brush to make camp.

As night fell, Eku was astonished at the dramatic increase in noise.

Different insects than during the day came forth to buzz and snap and trill and whine.

Adding significantly to the chorus were an endless variety of tree frogs, competing in frenzied waves of squeaking, croaking, whistling and grunting.

Darkness dropped so complete that movement within camp would not be possible without the fires.

After a meal of leftover cakes, dried fruit and jerked meat from the beach feast, Yat, Eku and Yathi lay side by side, mashed together, even though it was warm and sticky.

Eku lay on his back and held a hand to his face, but couldn’t see fingers The jungle noise was a visceral, ambient hum.

Using stomach muscles, Eku pulled himself to a seated position upon his bed mat to see the glow of the nearest fire.

“I do not like the jungle,” Yathi said out of the black beside him. “It smells. I want to go swimming. There are too many bugs and too many vines. I keep thinking the roots are snakes. And I itch. I do not like this paste all over my body.”

“Think about something else,” Eku said, settling back down.

“It is too loud in here.”

“Uwama was this loud. Sometimes.”

“Those were waves. Or a storm. And we were home. We should have made shelters.”

Yat said, “It would not have been worth the effort. There are no small trees or water grasses or palm leaves. Father said the swampy part is only one or two nights. He said the Mantel know the way. This is the only difficult part.”

“We should go around the swampy parts,” Yathi said.

Eku clicked agreement and Yat said, “It would take much more time. And it is not bad now. The Mantel told father that during lobo-yaka, we would have had to travel much further inland. We will not be in the difficult part of the forest for long.”

Penetrating the cacophony of insects and amphibians came the wail of an infant. A gut-wrenching yowl.

Yat gasped and exclaimed, “Is that a baby?”

Krele, sitting nearby and talking with adults around a small fire, clicked rapidly in a soothing way and said, “Yatyambo, nothing to worry over. In this forest, there is a monkey that cries like an Abantu baby.”

“It is how they call each other,” Kaleni said from out of the black. “They have very large eyes and only come out at night.”

“It sounds like a baby,” Yat said, still sounding worried.

“I know,” Krele said. “But it is only a monkey.”

***

Midway through the second day of jungle travel, the tribe reached a mature forest where the soil remained firm underfoot.

Eku gaped at different giant trees, now with smooth, light gray bark.

The trees were widely spaced and Eku marveled how the massive trunks rose cleanly from the dense soil to immediately branch, the lower limbs massive and stretching upward to branch again and again and again, until innumerable smaller branches formed a dense network, supporting a canopy that blotted out all but an occasional speck of sky.

Other than ferns and vines that crawled along the ground and up the bark of the great trees (but never hanging here, for some reason), there was little else at ground level, though the earth was strewn with dead branches.

Travel was much easier, especially for those in the back of the parade.

Eku had grown curious thinking of what Yat told them of the Mantel and wanted to get a closer look.

“We should try to get up front,” he said. “We can watch the Mantel scouts.”

Yathi, typically game for most things, clicked agreement.

As long as the tribe was not crossing dangerous territory, young people weren’t obligated to remain in the middle of the pack and could migrate up and down the length of the line, as the adults often did.

The parade of people was loosely dispersed and Eku and Yathi scampered across roots and jumped over logs to circumvent clusters of people.

Steadily worked their way to reach the front, where Eku was excited to see the three Mantel amidst leading a forward group of Abantu adults.

They wore simple loincloths that only covered the front with a flap of hide, stripped of fur. A bone knife lay against each hip and they carried their long and well made spears.

Eku wondered where they found such saplings to produce the straightness. Observed how they carried the weapons; where they placed their hands; how the killing end, seared black for hardening, was directed low at the path in front of them.

The lead hunters had cleared the way, so there was little work for the Mantel in the last group to do; nevertheless, Eku liked the way they remained alert, always balanced, keeping their head on a plane as they looked around.

Their compact forms were nimble and efficient, flowing without effort.

The Mantel’s skin was brown, like his own, but offered a hint of red and the hair on their heads was black and thick and straight, not spiraled like an Abantu; pulled into a tight bunch at the top of their heads and held together by woven bands of fiber.

When they reached the edge of yet another swampy area, the Mantel paused and the Abantu adults close behind also halted.

A patch of the giant ferns lay ahead and two of the Mantel paced forward as the third waited with the main group.

Eku and Yathi close as far as they dared, watching the remaining Mantel scout.

He had hooded eyes and joked about no worries over vubu, only a few small wenya.

Eku did not know what vubu meant, but wenya was the word both the Abantu and Mantel used for crocodile.

The two Mantel returned and the main group continued.

To pass the second night in the jungle, the people found a slight rise and cut undergrowth to make camp, clearing any vegetation on the ground and moving branches and sticks to the perimeter.

Burnable fuel was always easy to find and fires were kept smoldering along the edges of camp.

During the day’s march, hunters procured fowl, forest antelope and other small animals to roast over open fires and supplement their dwindling supply of dried nuts and fruit.

With full bellies, Eku, Yathi and Goguk sat with Dokuk and Odi, cross-legged on bed mats, lathered in protective paste, talking in total darkness over jungle noise that only seemed louder than the night before.

Being young, they were at the heart of encampment, surrounded by adults; thus, there was clicking and talking all around.

Eku asked Dokuk if he knew what vubu meant.

“I heard that word,” he said. “It is a Mantel word. Father said it is a giant river hagu with great tusks for teeth.”

“Irhamka,” Yathi muttered, the Abantu word for monster.

Dokuk said, “Father said Mantel fear vubu more than anything. Even snakes and wenya and leopards. We must watch for their trails, which is not hard to do because they are so large. They stay in the water during the day and come out to feed at night.”

“Are they predators or plant eaters?” Eku asked.

“They are plant eaters, but the bulls have teeth as long as my arm and they are bigger than a buffalo. And always, waka-waka angry!”

***

The Abantu left the jungle behind at the next river.

First, the overhead growth began to thin and the giant trees disappeared; soon, Eku and Yathi hiked down a narrow path cut through bushes, which ended at a wide floodplain.

The water looped past a crag carved from rocks brownish and pale, ancient timelines exposed in layers of limestone intersected by jagged spires of granite.

Eku and Yathi moved along with the parade across the floodplain, littered with boulders and clumps of palm rising from islands of dense grass.

Joining hands with those in front and behind, the people marched single file across water that never rose past Eku’s waist.

For people accustomed to the rocky, southern African coast, the crag was a fun climb.

Eku and Yathi followed Yat, Tar and Maz down a path cut through the dense brush that grew between the river and the jumble of boulders at the base of the short cliff.

Eku enjoyed the challenge of climbing the rock face so much, he paused to enjoy excellent views up and down the river.

Once atop the crag, Eku found they were on the crest of a hillock. He and Yathi slid their way through a crowd of adults to see what lay before: a landscape that definitely diverged from what they were leaving behind, as though the river and the rise of land it carved the cliffside from was a line of demarcation between jungle and something more hospitable.

Before them spread groves of broadleaf canopies that mushroomed wider than tall, but allowed enough light through for a carpet of foxtail grasses, the beginning of a healthy savannah and forest mix.

The tribe pressed on.

Short and chunky duikers offered Eku a quick glimpse of their fat hindquarters before diving headfirst into thick bushes.

Herds of impala, similar to home, but with different horns and color patterns of fur, watched the humans warily from a distance.

Slender gazelles with white butts and underbellies overlayed by a stripe of black, allowed the tribe to near, then seemed to float through the trees, elegant, yet powerful as they bound away.

Water bucks, with impressive, scythe-like horns, big round ears and long, expressive faces painted symmetrically in white, black and brown, sat under hardwoods with boughs mostly browned and yellowed; though, a few straggling leaves remained definitely green.

Such a menagerie of hooved prey was sure to attract hyenas, lions and leopards; though, with the movement of so many people, all predators instinctively remained unseen.

The tribe enjoyed the change in scenery, a terrain more familiar to the forests they frequented on the southern shores and the young people became playful.

Singing began to flow up and down the parade.

The boisterousness continued to the point where young people began venturing too far outside of the path set by the hunters and the Mantel passed word down the line that in forests such as this, there were snakes big enough to hang from a tree and snatch a wayward human right off the ground.

Once word of the snakes spread, Eku and Yathi—all of the young people—remained dutifully in the center of the parade until the next river crossing, which would be far more difficult than the last.

***

The Limpopo River basin spans nearly a half-million square kilometers of southeastern Africa, the source of the river flowing northward and rapidly expanding in volume before turning east, toward the coast.

Where the continent begins to swell eastward, the river turns south, completing a near half circle to reach the ocean, spreading into a vast delta of cypress swamps and mangrove forests the Abantu were circumventing.

Having journeyed far enough inland to get past the southern half of the delta, the main body of the Limpopo remained between the tribe and the Mantel homeland.

***

The Abantu and Mantel tribes have planned the great pilgrimage for some time.

To cross the river, the Mantel established a transition site, a small village set upon a high riverbank within a mature, riverine forest.

The area was cleared of lower branches and the ground was hard-packed and felt good under Eku’s toes.

Entering the encampment, he admired several huts with sloped roofs of layered palm fans dried to a khaki color. Ahead, through pared tree trunks of mottled sycamore, Eku saw the most enormous river ever.

The dark water moved steadily and the opposite shore was lined by a dense green canopy below a sky of puffy clouds.

Even a strong Abantu would be carried far downstream while attempting to swim across.

Yathi breathed. “That is a big river.”

Equally impressed, Eku said, “For sure. And it is only sika-yaka!”

The riverside village was soon crowded and almost entirely of Abantu.

The few Mantel present were adults, all wearing similar loincloths and tying their hair similar to the scouts. Some of the females wore bracelets and necklaces of small bones, feathers and shells. Two small, naked and agile children appeared to scurry past Eku, laughing in similar high pitches as they weaved in and out of the tall strangers.

The tribe’s time would be limited here, the camp set up only as a launch point to get the people safely across.

Working their way through the many people milling about a small area, Eku and Yathi found Dokuk, Odi and Goguk.

The Abantu males moved single file through the crowd and around sycamore trunks to get a closer look at the river.

Gazed in awe over more water being pulled back to Uwama than they had ever have imagined.

“Where did all the water come from,” Goguk exclaimed.

“Mountains and forests inland,” Dokuk said.

“It must be raining all the time!”

“We should not cross,” Yathi stated. “We will be carried downstream if we try to swim.”

Frowning, Eku observed the water, deep and black. Not a single boulder protruded anywhere across the center channel.

He clicked agreement and Yathi added, “We should go somewhere else.”

Yat came from behind to poke Dokuk in the ribs, causing an involuntary squeak that made Dokuk embarrassed, but everyone laughed and the tension melted away.

“Go see the boats,” she said. Smirked at Yathi and added, “Uncle Lume fell in the water. When he saw the boats he was so excited he slipped trying to get in one. He looked silly.”

Eku asked, “Isiga-ubhak-wila?”—a phrase the Abantu used to describe the rafts they used as platforms when diving for shellfish.

Yat clicked no.

Her hair was let off its netted bonds and spilled over her shoulders and down her back. She pointed with the bone comb in her hand, in the direction upstream and said, “Go over there and get in line. Where everyone else is looking.”

***

Dokuk and Odi were the tallest and Eku, Yathi and Goguk fell in behind.

The young people moved through a crowd to where people stood shoulder to shoulder, shuffling along the edge of where the embankment began to descend to water.

The line led to a small inlet, where people were gawking and pointing down at something out of sight, in the water.

Yathi bounced, trying to see.

At home on the southern shores, the Abantu pursued shellfish that grew in deeper waters.  They built floating platforms called isiga-ubhak-wila, using logs and stout, sealskin bladders filled with air for buoyancy.

The rafts were anchored using lines with heavy stones to serve as platforms when diving for oysters, cockles, sea cucumbers and scallops.

Eku’s group worked its way along the water for a turn to see into the hollowed, cup shaped hollow carved from the embankment. The gently sloped back edge of the small inlet allowed easy access to the water, where five, gigantic and hollow logs floated side by side, attached to ropes and lined up diagonally from the tug of the current.

“Ipyane,” Yathi said reverently.

Eku instantly recognized the purpose of the massive logs, tapered at each end and hollowed to create room for people to sit.

“For sure,” Eku said, knowing ipyane was the word Yathi’s father Lume used when singing songs about his ancestors and the boats they crafted. “What kind of giant tree is used to make such a thing,” he said.

“I do not know,” Yathi said, “But the Mantel must be very good ipyane builders.”

***

Crossing the river was arduous, but well planned and began at first light the following morning.

The five dugouts were put to use, each with two rowers and room for passengers and belongings in between.

Though it took the entire day, everyone was transported safely across.

When his turn came, Eku followed Yat down the slope of the inlet area into water that was only knee-deep, but enough for the giant logs to float nicely—though wobbly as soon as one tried to hike themselves over the side.

When their turn came, Yat sat in the back, in front of the rear rower, with Eku in front of her. The rough wood bottom was painful for his behind, but there was little to do about that.

Satchels and bed mats and other belongings were crammed all around.

Kaleni and Krele then came aboard and to Eku’s delight, Tiuti followed.

The dugout hung low and Eku put his hands on the roughened sides of the enormous carved log to feel the warm water.

The Mantel rowers guided them expertly out of the inlet, using short, sturdy poles with rounded, carved paddles.

As soon as they moved into the river, the shakiness Eku felt when climbing aboard the giant log disappeared and he marveled at the ease they glided across, slightly angled against the current, Tiuti laughing like a child, holding his long arms out as though he were a bird.

Everyone was disappointed the ride didn't last longer.