THE STORY OF WOLDE NEBRI*

as retold by LOUISE DE LEEUW

 

The story begins on the mountain Aini. Many years ago, a tribe had come from the South to the mountain. They built their village far above the valley, on a precipice which overlooked the horizon on three sides to the East, the West, and the North. For a reason never mentioned among them, they turned their backs on the South.

When Wolde Nebri was born, there was a seven-day ceremony to establish the identity of his soul. It was believed that every living person had lived before in another age. Each man’s name, his work, and his fate were predetermined by the life he had lived long ago. When Wolde Nebri was born, the Holy Men went into the mountain cave and played their drums and sang and danced to determine his rightful place in the village. At midnight on the seventh day one of the Holy Men leaped up with a wild cry and flung himself first on one person and then another, biting them with his teeth. They calmed him, and when he was quiet he lay as though dead upon the ground. When he spoke he said: “The child is the Son of the Leopard.”

They went to the parents of the child and said: “His name is Wolde Nebri, he is the Son of the Leopard.” Word then went through the village that Wolde Nebri had returned and people went inside their houses and closed the doors.

Four hundred and seventy-eight years after they had destroyed him in the South, Wolde Nebri had found them. During the eight years he had been their chief, he had ruled them under a cloud of terror and slaughtered more than a thousand men. At last they had turned upon him and burned him alive in his house. Afterwards they had lived in great fear of the day he would return to avenge himself. Finally they had agreed among themselves to go away from their country to an inaccessible place, which Wolde Nebri would never be able to find. And so they had gone northward, through desert and mountains. They had come so far and their village was so remote, they had begun to feel safe. Now, once again, the Son of the Leopard was among them.

Wolde Nebri drank from the breast of his mother and grew strong. She carried him in the sling on her back, when she went to cut grain in the fields. When she ground meal in the house he played upon the floor. His father, Tchimara, the hunter, played with Wolde Nebri at night near the tire, though his heart was heavy. It was his fate to be the father of the Son of the Leopard, and it was also his fate to love his child, and the two things tormented him so that his eyes sank deeper in his head and he never smiled. When Wolde Nebri crawled to his father’s lap and grasped him by the finger, Tchimara asked himself: “Is this small hand the one which bloodied a thousand spears? How can it be?”

In the marketplace, if Wolde Nebri tried to play with other children, their mothers snatched them away and no one would look Wolde Nebri in the eye. When Wolde Nebri was ten he understood that he was alone. He did not understand why that should be. Once he came upon children playing on the trail below the village, and said: “I will play this game also.” But they moved aside and stood waiting for him to go by. A fury took hold of him, and he ran at them screaming and throwing stones. They fled into the village.

One day after his father had died his mother became ill, and though the herb doctor came and prepared medicines for her, she died also. Wolde Nebri had the silent house to himself then, and talked only to his goats. At night he dreamed: “I will play this game also.” The villagers brought tales to the Head Man. The Son of the Leopard went here, he went there, he hurled a stone at a house, he kicked dust in the face of the bronze caster’s son, he spat on the headman’s own door, he set fire to the carpenter’s strawstack. The elders said: We must do something now. He is growing strong and angry. But the Head Man cast his eyes on the ground and clicked his tongue. “Not yet, there is no solution yet.”

Then one day Wolde Nebri dragged some carrion into the holy mountain cave, so hyenas, eager to eat, entered the cave and defiled it. The Head Man met again with the elders and said, “Very well. Now we must do something. Let us drive him away.” That night when Wolde Nebri returned to the village with his goats, the people of Aini blocked the trail and hurled stones at him, shouting: “Go whence you came. Go whence you came.”

Bleeding from his wounds, the Son of the Leopard ran in terror down the trail that went to the West. He slept without blanket or fire under an overhanging rock. When day came he went again with the trail that descended to the West. He felt his heart beating within him, and said to himself: “I have one friend. The heart that beats within me is my friend. To him only will I talk.”

Wolde Nebri grew into manhood, and he wandered through the land as one without a country. He carried the long broadsword of the plains on his back, and walked with pride like a warrior. He rested nowhere for long, but went his way. To those who greeted him with the word “Peace,” he replied: “Peace, but there is no peace.” And to those who asked where he came from Wolde Nebri replied, “Is that not the great mystery of life?”

Wolde Nebri became a strong and intelligent warrior. He risked his life in the causes of strangers. He wandered from mountains to plains, performing heroic deeds. Many tribes asked him to settle down with them . At last he took a wife, and a son was born to Wolde Nebri. He went to the old men and asked, “How shall I know who he is?” They were perplexed. “He is who he is. Give him any name you like.” “In my village,” he explained, “there were wise men who could divine a child’s identity and his previous life.” He turned his back on the elders and went out into the open fields, remembering his life on the mountain of Aini. He came to where children were playing games while their goats grazed. Wolde Nebri strode among them fiercely and cried out, “I will play this game also.” But the children fled in fear. Wolde Nebri left that village without naming his son. He walked many days with angry thoughts swirling in his head.

At last he resolved to return to his village. When he came to the land of the Beni Amer he was greeted as an old friend. They took him to their houses and fed him and bathed his feet. And they sat together drinking beer made from durra, until after a while they asked him to play on his lyre. Wolde Nebri said not yet, and he drank more beer, and they drank with him. Long he sat silent, and his lyre was quiet. He placed his fingers on the string, but his lyre gave out no music. In his mind he recalled the great deeds he had done, but the words of his songs were sour in his mouth, and he could not sing. And when they had sat this way for a long while, the chief of the Beni Amer spoke: “The heart and the lyre are twin brothers. When one grieves the other remains speechless.” Wolde Nebri said: “So it is. How then can I play for you?” and he put his lyre aside.

“When I was a child they would not accept me, and they stoned me out of the village, though I had neither robbed nor killed. My only crime was to be the Son of the Leopard.” They asked: “Why do you return?” He said: “What is a man who has no village to call his home?” And they said: “If they stoned you before, will they not kill you now?” Wolde Nebri replied: “I will take with me many men with sharpened blades.”

Many of the young men of the Beni Amer agreed to go with him, and they marched toward the mountain of Aini. Along the way they were joined by the Bora and the AdTecles. By the time they came to the mountain of Aini, Wolde Nebri led more than a thousand warriors. They made camp silently and lit no fire so that the enemy would not be warned, and they lay down to rest.

Wolde Nebri could not sit quietly. He took his weapons in his hands and went out from the camp, wandering among the wild game trails of the mountain. He came upon an antelope feeding by the trail, and he raised his spear and pursued the animal. The antelope leaped among the rocks, but Wolde Nebri’s sinews fed on a deep well of anger, and wherever the fleeing animal went he followed. Sometimes Wolde Nebri was close to the animal, sometimes far away. The sweat came out and ran over his body. The air he breathed throttled him. But still he ran. The jagged rock beneath his feet tore his sandals to shreds but he did not stop. At last he was close upon the antelope, and he hurled his spear. Then the animal was gone. Wolde Nebri found his weapon, and he sat on the earth to rest.

After many minutes, when he rose to go back, he saw an old blind man sitting before him with a staff across his knees. Wolde Nebri came and sat with him, and shared parched corn from the basket hanging from his shoulder. The old man took cowry shells from a leather pouch and tossed them three times on the ground.

“So they fall,” he said. “Each time they fall differently, though they be cast each minute of a lifetime.” He felt them with his fingers where they lay. “Each man suffers his destiny, whether he speaks or is silent, whether he rides or walks. Three times you will fail. The first time you will fail through vanity. The second time you will fail through weakness. The third time you will fail through strength. And at last you will succeed through sorrow.”

“So be it, father,” replied the Son of the Leopard. He arose, and went back to where his companions waited and slept. When morning came they sharpened their spears and their broadswords for the last time, and went up the west trail on Mount Aini. They came to the plain which lay above, and they saw that they were greatly outnumbered by the enemy. The two armies exchanged insults, as was the custom, and then they battled on the plain. Of the Bora many men fell and of the Beni Amer and the AdTecles still more fell. At last the fighting men of Aini retreated back up the mountain and Wolde Nebri’s army was master of the plain.

It is said that he wandered again the shadows of Mount Aini, and that one day he again saw by the edge of the trail the old man without sight in his eyes, and the old man said: “Enter my house. Do not stand before the threshold.” The old man took cowry shells from his leather pouch and tossed them three times upon the ground. He said: “Though these shells be cast a thousand times on the ground and seem to fall differently, for each man they can tell only one story, and that is his story.” He read the fall of the cowry shells with the tips of his aged fingers, and said: “The first time you failed through vanity. Yet there are more trials. The second time you will fail through weakness. The third time you will fail through strength. And at last you will succeed through sorrow.”

Wolde Nebri spoke to him this way: “Grandfather, what was my vanity?” And the blind man replied: “Your vanity was blind anger, through which you caused many of your companions to die. They were bound by their promise to fight a battle for you, but you scattered them recklessly and laid waste to their friendship. Blind anger is like a storm without rain. It destroys what lies in its path, but it does not quench thirst.”

“So be it,” the Son of the Leopard said, “I have within me such a storm. Without it where is the meaning of my life?”

“From sorrow will come victory. Find your meaning there,” the blind man said.

At last the old men of the Chaha, the Muher and the Aklil came to him and said: “Grandson, you do not rest. What can we do to repay you for the good things you have done for us?”

“Give me men to capture a city,” he said.

The warriors of the Chaha, the Muher and the Aklil became lean and footsore. Yet Wolde Nebri became more and more impatient. When at last they could see Mount Aini he said, “Now we must rest.” They made fires and ate and slept. But Wolde Nebri did not sleep. He walked among them and cursed silently. “Ah, this is weakness, but I will make them strong. I will drive them.”

As they crossed the flat plain they came upon a group of boys playing with a ball and sticks. There Wolde Nebri halted. As he watched the boys play, his eyes grew red. And suddenly he ran among them, his spear in hand shouting: “I will play! I will play!” The boys of Aini threw down their sticks and ran home in terror. The Chala, the Muher, and the Aklil watched in wonder as Wolde Nebri played ball with his good fighting spear. They came closer and heard him shout, “Who will stop me from playing?” He struck the ball with his spear and cried out childish things. The warriors of Aini came rushing down the mountain. The Chaha, the Muher, and the Aklil put Wolde Nebri on his horse. They fled down the mountain by the arroyos and riverbeds, as they had come. When they were at the bottom and no longer pursued, they halted before Wolde Nebri to say goodbye and they left him. And this was how the Son of the Leopard failed through weakness.

Many months he walked and he did not care where he went. But it happened one day that he passed a withered old man sitting at the edge of the road. The old man said to him, “Peace,” but Wolde Nebri did not hear.

The old man picked up his harp which lay beside him and began to play. Wolde Nebri saw that the old man’s legs were shriveled and dead. The old man said: “This happened through knowledge. When I was young I sought the knowledge of medicine and magic, and I stole a potion from a hakim of my village. I tasted of it deeply, and when I awakened my legs were lifeless.”

Wolde Nebri asked: “Father, did you gain knowledge?” “Yes,” the old man said. “I gained it.”

“If I had the knowledge I could solve the riddle,” Wolde Nebri said. “I too would give my legs for this.”

The old man took from his pouch a medicine bundle wrapped in a leaf. Into Wolde Nebri’s hand he poured some red powder. “Here is knowledge,” he said, “but taste it gently.”

Wolde Nebri found a shallow cave and entered to sleep. But first he tasted of the red powder that was knowledge. He tasted all of it and then he slept. When he awoke it was still night, but the darkness glowed all around him. He stood up and found the hard earth soft underneath his feet. When he walked it was without effort. He seemed to float upward on the trail as though he were on a cloud. The warriors of Anini came down to fight him, but even as they approached Wolde Nebri the golden light around him faded. He felt thirst upon his tongue and hunger in his belly; the warm wind chilled his bones, the sun turned black, and the broadsword became leaden in his hands. When he tried to rise, his legs would not hold him. They were as two sticks of wood. They felt no pain, neither would they move. At last he understood that he, like the old bard, would henceforth travel only on the backs of horses or men. He sat upon the ground for a long time. And he remembered what he had heard in his youth—that knowledge is strength. And he understood that he had failed through knowledge.

A wandering herdsman carried Wolde Nebri down the mountain on his back and left him beside a well. People brought him food to eat. One day Wolde Nebri traded his broadsword for the harp of a wandering Mensa. He played for people and they gave him food and carried him from place to place. He carried his harp with him everywhere. One day as he sat on the edge of a trail he saw a boy leading an aged blind man. He said to the old blind man, “Why do you stand before my door? Enter, and share my fire.”

The blind man came and sat beside him. He took from his leather pouch some cowry shells and tossed them upon the earth, feeling them with his fingers. “Though these shells be cast a thousand times on the ground and seem to fall differently, for each man they can tell only one story, and that is his story,” he said.

Wolde Nebri said, “It is the fourth riddle I have never understood. How can there be victory through sorrow? The fourth riddle was not borne out. There was sorrow but no victory. Long ago I abandoned my ambition to avenge myself, and even so the people of Aini have fled where I may never follow. Three times the shells were right, for three times I failed, but where is the victory that comes from grief?”

The blind man cast his shells again and again upon the earth, feeling them each time with his aged fingers.

Wolde Nebri took up his harp then and he sang. He sang of the cattle and the peaceful grainfields, of the women who carried water vessels on their backs, and of young men growing into manhood.

 

Oh my countrymen!

Why does a man journey forever seeking Destiny?

For Destiny is the companion who holds his hand.

Why does a man search endlessly for a house?

For his heart is the house he lives in.

People who stood by the trail listening to Wolde Nebri said: “Whenever have we heard such singing as this?” The blind man put the cowry shells back into their leather pouch. And he said to Wolde Nebri: “Can you sing this way and yet not know the meaning of the riddle? In your song lies the answer. Your victory lies within you.”

 

*Courlander, Harold, Son of Leopard, N.Y., Crown, 1974.

 

LOUISE DE LEEUW, member of the Washington, D.C. Friends Meeting former chairperson of the Haverford and Washington FCRP Conferences: was one of the founders of the Jung Working Group in Washington. She is currently a social worker in private practice and doing individual psychotherapy at a clinic for low income people.