Now, one strange thing about the hunter's cottage was that there was one secret room in which he had placed the head of each animal he had killed. He called the room Botire Danmu ("The Room of Skulls”).
On the rare occasions that he received a visitor in the cottage, he made sure – if he liked the visitor – that he led him to the “Room of Skulls” to let the visitor view his trophies – as a special treat. He would then explain the peculiar difficulties associated with killing each animal. His visitors were usually entranced with his stories of hunting, and never failed to retail them to other people. Thus his reputation grew far and wide as an unsurpassed marksman.
The hunter taught his little son the name of each animal he killed, plus its nickname or sobriquet – just as he learned them from his own father years and years ago.
A duiker (adowa) for instance, was called Kwadwo Abrefi Adowa, while the porcupine (kotoko) was called Kotoko Gyanbibi. Almost every animal had such a nickname, which was a combination of its ordinary name plus a selection of descriptive words from its better known characteristics. How these appellations were crafted by a people who did not know how to read and write is a marvel.
The methodology involves such tools of word-play as imagery, rhyme, alliteration and assonance. The nomenclatures employed to extol the 'virtues' of each animal are extremely rich and deft if one understands the Twi language.
They remind me of the way apostrophe is used in a more memorable poetry of languages such as English. Macbeth's witches, for instance, would be in familiar territory if introduced into the verbal conjured up by the hyena or the jackal, to say nothing of Kokosakyi, the vulture!!
One wonders –again – how can a language that is not written but is only spoken, incorporate rhyme, alliteration or assonance as the main components of its verification? If you can listen (while reading) to the examples of poetic lines about various animals that I am about to give, you will be reminded that poetry is to be said – or declaimed -- or spoken aloud.
In Akan society, poetry is created by the tongue for the tongue; or for the drum; or for the horn. To be striking and yet decipherable, each of these mediums requires the use of the most melodic sounds available to the language. And of course, it is precisely from such melodic sounds is great poetry we crafted.
So we have:
[Lion] Aboa kesie [The Great Beast] Esrem Sei! [King Osei (Destroyer) of the Grasslands!]
[Elephant] Eson [Elephant] Boninkoro [Mighty Single-cast Bone] A obu [That can shatter] Akuma mu! [The iron-wrought hefty Axe!]
[Leopard] Kurotwiamansa [The Great Slayer who finishes off whole nations] Aboa fufuo [The white beast] Aboa feefe [The beautiful beast] Kurotwiamansa [The Great Slayer who finishes off whole nations] Nam Seseaa ase [Treads beneath the Seseaa tree] Ma Seseaa ase woso biribiribiribiri [And makes the Seseaa shake uncontrollably] Na obeforo? [What if it climbed the tree?] Kurotwiamansa [The Great Slayer who polishes off whole nations] Nam hahan mu [Treads through the leaves] Rewe sika hwiren [Munching on a flower formed of solid gold]! Kurotwiamansa ba [Even the mere offspring of the Great Slayer] Yemmfre no akodaa! (Must never be taken for a child!”]
You see the amount of words devoted here to the leopard alone? There are a lot more. The reason is that the leopard was the most feared beast in the forests of the Akans. It was so fearsome that many kings and chiefs were given attributes borrowed from the leopard – to make their subjects fear and revere them. And, of course, Akan folklore is full of stories about the leopard. Like the one I shall now continue:
The little boy and his father had been living together for several years without any untoward incident, when one day, a big leopard suddenly showed up at the cottage, as the boy -- left alone as usual -- was in the kitchen preparing a meal for his absent father.
The leopard opened the kitchen door with a single blow from his paw – GBAM! – without knocking.
The sound of the blow on the door nearly tore the boy's heart from the arteries that attach it to the body. But when he saw the leopard behind the fallen door, he very nearly fainted altogether. He told himself, just in time to save himself from falling to the ground: ”You are the mighty hunter's son! You fear no animal!”
As if it could hear what the boy was saying to himself just then, the leopard said in a truculent voice: “Hey boy! Are you the son of that stupid hunter who lives here?”
“My – -my-- f-f-f-afather is n-n-n-n-ot -s-s-s-sstupid”! the boy protested.
“He's stupid!”
“He's not stupid!”
“He's very stupid!”
“He.'s not stupid at all!
“You want to challenge me, eh, boy?” the leopard said in a menacing tone. “If he were not stupid, would he have annoyed me, Gyahene, the King of Fire -- by killing so many of the animals I want to prey upon? Doesn't he know that animals don't grow on trees?”
The boy immediately realised that the leopard was in a murderous mood and that he had to think very carefully before saying anything at all to it. A quick glance at the leopard indeed showed that it had curled its long tail at the very tip and was shaking the tail to the left and to the right. His father had told him that leopards did that when they were about to strike at an animal. Leopards also sprang from the left side of their body; the father had added. So the boy watched the position of the leopard very carefully and casually kept moving as if stowing things here and there, but always making sure he was away from where the leopard could reach him if it sprang from its left.
The boy also tried to look the leopard in the eye several times, for his father had told him that no animal could look a human being fully in the eye. And indeed, the leopard turned his fiery eyes downwards whenever the boy looked at him directly. So alt hough the boy's heart was pounding at three times its normal beat, he communicated a state of fearlessness and even superiority to the leopard.
”Ahah!” the leopard retorted when the boy said his “father” was “not stupid”. It went on: “You have admitted that you are the hunter's son, So I can do unto you, what I want to do unto him!! Moreover, you have had the audacity to challenge me whenever I say he is stupid?”
“Yes, I am the hunter's son,” the boy answered. ”And I maintain that he's not stupid!”
“He's stupid!”
“He's not stupid!
“He's stupid!”
“He's not stupid!.... But that aside, what is it that you do want?” the boy finally asked. “You didn't come here to insult my father when he is not around?”
Now, the proximity of the leopard nearly made the boy reach. He had heard his father say that a leopard always carried its kill up a tree and hid it in the fork made by two adjacent branches, feeding on the kill a little but at a time. So, by the time the prey was finished, it would have rotten badly and would be stinking. And in truth, a huge billow of stench seemed to emanate from the leopard's mouth any time it opened its mouth to address a question to the boy.
Finally, the leopard said: “Do you know I usually kill those who challenge what I say? So I could kill you for contradicting my opinion of your father. But – but – I came here with a purpose.”
”Oh!” said the boy, relieved that the leopard had said it was not going to kill him. “And what purpose is that?”
The leopard said: “I've heard that your father keeps a room in which he has collected the skulls of all the animals he has been able to kill. Is that true?”
”Yes!” answered the boy.
”Is there a leopard among them?” the leopard asked.
The boy paused. He knew that a lot would hang on the answer he would give – including his own life. He thought for a while, giving the leopard the impression that he was trying to recollect what he had seen in the Skull Room. Finally, he said: “I may have seen something like that, but the truth is that I don't know what a leopard's skull looks like!”
“You don't know?” the leopard asked. “Okay, I want you to go and bring all the heads of the animals and assemble them on the ground right here. I want you to identify each head to me. Now, I want you to know this: if anyone ever lies to me, Slayer of Nations, death is his only punishment.”
With that, the Leopard let out a ferocious roar that reverberated through the forest and made any animal that was nearby sprint away into the deepest recesses of the forest to seek safe shelter.
Shaking, the little boy did as the leopard had said and bro ught out all the skulls of the animals his father had killed. He assembled them in a line on the floor.
And the leopard said to the boy, “Surely, you must know what skull belongs to which animal?”
The boy replied, “Yes, I do know their names.... up to a point!”
“Up to a point?.... Up to What point?” asked the leopard.
“Well,” the boy said, employing the verbal skills that his father had taught him and which, the father had said, would come to his aid one day if he was ever in a position to be condemned by the words that came out of his own mouth.... “There are some animals which are a taboo to our clan; totems that must not be hunted because we have an ancestral relationship with them. But occasionally, especially in the dark, my father shoots such animals without knowing what they are.
In such cases, he observes solemn funerary obsequies for them – as if they were humans like ourselves. He does not allow me to see these totems as he says that would bring me misfortune when I grow up!”
“Hmmm? ” said the leopard, sceptically. “Well, tell me – are leopards a taboo in your clan or not?”
Quick as a flash, the sharp-witted boy said, “My father reveres leopards. Our whole tribe reveres leopards. My father even says our Paramount Chief is named Etwie after the leopard!”
The leopard smiled – showing those gory yellow fangs of his that reminded the boy of the huge thorns of a horrendous tree he had once observed in the forest.
But the leopard did not stay friendly for long. “I like that Etwie name, yes. But you humans are extremely hypocritical. You can rain nice names on a creature while harbouring the most unspeakable thoughts about the very self-same creature. Anyway, you have admitted to e me yourself that there are some animals that he shoots in the dark....? Well, if you must know, And one of my own cousins did vanish without a trace some time ago. We looked everywhere for him, but never found his body.”
“Oh sorry”, said the boy.
“Sorry, are you?” the leopard remarked sarcastically, “you won't know what sorry means if I happen to find the skull of my cousin among your stupid father's stupid collection of trophies!”
And the leopard let out another ferocious roar. Tree branches shook, and thickets rustled – as if even the vegetation in the then forest was scared. Then the leopard pointed to one of the skulls and asked: “To which animal did this skull once belong?” The boy answered: “Oh, I know that one: it is the adowa or duiker. Its human name is Kwadwo Abrefi Adowa.... It was my brave father who slew this duiker! When I hear the report of a gun in the bush, I say ''Long life to you, Oh Mighty Hunter, My Father!”
“Ah? The tiny duiker too has a man name?” asked the leopard, puzzled. “Why would a duiker be of any significance to humans?”
“It may be small and insignificant”, the boy answered, but it once led a whole army of humans who were about to perish from thirst to a spring, where they were able to assuage their thirst. After they'd drunk water to their fill and had and survived, they decided that Providence had led the duiker to lead them to the water and that since it was their saviour, they should regard it as their totem animal for ever, small though the duiker was.”
Tales by stupid humans for stupid humans! The duiker was going about its normal business and would be surprised to hear that some foolish humans had elevated it to star status just because they had seen it going to drink water – something it does all the time and which enable my tribe to intercept it and turn it into a meal!” And the leopard snorted in disgust.
“Wells,” the boy replied, “as for us humans, we are grateful whenever someone does a favour – whether the entity is aware of our appreciation or not. There are so many animals that are the totems of human clans. So they endow these animals with human names in order that when they are carrying ou t a funeral ceremony for the animals when they are accidentally killed, the ceremony may not seem out of place.”
“Ummm!” said the leopard. “I know that you humans are a funny lot. I mean, you feed on animals, and yet you treat some of them as if they were humans like yourselves!. Okay, to which animal does this next skull here belong?”
“Oh, that's the bush-buck or onwansane. Its human name is Onwansane Mmomire!” “Ah? The silly kicking buck too has a human name?... Well, go on! There are so many left.”
And the hunter's son went ahead and told the leopard so many animal-human names that the leopard was convinced that there must be a purpose to what the human s had been doing. Were they using human names to record the existence of certain animals in their environment, as a sort of informal census of the living creatures? As for humans and their strange ways!” thought the leopard.
After the boy had identified and named about forty animals, the boy recognised the skull of a leopard. He was going to say Etwie or alternatively, Osebor or even the flattering encomium, Aboa Fufuo, and add that it was always addressed, not with its bare name, but as “Father Leopard” . But he stopped himself in time and remembered that he had said he didn't know what a leopard's skull looked like. Instead, he said to the leopard, “I can't readily identify that one, and since you do not forgive those who give you false information, I'd much rather you waited until tomorrow, by which time I would have been able to ask my father for the authentic name.”
”You want me to wait until tomorrow?” the leopard asked.
”Yes!” the boy nodded.”It's in your own interest that I ask for the postponement. You are so powerful that you deserve the truth and nothing but the truth!”
”All right. You can have until tomorrow! But don't tell your father why you want to know! Or you are already dead! You hear?” the leopard said.
After shaking its tail several times to the left and to the right, and bringing it up to its midriff and throwing it right back again, the leopard said, “Okay. I agree to wait until tomorrow!”. It then slunk off noiselessly off into the bushes and vanished from sight.
The boy heaved a sight of relief. Would his father believe him when he told him what had transpired? An adventure, nay, a torrid time with a real live leopard that had a grouse against mankind – especially a hunter's son! Who would believe he had been through such an experience and survived to tell the tale?
