The Banana Cutters, Alastair Macleod [always you kirsty moseley txt] 📗

      Joseph Mawenge was a banana cutter. His hand was calloused from holding his curved palete – a sort of machete designed for cutting bunches of bananas off the trees. It was 50 cms long – heavy blue steel where it came out of the bone handle, tapering in thickness like a sword but finally, at the end, curving slightly, into a hook.

      Between the handle and the hook was the main blade – razor sharp, able to bite through the thick stem that held a bunch of green bananas aloft.
They cut them green so they would ripen slowly in the refrigerated ship on the way to Europe.

      Joseph disliked his work. It was hard, repetitive and they were paid only 30 datos a bunch – piecework. If you got sick or had to go home to visit your family you didn’t get paid.
His home was 60 kms away over the ridge of hills covered in banana plantations.

      By now, Joseph was strong. For his tribe he was small but, after two years at the plantation, his muscles stood out. To watch him working his palete was a delight. His arm and the palete were one as he flexed - in a swift swinging motion the bunch fell.

      Their camp accommodation was basic. Crammed into tin roofed huts, the men used the river to wash their clothes and for water. Some of Joseph’s fellow workers were from a fishing tribe. Before bananas became the work, they fished for a living, selling the fish after smoking and drying, to other tribes further inland. Tombe Makesi was of a fishing tribe. In his time off he often sat by the bank smoking, a cigarette in his left hand, while with his right he jiggled the home made rod to make his bait imitate a small struggling fish.
When he was successful he would share some of his catch with Joseph. They would barbecue it right there on the riverbank.

      Joseph was not fond of the river. He was from a forest tribe – he feared the river god. It seemed so large and powerful, sliding darkly along. Tombe laughed at Joseph’s fears - and dreams. Because one night Joseph had a dream; he dreamt the river god rose up and took Tombe away. Joseph awoke in a sweat, but on the bunk below him Tombe was safe.

      The next day at break time Joseph took a small path out of the plantation into the nearby forest. The familiar forest sounds enveloped him – the singing of insect wings, the screeks and whistles of birds and the scuffling of leaves as a small mammal moved through the undergrowth.

      Joseph made a small shrine of twigs and leaves and said a prayer to Ula, the goddess protectress of his forest. He prayed to keep Tombe his friend safe. He was not sure if Ula’s power extended to the river or whether she was powerful enough to overcome the river god.

      A week later, Tombe was fishing as usual. He was smoking; Joseph could see the red glow of his cigarette against the black expanse of the river. The night was soft, quiet. Tombe had not caught a fish yet. Joseph was sitting outside of the hut sharpening his palete for tomorrow. Moths flitted in and out of the darkness, drawn to the small bulb above his head.
He was thinking of his forest home, the smell of the trees.

      A yell broke his dreaming. Tombe was shouting in his own language. Joseph raced down the riverbank. A large dark shape was half out of the water. The river god! It had Tombe’s left hand in its mouth trying to drag him back under the water.
      Joseph jumped on its head beating it with his hands – it did not open its mouth – it was sliding back slowly into the water threatening to take both men under.

      Joseph pulled his palete out of its scabbard and in one swift motion, sliced through Tombe’s arm at the wrist. Tombe fell back. As the monster slid under, Joseph scrambled off onto the riverbank.

      Tombe was bleeding heavily – Joseph took the amulet from round his neck and tied the leather thong round the arm – the bleeding slowed. From the amulet he took dried leaves and pressed them into the wound.

       Tombe survived. After only a few days he came back to the plantation. His right hand was, after all, the one that did the work.

     Joseph told him about his dream. Tombe listened carefully.

“Were those leaves from your own forest? "

“Yes,” said Joseph.“I keep them to treat cuts and bruises while I work in the plantation.”

      At break time, Joseph once more turned onto the track that led into the forest. Tombe followed. He watched while, in a little clearing, Joseph built a tiny shrine of leaves and twigs. Joseph spoke a prayer. He thanked the forest goddess for her protection to his friend.

      Back at the hut that evening, Tombe built a fire on the riverbank and prayed to his river god asking him to be bountiful with fish. He threw a wooden carving of a crocodile into the fire and asked for his hand to be returned.

      Some weeks later, an overseer at the Banana packing station killed a crocodile. When it was cut open and skinned for its leather, a human hand was found with nicotine stains on the fingers.

      The local hunters had heard of Tombe’s loss and, putting the hand in a jar of rum, returned it to him.

      Tombe buried the hand on the riverbank, marking the spot with a large stone. He left instructions with his tribe that when he died, it was here, under the stone, that he was to be buried - reunited with his hand.

      Now, if he wanted fish, Tombe usually bought it from members of his tribe downstream.

If he did fish, it was with a long rod from well up the bank and in the daytime.

Text: alastair macleod
Images: alastair macleod ;
Editing: alastair macleod
Translation: title typeset in classical
Publication Date: 12-07-2012

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Dedication:
to our ancestors and the gods of Africa