The Ghosts of Bundu

(Letter to Lord Lugard from Flora Shaw read by Eze Nri to Sultan of Sokoto)

By Uduma Kalu

THE demons took me. That day,
I named her- Nigeria.
I was unlady, like, I walked the men
Out my house.
I had no reason to walk the men
Out my house.
I still don’t know why I walked the men
Out my house. The demons took me.
That night, I turned to end the novel.
I couldn’t. Was it writer’s bloc? Words eluded me.
I turned and tried to turn the book.
Migraine took me.
I wanted tea. Bundu slept in the sitting room couch.
I thought it rude to wake him up.
So, out into the cold dark night I went
In search of peace. And peace I did find in this land of the rising sun.
Here, I am, your white bread, the lamps are burnt.
My thought is a pool. I am drowned in a pool.
I put ink to paper. Bloc. As in blocked.
I like the shelter here. But Woolwich is better.
In the mornings, the sun is bronze on window.
A thousand birds, like dots, swing in the sky,.
Singing to me: good morning, good morning, good morning.
In the evenings, I watch the sun melt in the distance, earth has s a date. Beautiful and sweet, like orange sliced in two is sun on a date.
And birds ping and prance. Like painting in the sun.
Bundu! You never heard of Bundu. I must tell you of Bundu-
Fourteen, lad of the Igbo, a help in my house. My guide. He is ebony, deep and dark.
His eyes dart. He picks up English a day and faster than my French a year.
He is a cat, highly intelligent. Humble, introvert, a ‘clean imperial material’, Whittingham told Darlington.
That wasn’t. patriotic. Bundu thought it was.
Bundu tells me of this land. Like Earth came to Moses in the beginning.
It’s the beginning. Bundu was there.
He talks of distances and wars. Bundu was there.
His stories are epics fond of heroes.
Bundu was there.
And stretches of out of sense-
Bundu was there.
Still, I know with the little I have known,
They are true as water.
Osifor. Osifor was Igbo, brash, feminine.
His brilliance, unearthly. His was angel on earth.
His tongue sang the tongues.
But I found him, well, you may say, rather too ambitious.
Round and round the eastern front, each round a village I ran with Osifor.
Now, here, whose name… I give up. My tongue slits a thousand sounds.
More like ‘Ama Enedibo Cha’. I do not know.
My tongue slits a thousand sounds.
There I met him.
There was a chief whose name… Again, I give up. My pen loses wits and wax..
The chief, I can say charismatic, gave me a carnival.
I was their Queen. Their queen of England.
Oh! Lord, my Lugard, how hospitable are these people, these people of central Sudan!
A carnival, a bonfire. And drummers. Their muscles as punch, pulsed.
Pounded the drums of lions .
Sons of lions, they pounded the lions carved on woods.
And strong, dark dames vibrated their waists, their waists beaded in colours. Rhythms thundered on their waists of colours.
There were wrestlers, fierceful lads, slippery…
Globules and sweat on their godly frame.
They are gladiators these, natural more than gladiators, even.
Majestic more than gladiators. Men,
Fiercely more than lions.
The wrestlers, twisted, this way, that way,
Like snake skilled in slipperiness.
Precision, precisely super human,.men,
Stronger, more than Hercules. Men,
Towered more than bridge of Stamford. Men.
Army of Queen may use these men. I say.
It was a bit of a tad, after all, the carnival. The carnival was a tad. Because beneath, the crescendo rammed a wall.
He was brought, scanty, like animal in raffia palm fronds.
The palace guards, giants as wrestlers,
Hurled him this way, and that way.
They crashed his face on earth.
They placed him on something, something strange.
It could be altar.
Separate his head, curse his body, ordered the chief.
The crowd cheered, my spleen surged.
What’s he done?
He’s Osu, said the chief of grin.
What’s Osu?
He thought to recruit me.
You see, ma’am, it’s dark and deep.
A legend told, t’s a tale.
But that Osu are slaves, I cannot tell.
They committed one crime.
They stole from gods. They eloped with loots l.
They run to villages. They roam the land.
They are harbingers. Hawkers of doom.
They rain curses as oil rains ants.
Their hosts suffer too Any land they go, no crops yield. Their streams dry. Anywhere they go.
It’s epidemics on the youth. It’s epidemic on the old. And so on and so forth. Gods curse the land they trod.
How do you know one? asked I.
The signs. We get the signs
We consult oracles. Oracles show them to us.
Besides, they are easy to know: They steal. They kill.
They devour virgins.
In case of female Osu, they lay half the men. They are worse than witches.
I don’t care, I want that boy spared, I screamed.
“Ma’am, you know not the Osu. They are bad. If you see a snake in the bush. If you see Osu in the bush. Kill the Osu before you kill the snake in the bush, said the chief to me.
Untie him now, my scream again.
“Okay, ma’am. But he cannot stay; we banish him in the stead.
I take him.
Ma’am, these people are…
Humans! Untie him, I said.
They untied the boy. They brought him to me. The boy stared. He stared at me. His eyes a burning glass.
He belonged to a demon. The demon was angry.
At first I was afraid of this lad, this land. This haunted land of the Igbo,
East of sun.
I was afraid. Then he said, ‘Thank you, Queen of London’
My fears dissolved. Lady Lugard, I said. Call me Lady Lugard. What’s your name?
Bundu. He said. His name was Bundu.
This Bundu, I write to you. The Bundu the Brits called ‘clean imperial product’.
He loved it.
That night, the flowers waltzed gently in the whirling winds. The air was blue, easy to soak.
It, cooled my nerves. Then it came – first, faint and distant –
drones – of drumbeats from another village… And I remembered. It was like a river over me.
Those drumbeats I heard. I have heard those same drumbeatss over a hundred of villages. Hundreds of nights. Hundreds of times. Hundreds of villages in this land.
I have heard those drumbeats over a hundred villages.
A people so strong. A people so diverse.
They are nourished by culture and nurture, these people…
Their nature, I think together, they will make a brand.
Such a band, formidable like forte…
I discarded the novel that night, and set forth:
This article for THE TIMES.
I bring to surface the beauty of this land.
I bring the poetry of this land.
Land of history. Land of magic.
And the highs of amalgamation. For tribes and Crown. A clown. Again a tad.
Honestly, I think the name ‘Royal Niger Company Territories’ is
A tad too long. That word again, tad.
Central Sudan? By way of merchants and diplomats.
It’s highly unrepresentative
Of people here. The Niger is their fantasy.
It’s course of romantics round the world.
Sincerely I wrote and I believe it.
The Niger area, spelt Nigeria is convenient, is romantic.
The demons took me.
The magics took me.
The terrors took me
When I named, Nigeria.
Bundu screamed!
I named her Nigeria.
Bundu screamed!
I anticipate a reply.

‘Malaria Empire’ is from Uduma Kalu’s forthcoming collection, The Merchants of Virgins: Poems of Fires