A SILENT SONG ESSAY QUESTION
Citing illustrations from Eric Ng’maryo’s Ivory Bangles, write a composition showing how established customs are difficult to change.
People are often reluctant to change their way of doing something especially something which they have been doing for a long time. The society in Ivory Bangles is superstitious and also holds on to norms such as polygamy and hunting game for ivory.
Firstly, this is a society where people are apt to believe in superstitions. When the old man notices blood specks on the liver of a goat he had slaughtered, he has to go and consult the seer. Although he has a deep-seated suspicion of the seer, he still goes to him since he is a tribal seer, and a priest of the people. The seer gives him some unsettling revelation and a difficult task to do in order to avert a disaster. He reveals that the seer’s pebbles said someone was going to die. That is the old man’s wife. In order to avert this, the old man is supposed to give his wife a thorough beating and send her to her parents. The seer’s pebbles are adamant that there is no other way to appease them. This worries the old man so much. His mind wanders as he walks home. Only a small trickle washes the trunk in front of him when he relieves himself. The old man believes the seer is the mouthpiece of their departed forefathers. Visiting the seer is so common that the wife can guess where he went earlier that day. He tells his wife that the spirits want him to give her a ritual beating. Once upon a time, the seer wanted to marry the woman. He had even promised to put a spell on her. His warning is therefore laughable but according to the man it is solemn since it is not he who put the blood specks on the goat’s liver. The woman comes up with a simple, ingenious scheme to fool the spirits. Old habits, like superstitions and consulting seers, die hard since the people have held on to them for a long time. Despite having a deep-seated suspicion of the seer, the old man still considers the viability of the ritual beating since established habits are difficult to change.
Secondly, the habit of wife battering is part and parcel of the society and is even considered a solemn ritual. The seer’s pebbles claim that the spirits are jealous of a happy wife, a woman unmolested by her husband until old age when she is called “Grandmother”. To avert her death after he finds blood specks on the liver of a goat he was slaughtering, the old man has to give his wife a thorough beating and send her to her parents after the beating. The pebbles insist on wife battering and refuse the offer of countless goats by the old man. The man is reluctant to lay his hands on his comely caring wife who bathes him when he arrives home and cooks him a delicious meal. According to the spirits, this is supposed to be a ritual beating to avert calamity. The woman says, the seer – “that old vulture”, was once interested in marrying her and had even promised to put a spell on her. It appears he is just jealous of her happy marriage. But the man considers him the mouthpiece of the departed forefathers. The old man is different from his son who is accustomed to the norm of domestic violence. He beat his wife Leveri to a fingernail’s distance to her grave. Such cases are so common that there is a prescribed way of solving them. Clans would meet and the offending man would be fined, they would then drink reconciliatory beer and everyone would go home happy. Surely, wife battering has been accepted as a norm in this society.
Polygamy is another accepted custom in the society. The old man earned the enviable position of the chief’s councillor as a reward for bravery in the Battle of the Five Rainy Days. The wife calls him son of a Chief. He is a wood carver, son of a wood carver and a very brave warrior. He is thus much respected in the society, but also much talked about because he has only one wife. A chief’s councillor is considered a small chief, and whoever heard of a chief with one wife? The ageing chief even advised him to get himself another wife. The old man loves his wife. As much as polygamy is customary, he does not comply. However, it is so deeply-rooted in the society that the people find it strange for a man of his social standing to have only one wife and even the chief himself advises him to consider polygamy.
Another practice that seems so deeply-rooted in this society is the hunting and killing of game like elephants. The old man killed an elephant using a poisoned arrow and from its ivory, he carved twenty four bangles for his wife. She wears eight bangles in either hand and four heavy ones on each leg. The ones on her hands are etched with mnemonic marks for a long love poem. He presented the bangles to her when their son and only child was named. She looks beautiful like a chief’s wife when adorning the bangles. When the elephants invade the village, the villagers are worried about the devastation they leave in their wake. They destroy young crops. The beasts are pursued by people who know how to use poisoned arrows. With poisoned arrows, several can be killed. The scouts sit atop of trees and warn people about the movement of the six elephants; one bull and five cows. Unfortunately, the old man’s wife is attacked by a wounded bull elephant which stamps on her and kills her. The people are accustomed to shooting and killing elephants. Sometimes, the wounded animals tend to be wild.
The people have a customary way of solving conflicts in the society. To confuse the spirit of death, the woman plans to go to her brother’s home weeping and complaining that her husband had beaten her without any reason. She would refuse to go back to his home when he comes for her. This would force their respective clans to confer, with the view of reconciling them. The husband would be fined and they would drink beer of reconciliation. This would be done to fool the spirits and life would continue as before. After she comes from the market, the woman plans to cook for the man and go to her brother’s. She plans to hoe the weedy part of her grove before squeezing tears out of her eyes and going to her brother’s house. Indeed, these people have certain prescribed ways of conflict resolution that are hard to change.
Lastly, the woman is accustomed to performing her normal wifely duties of taking care of her husband and grandson. When he gets home, she unstraps his leather sandals and leads him behind the house to the lean-to, to bathe him. She cooks him a meal consisting a pottage made of mashed green bananas and finely shredded meat and stock vegetables, herbs and a touch of her hand. At night, she lies with the old man, her husband, before stealing back to her grandson’s, ‘her husband’. When she goes to the market she buys the boy a length of sugar cane and some snuff for the man. After coming from the market, she cooks and carefully covers her husband’s food. She has plans to go to her brother’s but first she plans to hoe in the part of the grove the man said was very weedy. She is also so accustomed to hoeing that despite the heavy load of ivory bangles on her hands, the small hoe goes at a fast practiced speed. Only three weeks ago, she weeded the same spot with her daughter-in-law Leveri. Although she has to visit her brother’s home, she can’t help but perform the habitual tasks at home first. Unfortunately, she is killed while still hoeing in the grove. Surely, old habits die hard.
In conclusion, people are predisposed to doing things that are customary or typical and it is difficult to convince someone to do something they are not used to.
