The Alo Man

by Mara L. Pratt-Chadwick; Louise Lamprey

“I know a riddle you have not heard,” said Nkula. “My father’s fowls laid their eggs under the leaves.”

None of them had heard that one, but Nkunda happened to remember seeing Nkula munching peanuts a few minutes before and called out triumphantly, “Nguba!” Of course, the peanut, or “goober,” hides its fruit under its leaves.

“The bird with its head cut off eats up all the food,” said their mother. The answer to that was easy when one saw the women grinding flour for bread. The stone on which grain, cassava, and plantains are pounded was the headless bird.

Then the Alo Man told them one that was new to them all.

“I went to a strange town and they gave me one-legged fowls to eat.” The answer was “Mushrooms.” Another new riddle was this: “A small stick may have many leaves and lose them all in a day.” The stick was a market, and the leaves were the people.

With laughter and joking and singing, all the work went on, and before long the men were finishing the house walls. They bound split bamboo crosswise of the posts with wet bark rope, which shrinks as it dries and will last for years. The women plastered the wall inside and out with the mud which they had made at the nearest ant-hill by puddling earth and water with their feet. This mud was squeezed between the bamboos, and when it was dry, more was put on, until the walls were quite rain-proof.

When the walls were dry the frame of the roof, which had been made separately, was set on top, and then the grass thatching was tied on in bundles, the upper row overlapping the lower as wooden shingles do. The rafters of the roof were the midribs of the raffia leaf. The house was divided within into the side for sleep and the side for fire.

In chilly weather a wood fire smoldered inside each hut, so that the walls and inside of the roof became black and shining with soot. The houses were used only to sleep in, to sit in on rainy days, and to hold various stores which must be kept dry; all the cooking, eating, and general work of the family were done outside. Moreover, a whole family did not live in a single house. Each grown person had a separate hut, the children usually staying with their mothers.

There was almost no furniture except that some houses had a mud platform with a grass bed on it. When the headman of the village presided on any formal occasion, he sat on a low stool cut out of a solid block of wood. The rest of the people sat on their heels and were perfectly comfortable, for they had always sat in that position. Food was served in wooden platters and calabashes, without tables. Baskets and jars served to hold things, and there were no stoves, cupboards, bureaus, washstands, desks, sofas, or sideboards. The people made what they needed and wanted, and spent no time taking care of anything they did not want.