Death of a Kani

In Africa's Middle Congo a kani is a wizard, and along the banks of the muddy Alima River a kani's orders are not taken lightly.

In the bush village of Bokouele, the ancient Kani Eyobele was dying, so he called his sons around him; the instructions he gave them were minute and terrifying. As soon as he died a calabash of palm wine was to be broken in the yard of his hut. Then in Eyobele's open grave a white cockerel was to be beheaded and released. If the headless, fluttering bird flew out of the grave it was well: the dead man was on his way to the upper regions. But if the bird stayed in the grave, the dying kani darkly warned, it would be better for the people of Bokouele that they lived somewhere else.

Old Eyobele died, and the wine was spilled. Then, as the women gathered around the dead man for the nightlong watch, a thunderstorm loomed over the village; and even before the cockerel could be beheaded, Eyobele's prophecy was carried out. A bolt of lightning crashed into Eyobele's hut, and a moment later nine women lay dead around the bier. Last week Bokouele was a ghost village, in which Father Benoit Gassongo, the Roman Catholic priest and teacher, stirred among the vacant seats of the mission school and said his Mass in the empty chapel.

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