Vamba Sherif
Wilton Sankawulo: The True Measure of his Greatness
I don’t remember exactly when I discovered Sankawulo. He seemed to have always been there, his stories a part of my life, and whenever I read him it was as if I was reliving the stories my grandmother, my aunts and uncles told me. This, perhaps, is the true measure of his greatness. We tell stories not only to discover who we are, but through our efforts, to let others recognize themselves in us.
Mine was a culture in which animals interacted with men, the spirit world was interwoven with the real world, and it was not strange when the wife of an uncle recognized in the millipede the lost ancestor she had been searching for, for many years. She would gather the insect in her lappa, whispering tenderly to it, and she would bring it home for us all to see and admire. Sankawulo’s stories were steeped deep in this culture, and he wrote about it with the gusto and the passion of a true artist. Haindi was the setting for some of his stories, but this Haindi could be any village in Liberia or any place in Africa. I never visited it, but this is how I always picture it in my mind: a town surrounded by forests, with a river or two flanking it, and with elders who control the heartbeat of the town and who ensure its continuity.
There’s also the Poro secret society, to which Sankawulo belonged. Much has been written about this secret society. Out of ignorance, masks have been dubbed devils and the rituals that surround the Poro have been called heathen customs. Yet, it was this secret society that ensured the survival of Haindi and that part of the world that I call home. Sankawulo knew what he was doing. He was a man who was brought up in the shadows of Christianity, but who went on to reclaim his identity by holding on to the very forces that formed its foundation. It must have been a difficult struggle for him, but I can imagine the joy he must have felt when he realized that with his choice to be an initiate and an active member of the Poro, he was at one with the ancestors, that they were breathing in him even when he wore the cross, even when he sang Jesus’ praises. In his life, I see a reflection of mine, a child who spoke Mandingo at home, but who was equally at ease with Gbandi and Mende, and who could not resist throwing in a Kissi or Kpelle phrase, a Loma or Fulah sentence, because all these diverse languages constituted my identity, just as Poro and Christianity constituted professor Sankawulo’s.
I met the professor for the first and only time in 2000. A Dutch radio-journalist who had read my first novel, The land of the fathers, had convinced me of the necessity of going back to Liberia, where war had been raging for more than ten years. She would accompany me to make a documentary about my homecoming. While in Liberia we decided to meet the professor. Our vehicle edged its way through a muddy road strewn with potholes until we saw a stately and impressive house standing before us. It turned out to be the professor’s home. He welcomed us heartedly, in his loud and generous way, and then we talked about literature, the passion that bonded us even more than our Liberianess.
He was honest; he showed me a pile of manuscripts which were yet to be published. I know what it takes to write a book, and seeing that pile of writings —a lifetime of writing surely—which the artist wanted to share with the world but couldn’t, because someone somewhere deemed them unpublishable, was heartrending. The professor wanted to read my novel, but I told him it was only available in Dutch, and that I hoped that one day Liberians would get to read it. We parted as friends, and I returned to the Netherlands, where I had chosen to live in exile, hoping that the war might spare what was left of my heritage.
Two years before his demise, I wrote the professor, seeking his advice on some Kpelle names. He wrote down a long list of Kpelle names and their pronunciations and meanings. Once again he showed how his heart and work were too large to be limited only to Liberia. Like a true artist he belonged to the world.
Exquisitely written with quiet power and deep emotion. Love these lines especially, “Mine was a culture in which animals interacted with men, the spirit world was interwoven with the real world, and it was not strange when the wife of an uncle recognized in the millipede the lost ancestor she had been searching for, for many years. She would gather the insect in her lappa, whispering tenderly to it, and she would bring it home for us all to see and admire. Sankawulo’s stories were steeped deep in this culture, and he wrote about it with the gusto and the passion of a true artist.” Thank you Vamba Sherif for this perspective.