Author’s note:

Oral literature is the father of all literature. People began telling stories by word of mouth before committing them to writing. The folk tale is perhaps the most popular form of oral literature because it is most entertaining. The ancients correctly believed that knowledge sinks in better if learning is fun, thus the prevailing use of the deus ex machina for conflict resolution in folk tales. But folk tales dramatize important themes and seismic events that teach people how to live in harmony with themselves and with each other. For example, The Deaf-Mute shows that polygamy is not necessarily to the liking of women in our society, but this social evil can be overcome only as women take responsibility for themselves.

I will tell it all, exactly how it happened, holding back nothing, because I don’t eat crab with shame. The truth is not pleasant, but it alone makes life worth living. I don’t intend, however, to burden you with my problems or simply get them off my chest at your expense. I want to teach a lesson to the old who like making every decision for the young, including such a vital one as the choice of a marriage partner—and the young who complain when living with the results of decisions others make for them.

Let me make it clear from the outset that I am a true daughter of the soil. I firmly believe in tradition. One must have some root to build on, relate to, and be proud of, but I also believe that answers to the problems of today are not always found in the past.

When I was a child, I decided to have my own husband when I grew up because I was dismayed by the hatred, jealousy, envy, and cruelty I saw in homes where many women shared the same husband. Life in my father’s house was a typical example. Father had ten wives who were constantly at each other’s throats, often for the most trifling reasons: A woman places a pan here and later finds it over there, asking in a hostile voice for “the crazy woman who removed my pan.” Disturbed because any of them might have removed the pan by mistake or absent-mindedness, thus making them possible targets of the attack, the other women would exchange with their angry mate curse for curse, insult for insult, until the quarrels led to brawls or bloodshed. Father tried to restore peace with kindly advice but failed, and the matter would end up in court where he had to pay huge sums of money for fines and court costs. Smoldering grudges remained, however, to cause more quarrels on the slightest pretext. Poor Father turned to drinking to avoid going mad.

Mother was often a victim of this chaotic life, especially during her turn to tend to my father. She survived it as long as she did because of her cold temper. Nothing moved her—or so it seemed. Whatever wrong was done to her she bore with courage, always looking calm, peaceful, and friendly. This disarmed her enemies to some extent and caused them to befriend her, however superficially.

The greatest problem she confronted in the household, as she once told me, was that she could not conceive. Many Zoes looked into her problem and claimed that it was her rivals who had bewitched her so that she might not bear a boy child for Father, thereby making her one of his favorites. Although she overlooked the wickedness and appeared cheerful—she never made an issue of it—something ate her inside. Why she didn’t leave the house is something I will never understand. Fortunately, she had me, but that didn’t end her troubles. Mother grew pale and pale until she died when I was only ten; and nobody ever knew or cared to know the cause of her untimely death.

Father took kindly to me after my mother died. His wives showed me love of some sort, perhaps out of guilt, because they knew that I knew they had a hand in my mother’s death. They often gave me food, but I knew better than to eat their food. I ate with Father, much to their dismay. All this talk of witchcraft means nothing once you trust in God, stay out of other people’s way, and are careful about what you eat and from whom you eat. Poison is the only witchcraft against which it is hard to be protected. What our so-called witches do is destroy our confidence or take control of our minds. If someone tells you that ordinary clean and pure water will kill you if you drink it, and you believe the person, you will certainly die if you drink that water. People claim that witches fly over towns and villages at night, suck people’s blood, turn them mad, and so on. These wild claims do not move me because I know that they are not true. So I eat well and sleep sound. I also know that once I do not share my husband and home with other women, I will live in peace and safety. Only a lazy woman accepts marriage to a man with many wives, just to be called THE HEADWIFE to command the honor and respect of society. But these can be obtained through honest living and hard work. Anyway, this is another story.

When I became fifteen, my father had the fancy of giving me to a friend of his, whom I had never met, as his wife. He had done the same thing to many of my sisters who accepted it without protest. His advice to them when giving them away was that God says children should obey their parents. How he got the idea or where in the Bible God says so was unclear. To know the truth, I joined a Church—incidentally this made me a Christian—and learned in Bible class that, according to the Scriptures, where your parents’ instruction conflicts with the will of God, you should obey God. I also learned that God wants us to live in peace and happiness, so I decided that anything that denies me peace and happiness is in conflict with his will and should be abandoned.

My own problem began late one night when Father called me to the secrecy of his bedroom and said that he had already given me to a rich friend of his in Salayea, Lofa County, as his wife. He said he would kill me if I refused. I told him that I had also decided to kill myself if he ever gave me to a man against my will.

Of course, I knew that he was only joking, for he wasn’t the type of person to kill. Father loved me greatly. He gave me a week to make up my mind. After pondering the matter for several days, I thought of a solution that would satisfy him and save me from bondage.

“Since I love you and you love me,” I told him earnestly one evening, “I don’t want to make you ashamed. I’ll accept your plan on one condition: When I go to my new home, I’ll act like a deaf-mute to know my friends and enemies there. If I find more enemies there than friends, I’ll come back home, but if I find more friends there than enemies, I’ll stay.” His face lighted with joy and satisfaction.

“Good! Very good!” he said, bobbing his head and hugging me. “I agree with you. You have my full permission. Should enemies drive you out of your new home, nobody will blame me. My only duty is turn you over to your husband; keeping you in his house is his sole responsibility.”

I had thought that my pretense of being a deaf-mute would make my husband despise me, thus freeing me from all obligations to him. I forgot that the handicapped is a chief in our society. Even though I was mute throughout the marriage ceremonies and only stared with puzzled eyes at the people fussing over me, my husband looked happy and cheerful. After the marriage he showered me with love and kindness beyond belief. Before sunrise each morning my hot bath was ready; by noon rich food was ready for my lunch, and the same things happened in the evening. I didn’t have to work. My rivals did all the farming and household chores.

As you would expect, they hated me from the bottom of their hearts—hated my voice, my footprints, my shadow! I became their natural enemy. My entering into competition with them for their husband was enough to earn their hatred. They could even accept that, but they regarded my being a deaf-mute an unforgivable affront. As we bathed at the waterside one afternoon, they made unfavorable comments about my appearance. My ears were long and wide like the ears of a deer; my eyes were beady like those of a bat; my nose was flat and wide like the nose of a baboon, etc. etc.

“Our husband must be a fool,” one of them remarked. “Why should he throw this useless good-for-nothing creature at us?”

“Maybe you have to be a deaf-mute to satisfy him,” another commented.

“The crazy witch! How dare she enter our house!”

“The human flesh has stuck in her throat and made her mute! I’m sorry for our poor children.” “Whatever happens to my child is Batapaye’s responsibility!”

“Batapaye has long been looking for a wife; now he has a good one: a miserable witch! Ha! Haaaaa!!!” “Friends, let’s do something about this affront and not only talk about it.”

They talked on and on, criticizing, condemning, cursing; I took all their unkind remarks in my stride and never gave the slightest hint that I could hear. I even went out of my way to smile. Later, I gave them some of the fine clothes and money I had brought from home and some of those our husband had given me. I also decided not to be pampered anymore. I began doing more than my full share of the house work: I cooked for the entire household, swept the house, prepared hot baths for our husband, and washed his clothes even when it wasn’t my turn to do so. With all this they still considered me their worst enemy. Of course, our husband continued to love me more and more; even daring to flirt with me openly at times, something he seldom did with them.

Once they beat me up on the farm because, as they said, “We can’t take this nonsense anymore.” I didn’t report the beating to our husband, although he inquired about the scratches and bruises all over my body. They were now convinced that they could treat me any way they liked and get away with it.

At the end of my first year in my new home, I became pregnant and delivered a baby boy the following year. It made matters worse. None of my rivals had ever had a son for the man, and so he became interested in me more than ever, lavishing gifts on me, and always keeping me at his side.

This was too much for them. They cut their eyes at me, stopped talking to me with signs, and sneered at me whenever I bathed my baby. I had to be very careful with my child, not permitting any of them to handle him because I was more than sure they would kill him should they get the opportunity.

I was happy that the headwife, who was my archenemy, became pregnant that same year. She and her mates prayed that her baby be a boy child, but, against their wishes, it was a girl. Instead of rejoicing at the birth of the poor child as was customary, they behaved as if death had occurred in the family. They were surly and quiet for days.

Once as we went to the farm to plant rice, they hatched a plot to kill my baby right before my eyes.

“I now know how to end our misery,” said the headwife.

“How?” one of them asked.

“Kill the witch’s baby.”

“Right!” they all agreed.

“Tomorrow is a feast day,” said the headwife. “There will be a dance all night. When she goes to the dance, I’ll take care of her baby!”

She spliced a long rope with palm thatch fibers on the farm, and put it in her basket. When she saw me at the dance without my baby that evening, she ran quickly into the house and stayed there for a long time, then returned laughing and dancing. Now before I went to the dance, I exchanged her baby with mine. When she rejoined the dance, I ran into the house and saw her baby lying cold and stiff on my bed, its neck tied with the very rope she had made on the farm. I removed the rope and kept it, took her dead baby to her bed, tied my own living one on my back, and returned to the dance.

When she saw me dancing with my baby on my back, she grew dumb and spiritless as if a dreadful fever had suddenly attacked her. Running to the house like a crazy woman, she soon returned crying her heart out. The dance stopped immediately and everybody asked her what had happened. She clasped her hands on her head, stamped her feet, and shouted, “The wicked deaf-mute has killed my child! Oh, my people! My people, the witch has killed my child—”

In no time the whole town gathered at our house and stared at the woman with parted lips and widened eyes. She was now the center of attraction. Our husband called the entire household to his porch and asked her to repeat her accusation. She repeated it in a loud voice for the benefit of the crowd, adding that, if our husband did not kill me for my “unpardonable crime” she would leave the house, never to return. She even threatened him with a curse.

“Batapaye,” she cried, “the Ancestors will strike you with a deadly disease from which you’ll never recover if you don’t ensure that this miserable witch is dead and buried.”

Our husband looked at me in anger and disbelief, shaking his head sorrowfully. The townspeople also expressed their surprise and dismay.

“I’m postponing this matter until the deaf-mute’s parents are here,” he said in a troubled voice. “I’ll send for them first thing in the morning. If the girl could talk, the case would be investigated right now. But since she can’t talk, if she is found guilty in the absence of her parents, they will say she didn’t get a fair trial.”

“I can talk!” I said loudly. The people gave a thunderous cheer as if I had performed a great miracle. When the cheering stopped, I declared, “All you good people, listen to me. Since I came to this house, my rivals have hurled countless curses and insults at me every single day and night for reasons best known to them. I have never wronged them or done anything to annoy them. Once they beat me up on the farm and left me for dead, but I never reported the beating to our husband. I told my father before coming here that I would pretend to be a deaf-mute to know my friends and enemies in my new home. Now I know that I have no friends here but enemies. If I stay here, my rivals will kill me for nothing. Here is the rope the headwife made on the farm today to kill my baby.” I gave the rope to our husband. “Thinking I couldn’t hear or speak, she made it right before me and told her friends that she would take care of my baby with it when the dance began tonight. Before I went to the dance, I exchanged her baby with mine. In her cruel haste, she didn’t realize that the baby she killed was hers. Had she not been blinded by hatred, she would have recognized her baby, for mine is a year older than hers—”

“That’s enough! That’s enough!” cried the headwife. “Batapaye, it was I who killed my own baby. If I die for so doing, I have nobody else to blame but myself. This girl has taken too many insults and ridicules from us for too long. We hate her because you love her more than us. Nobody knew that she could hear or speak! Hatred is not good. Now it has made me a murderer. Oh God, what a bad end!” The woman fell and rolled all over the porch, crying pitifully.

“Well, well,” Batapaye said with a deep sigh, looking astonished. “I myself never knew that the girl could speak. I noticed your hostilities to her and how she bore them with courage. Your wicked heart and ways have brought you to this sad end. As of now, I have divorced all my wives except this girl who will be my only wife.”

The headwife was killed by order of the Paramount Chief when our husband told him the result of his investigation. Those were the days when justice reigned supreme in this land. I prevailed upon my husband to let me go home, for my life and that of my child were in danger in his house. When the baby walked I would return.

He saw with me and granted my request. But I didn’t go home, for I knew that that crazy father of mine would have given me to some other friend of his. I went straight to my brother in Monrovia (brother by father), who had great love for me. In Monrovia I made market during the day and went to school at night. I am proud to say that I am scheduled to graduate from college this year and that my application to teach at Central High has been accepted. Thank God for that!

Many boys are approaching me for marriage, but I am taking my time to pick the right one, for getting a man is no problem, but getting the right one.

Copyright © Wilton Sankawulo Sr.