In The Den Of Bearded Snakes

And War of the Amazons

by Adrian Onyando

Two novellas from a wonderfully talented African writer.

ISBN 1-59431-051-5 Heritage /African / Mainstream Fiction Women's Fiction

Cover Art by Maggie Dix

Also available in RTF and HTML formats.

Part One

Cave Man and Cave Girl The Burning of the Den



Except for the intermittent crowing of the cock, which can start as early as midnight, the savanna is silent at night and only bangs into life at dawn when the sun splashes its way with a red paint in the east and another birth seems to have occurred, in blood. The birds wake up first and then the humans.

I woke up with a dream in which the unusual had happened: the hundhwe bird had stopped singing and the other birds were asking, ‘Why? Why? Why?’

The sung question transformed into a heated argument over why a boy should not be allowed to show the men where the den of the bearded snakes was. Realizing that it was my mother standing up to the village men, I bounced out of the bed like a ball, dressed, eager to join in the fray. It was not so often that a boy gets into the village limelight and so I was determined to make as much out of this opportunity as possible.

I closed the door of the hut behind me and felt the full breath of the lake breeze on me. For a moment, I longed for the snugness of the bed and hut I had left behind. But the thrill and importance of the event that was unfolding and probably coming to an end this morning propelled me on to the courtyard and I sneaked a look at the arguing adults.

‘If you are really men, you should go and look for the place yourselves. I can’t allow my son to go to that bush.’

The men, being among the most short- tempered men in the village, had already flown into a rage. I joined the group just as my father stepped in front of my mother and said, ‘Firnika, I’ll accompany the boy and make sure nothing bad happens to him.’

My mother walked into her garden behind the hut, still quarreling, but obviously subdued not only by the terror of the deep voices of the men carrying terrible weapons, but also by the authority of the verdict they were to enforce.

The previous night, the elders had presided over and settled a dispute that had threatened to tear the land asunder and attract attention of the dreaded government security agencies. The dispute had been between the storytellers and the militants on whether two village members, Yaye Odiya and his daughter, Ochidanga, should be punished for their abominable activities. The militants were in favor while the storytellers, being not exactly (they were nicknamed ‘the not exactly’ people) against any small action taken, were pushing for more time to be given to the Odiyas to reform.

At last, the elders, with so much regret for their verdict had invoked the authority of custom and unanimously said, “If one of us turns into a hyaena, shall we not drive him out into the bush? Yaye Odiya and his daughter must not live among us anymore.” Y aye Odiya was told not to pack, but simply to go. “Go where we’ll not see you or hear about you!” the elders said. The elders expected him to relay the message to his daughter, Ochidanga, wherever she was or was hidden. And so, the Hono Hill Village woke up and marched on toward the hillside home of Odiya to make sure that he had left with his daughter or, if he had not, expel him and burn up his possessions.

Among the possessions to be burned was the den of the bearded snakes which had given Yaye Odiya the reputation of an incorrigible sorcerer and his daughter the prototype of a precocious witch. I was the only one who had seen the den and discovered that the daughter stayed there.