Kono

By Nathalia Buamai

ONE evening, after being out all day, my grandmother and 1 were sitting by the firelight cooking yams with fish and other vegetables for our evening meal All the family had been to the seaside where our gardens were and on our way home we stopped to catch some fish. It was a day I will never forget.

While we were still preparing our meal we heard angry voices from the beach, coming closer and closer. Be cause our house stood alone at the end of the village, we could plainly hear what the people were saying and could distinguish their voices.

The gruff voice happened to be that of a well-known sorcerer in our village at the time, Kono, and the other voices were from the family of Dari, an old village man. What sur prised us most was that Kono was arguing about a piece of land that wasn’t his at all. Dari was very rich with many possessions and land, and was respected by the village people.

“Dari, why did you go and pull out the coconuts from my piece of land? They had already taken root and you spoiled them by pulling them out.”

“I pulled them out simply because that piece of land is not yours at all.

You don’t own it. My ancestors handed it down to my family and it has been ours ever since. What right have you to take yourself on to our land and work it?”

We heard the sound of something heavy being dropped on the front verandah of Kono’s house, and he began shouting at the top of his voice.

“Why didn’t you talk up when we were alone on the beach? Now you just shout out and tell everybody about it and the next thing all the people will be saying I’m a thief.”

“And what’s wrong with you being called a thief?”, asked Dari, “because that’s just what you are, and it serves you right because you have no re spect for other people’s property.

You just go and take anything you want from the people, and they can’t say anything against you because they live in fear of your old magic.

You know this and just take ad vantage of them and keep on steal ing. Why don’t you live and work on your own land? A curse on you and your poison,” shouted Dari, as he threw down his basket and bundle of wood.

“I’ll teach you to talk that way to me,” roared Kono, and started

pulling out his spear from under the house.

BY this time we were all outside watching the scene.

Before we realised what was hap pening we saw Kono, running at full speed towards Dari, with his spear held high in his hand. We were so afraid for Dari that we started screaming a warning at him, but this only encouraged Kono to go on. As he came closer to Dari he snarled: “You won’t live to enjoy your old age.”

Dari, busy with untying his bundle didn’t realise how risky it was to be in his position. He turned around just in time to see the spear coming at him through the air and was able to dodge it. Kono was fiery with rage. With his blazing eyes nearly popping out of his head and without saying a word, he rushed at Dari and started fighting him. Al though Dari wasn’t expecting to fight Kono, when he realised what was happening he managed to avoid some of the blows and fight back. Dari soon found his full strength and began giving Kono blows which sent him reeling.

Again and again Kono got to his feet to charge at Dari, but Dari was always waiting for him. Once again Kono was thrown to the ground with blood flowing from his nose and mouth. While rolling on the ground Kono saw his spear and planned to use it.

We were all shouting for Dari to run away but he just stood there and prepared to face the coming danger.

Kono, with the spear held firmly in his hand ran towards Dari. This time, instead of throwing the spear, he just ran with it towards Dari de termined this time to have his victim, but Dari was still very alert.

As Kono ran at Dari with such high speed Dari stepped aside to avoid him. Kono, unable to control his speed kept running until he was halted by thrusting die spear into the post supporting Dari’s kitchen.

The post was shattered and the kitchen came tumbling down on top of him and only his head could be seen popping out from under the sago leaves which had been used for build ing the kitchen. Dari’s wife was very angry when she saw her kitchen a complete wreck and seizing a piece of wood struck Kono on the head with it.

By this time all the village people were around Dari’s house watching the two men fighting. Kono was swearing and saying that Dari and his family wouldn’t live much longer be cause of the way they treated him in front of everybody. As Kono was coming out from under the sago

leaves to fight Dari’s wife, one of the men, Kura, stepped in and stopped him.

“If you keep on fighting like this you won’t have any peace and neither will Dari and his family. You will make life very hard for yourself be cause every day you make more enemies.”

“I don’t care whether I make enemies or not, but I will give some thing to everyone I know—something that will make them all think,” screamed Kono.

“You and your old poisons. That’s the only thing you can think of to save yourself,” Dari said.

“You shut up.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up or else

you might find yourself spearing an

other log,” shouted Dari. At this the

people laughed.

BOTH Kono and Dari were bleed ing from their noses and mouths.

When they were taken into their houses, Kono wasn’t going to keep quiet but began shouting out again.

He cleaned himself and started chew ing betelnut.

After a short while he turned to Dari.

“I will never forget what you have done to me. I could have killed you if I had wanted to, but I had pity on you at the very last moment.”

“A person who is angry like you cannot possibly be merciful to any one,” Dari replied. “You’re just covering up because you missed kill ing me with your spear. For a skilful

man like you it’s a great shame to miss his target. Furthermore, when you had your chance you could have done a mighty good job, but instead you speared that lifeless post and ruined our kitchen. Why didn’t you use your poisons and magic to help you?” ‘Tm keeping my eyes on you and your relatives. One of these days, one of you will lie dead in your bed and then your eyes will be opened.”

At this point, Kura (the man who protected Dari’s wife), came out of his house and said: “I think both of you had better settle down and have some peaceful talks instead of these harsh and

threatening words.”

SO after that, we heard no more shouting but only a low grumb ling coming from Kono’s house.

The moon was very bright and from where we sat, Kono’s house was visible against the skyline. He was sitting on his verandah but in that position we could not see him clearly. We heard him making much noise with his lime container. At times he seemed to be singing but then would stop and appear to be doing something different.

My grandmother and I weren’t tired so we sat and enjoyed the moon light.

After an hour or so we heard Kono’s dogs whimpering then he jumped down from his house and started looking for something. After wards we discovered that it was his spear he was after. He had a few things gathered together in a bundle and we wondered what he was plan ning, as he looked rather sinister.

He picked up his bundle and started walking along the road to wards the beach. Not realising just what we were doing, my grand mother and I followed him. We were afraid that his dogs might smell us and chase us, but we were fortunate because the wind was blowing in our faces.

We seated ourselves in a position where we could see Kono quite clearly but could not be seen by him, and it wasn’t long before we heard some loud noises coming from where he was.

AFTER Kono sailed out to sea that night we never heard of him again. We don’t know if he went to live at some distant village or if he was lost in his small canoe in rough seas. What we do know is, that with out him in our village, life has be come much more peaceful and pleasant, and everybody is able to live and go about his work without any disputes or quarrelling caused by Kono to upset them.