TLADI

Prelude 2

A collective gasp went up in the huge hut that belonged to the Sangoma. It came from all the 'nurses'; initiates of the Sangoma; who had instinctively gathered around the sleeping mat of The Mother of Tladi sensing her imminent reawakening. She opened her eyes. Suddenly the darkness of an indigo night sky looked up at them. They sat back sharply on their haunches.

Their eyes stuck like honey to this woman whose indigo eyes made her startlingly remarkable.

The first thing she did was to raise her shaky hands to her face and examine them to see if they were still in good working condition. She did not introduce herself, she did not ask where she was, she did not ask for water, she did not even ask the 'nurses' who they were. After seeing that her hands are in good working order she promptly closed her startling eyes and fell asleep.

The 'nurses' glanced at each other with questions in their eyes. None were answered. They got back to work, each making a mental note of who to tell when their work was done for the day. So inevitably, the whole village soon knew of this. With eyes like that, she could never be considered unremarkable again. What creature in all of Africa possessed eyes the colour of the midnight sky? It is doubtful that anyone could tell you. Not even the possessor of the midnight blue eyes herself. She couldn't tell you anything, because she either wouldn't or couldn't speak. From the time she opened her midnight blue eyes to just before she closed them for the last time, not a single word or sound escaped or even slipped from her vocal chords. She was to remain an unsolvable mystery...

In this village of poets and artists, everyone was encouraged to contribute something, anything. If your talent was to paint a picture with words, paint, charcoal or other means; then your work had best be good enough to convince people to barter enough food to feed you. If not, then it was recommended that you nurture a talent in farming or some such thing so as to be able to contribute to your, and the village's, livelihood. If you were of the variety whose art form was also a necessity, then you were one of the lucky few who technically never had to work a day in their lives. If you were not one of those lucky few and you couldn't nurture a similar talent, the village would not let you starve. You would be deemed a charity case and pride would end up forcing you to be of use.

The Mother of Tladi had never had any such problem. She came and killed two birds with one stone, metaphorically of course. The village was over-populated with worms; they were a nuisance actually. You would find them everywhere; in your cooking pot, in your maize meal or flour, eating your sugar cane, sleeping on your sleeping mat, in the hand of your infant halfway to his or her mouth... The creatures truly had no respect for the so-called master race. Then again,
this was the only part of the land in which they could thrive for over 1000 km in every direction.

The Mother of Tladi had the dexterity for weaving large amounts of a rough silk fabric with the new cocoons of such worms; a skill that no one else in the village possessed. She thereby cut down the future population of such worms. She also had a skill for sewing things together, using her own hand-made silk thread and a needle fashioned from a bush thorn. She would create wonderful clothes and then dye them the desired colour.

The first thing she made was a long white cloak and a head cloth. These would characterize her appearance for the rest of her life at the village. The resident architect had built her a large mud-walled hut where she would live and weave as though living and weaving was the same thing. This was not seen as very strange considering the kind of village this was; strangeness varied according to one's perspective. Artists did have a habit of seeing their art as the essence of life itself. So went the life of The Mother of Tladi. She became a part of the village, just as though she had always been there. However, she never spoke, never allowed herself to be courted into friendship or love. She lived alone. This thin powdery pale woman, with large round midnight blue eyes like lasers, never showed any signs of her love or hate for her life. That was, of course, assuming, she was capable of such emotions, or any emotions at all.