The Last Annual Custom

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Dahomey, Africa

1783

Mamma watched the smoke twirl and leap in the distance as if, it too, were dancing to the drums. Her spiritual ears heard tortured voices of captured prisoners rise from within the smoky clouds. This was the night of the Annual Custom, the night when the king's captors were mercilessly burned alive. Mamma envisioned hundreds of brown and black bodies twisting and jerking in a fiery pit, skin of men, women, and children slowly melting to ashes while their bones crackled and popped. They were souls in fright, screaming until they could scream no more.

Mamma closed her door. It would not be long until those tormented spirits visit her. Battle after battle, each one would slide under her door or glide through the windowless opening. Sometimes, a few timid souls would knock and wait for Mamma to open the door before entering. She never turned them away. In truth, they had done nothing wrong except live in a village that had lost a battle with King Fon.

The old woman's thoughts turned to the Queen whom she had not seen in days. She heard that the Queen had been summoned to King Fon's quarters one night but never returned, fueling rumors that the Queen's defiance had finally and fatally been checked. Mamma refused to believe it. The Queen was alive, this she knew. The gods had long ago told her that the Queen's survival was essential to the survival of the Fon people.

"Mamma?" said a child's soft voice.

"Yes?" said Mamma.

"Can I come in?"

"Come in."

A boy spirit melted through her mud door. His face appeared badly burned.

"I am scared. I don't want to die."

"Do not be afraid my child. Your journey to your people's ancestors now begins."

"But I don't want to go. I want to go back home...to my mommy."

"Oh, child. Your mommy is waiting for you. She is waiting for you to join her with your people's ancestors."

"Will the journey be scary? Will I feel pain again?"

"You have endured all the pain you will ever feel. Your life on this land is finished. Now, you must join your people's ancestors."

The spirit boy looked about the room.

"Can I stay here?"

Mamma laughed.

"Oh, child. As much as I would love a companion, you cannot stay with me. You and I are of different people, different ancestors. You must remain with yours while I remain with mine."

"Are you sure I will see my mommy?"

"I am certain of this. You will see her very soon. In fact, she is now waiting for you."

The spirit boy left, melting through the door and disappearing in the night sky. Mamma sighed. She did not like to lie. If she had told him the truth, that he was killed as an offering to the King's ancestors, she feared he would never find rest. The boy spirit, like so many others before him, would commence to roaming the village in anger, in confusion or in wanderlust. Although most villagers were oblivious to such phenomena, it was only people like Mamma who suffered in silence from these foreign ghosts. So, for her own sanity and the safety of the Kingdom, Mamma had decided years ago to guide the spirits onward and away from the kingdom, urging them to return to their own ancestors.

"Pst!"

Mamma's attention was once again directed towards the door.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes."

A woman spirit melted through. Mamma spoke to her, politely encouraging her to go home. Throughout the night, Mamma received them in all forms, consoling them, empathizing with their pain. By daybreak, the heavy stench of death hung in the village air. The sheer number of spirits astounded Mamma. In all her years, she had never been as busy as she was last night. Mamma wondered if, this time, King Fon had gone too far.            

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