Black Leopard, Red Wolf

And each child present me his name,

but their names I have all forgotten.

This is what Wolf Eye say.

He say, Mossi I am Ku,

and a Ku man can only be one kind of man

and Mossi said to him, How are you not a man

what do I grab between the legs

Mossi make joke

Wolf Eye not making joke.

He say

I been running, I been hiding, I been looking for

something that I don’t know, but I know I looking for it

And I don’t know, but every Ku find it

but there is blood between me and the Ku

and I could never go back.

So he call the Gangatom

And the Gangatom chief say, Nobody ever wait so long,

I’ve been waiting all my life, Wolf Eye say.

And Wolf Eye pull his tunic and say,

Look at me, look where there is woman,

And when I cut it off I will be a man

and Mossi he catch a fright, for he think if this is what make him love him,

But Wolf Eye say, Everything between me and you,

eastern man, is not down there, but up here,

he say and point to his heart.

And the chief say,

What you asking for not old,

what you asking for new.

You is Ku

and you have no father.

In this way you enrage the gods.

Says the Wolf Eye:

The ceremony to become a man

is in praise of the gods, and so

how could any god be mad.

So Wolf Eye,

The Gangatom prick the cow and spill the blood

in a bowl

Wolf Eye drink one then two

he drink and wipe his mouth.

The next day come,

For him to jump the bulls.

They line them up, twenty strong

plus ten more for he take too late to be a man

You have to run on the backs of bulls and you cannot fall,

For if you fall, the gods laugh

So Wolf Eye,

He naked in oil and shea butter.

Then praise the gods, he run

bull back to bull back, one two three four

five six seven more.

And the people cheer and rejoice

The elder say all these moons you in the in-between place

and there is no shame,

but middle is nowhere.

But some of the elders, they say

he not coming from the enki paata.

He not been wandering for four moons

as a boy supposed to do before he become man

where on him be the mark that he kill the great lion?

And the chief, he say, Look on him

and you see the mark of him killing lion and everything else.

So the elders, they sit quiet, though some still grumble,

and the chief, he say to Wolf Eye

You never wander for four moons

So stay for four nights

in the open and with the cows, sleep in grass, stand on dirt.

And on the five morning

they come for him

and they bathe him from the bucket, with an ax head in it

to cool the water

And now as be the custom, the men say,

big man fitting in boy skin

to become a man, but look he is a fool.