Liberian Literary Magazine
Liberian Classic
Murder in the
Cassava Patch
Bai. T Moore
From behind the rusty bars
of a cell in Monrovia's South
Beach Prison facing the
Atlantic Ocean, I can now try
to piece together all the
circumstances leading to the
violent storm which nearly
tore off the roofs from many
houses in the Dewoin country
one bright Sunday morning in
the year I957.
It rose over the discovery in
a cassava patch, of the
mutilated body of Tene, the
daughter of a well-known
Dewoin family who live in
Bendabli, just a stone's throw
from Amina, the former
Paramount
Chief's town,
twenty miles from Monrovia
on the Monrovia-Bomi Hills
motor road.
Like dry time thunder,
Tene's
murder
shocked
everyone in the area. The
news spread throughout the
countryside like wildfire. A
few hours following the
discovery,
hundreds
of
horrified persons had arrived
on the scene to get a glimpse
of the corpse. Mothers made
it a point to bring along
adolescent
daughters
cautioning them in these
terms, “You see eh, when we
old people tell you children to
listen to your parents, you say
this is a new age.” “The
person, who killed this child is
a madman... A blood thirsty
fiend seeking her vital organs
to make sacrificial medicine,
perhaps, “stricken onlookers
remarked, as hundreds of
them passed by the body of
Tene lying under a palm tree
Promoting Liberian Literature, Arts and Culture
in the center o f the cassava
patch.
The twelve man jury
appointed by the local clan
chief to examine the body
reported that Tene was
murdered with a sharp
instrument, a razor or a
cutlass. Her throat had been
slashed, both wrists cut to the
bone, and there was a gash
above the eyes. From the
appearance of the spot, Tene
and her murderer must have
fought for a good while before
she was finally overpowered.
After much palavering on
the scene, the elders all
agreed that because of the
advanced
state
of
decomposition of the body, it
should
be
immediately
interred.
“According
to
tradition,” remarked one
elder, “Tene cannot be
buried in the town.” The chief
ordered a grave hastily dug
and Tene was thrown into it.
My name is Gortokai. Kai,
the last part of it is the Vai
appellation for man. Gorto
refers to the brown jugs in
which Dutch gin was sold long
ago. It is probable that on the
day I was born, the village
elders were feasting on a case
of this delectable spirit, so
that they were spared the
trouble of inventing a name
for me.
I grew up as the son of old
man Joma and his wife Sombo
Karn, and with Tene and
Kema, her older sister. One
day, I was left alone with
Tene. We were playing Mama
and Papa, when suddenly
Tene came up to me and
asked me to hold her tight in
the waist. I shivered and
recoiled. “Gortokai, can't you
see that we are not brother
and sister? It's a secret Mama
told me.”
I didn't know then, why this
information
had
been
2
withheld from me. Much
later, I learned that my real
father was once a slave. He
had been one of the men
recruited for the Island of
Fernando Po as a contract
laborer on Spanish coco
plantations, and came back
home disillusioned but still
full of the spirit of adventure,
as result of which he
associated himself with an
itinerant
Mandingo
cola
trader. It seems that at one
time this gentleman was
unlucky in one of his deals,
and found it convenient to
bargain my father off as part
of the deal to a prosperous
farmer in one of the St. Paul
River settlements. Shifting
from one village to another in
later years, he ended up in
the Dewoin country where he
met my mother and married
her. If there is anything I
inherited from my father, it
was his urge to roam about.
The third harvest following
the outbreak of the Hitler War
was a momentous year for
me.
Something every young man
in the Dewoin country looks
forward to, happened to me.
I was initiated into the
Zowolo, the highest Poro
degree offered by the Dewoin
tribe.
My foster parents spent
plenty of money for this
occasion. There were the
initiation fees, new suits of
clothing to allow me to
change twice a day during the
four days of feasting following
the initiation and a series of
receptions. The cane farm we
made that year all went into
the distillation of juice for the
initiation.
Thirteen harvests after the
initiation, I came to the
conclusion that I was man
enough to have my own fire