Nyumbani Tales
By
Charles r saunders
MVmedia, LLC
Fayetteville GA
COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY MVmedia, LLC.
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Nyumbani Tales/ Charles Saunders.—1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9992789-4-9
Contents
INTRODUCTION
KATISA
THE BLACKSMITH AND THE BAMBUTI
POMPHIS AND THE POOR MAN
THE NUNDA
DEATH-CATTLE OF DJENNE
THE RETURN OF SUNDIATA
TWO ROGUES
OKOSENE ALAKUN AND THE MAGIC GUINEA FOWL
AMMA
THE SINGING DRUM
KHODUMODUMO
MBODZE
ISHIGBI
THE SILENT GHOSTS
Publishing History
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
WHEN I WROTE THE FIRST Imaro stories back in the early 1970s, I knew that even though the Ilyassai was a larger-than-life character, his epic wasn’t big enough to crowd out all the other stories that emanated from the people of the setting he dominated. That setting is an alternate- or parallel-world equivalent of Africa that I call “Nyumbani,” which is the Swahili word for “home.” The naming is symbolic, as Africa is home not only for people of black descent, but ultimately of all people.
Like our world’s Africa, Nyumbani is a vast locale, teeming with a multitude of peoples and cultures. Even as I was shaping Imaro’s saga, other stories came into my mind. The more research I did into pre-colonial Africa, the more legends and folktales I saw that could be adapted to the milieu of Nyumbani. Often, I would write an Imaro story, then a non-Imaro story, then two Imaro tales, followed by another non-Imaro yarn. I was really winging it back then, writing whatever it was that wanted to come out of my head.
In late 1979, I made the literary leap from short stories to novels. Naturally, those novels were about Imaro. Some of the previously written Imaro stories were incorporated into the five novels I wrote about him. Others will be included in a future Imaro collection called The Warrior’s Way.
I also wrote several stories about a woman warrior named Dossouye. The setting in which her adventures occur has always been somewhat ambivalent. Is it, or is it not, Nyumbani? There is no unequivocal answer to that question.
When I first wrote about Dossouye in the late 1970s, her setting was, indeed, Nyumbani. Later, I decided that the Dossouye stories needed to take place in a world different from Imaro’s. There are infinite possibilities for parallel worlds, so I chose another one for Dossouye. Is this a case of blatant inconsistency? Probably. But then, dreamers do have the prerogative of changing their minds.
Dossouye’s stories are collected in a book titled, logically enough, Dossouye. That volume was followed up by a Dossouye novel called The Dancers of Mulukau. My Black Amazon has a space of her own.
The stories in the present collection, Nyumbani Tales, span the length and breadth of Imaro’s milieu. Some are contemporaneous to Imaro’s time; others are not. Some of the stories even feature characters that appear in the Imaro novels. Those stories are: “Katisa,” which is about Imaro’s mother; “The Blacksmith and the Bambuti” and “Pomphis and the Poor Man,” which feature Imaro’s diminutive friend in the days before he met the Ilyassai warrior; and “The Nunda,” which is about Majnun, a prominent player in the third and fourth Imaro novels.
Sources of inspiration for other tales in this collection are many and eclectic. Some stories, such as “Mbodze” and “The Singing Drum,” are re-tellings of African folktales, with modifications for the parallel-but-different conditions of Nyumbani. Others, such as “The Return of Sundiata” and “Ishigbi,” sprang directly from my fevered imagination. And one – “The Silent Ghosts” – was inspired by a song.
Two stories – “Amma” and “Ishigbi” – appeared in mass-market anthologies. The others were published various small-press magazines. Before the original versions of the first three Imaro novels were published by DAW Books in the early 1980s, my work thrived in those magazines – or “zines,” as they were affectionately known. Some had fairly large circulations; other printed only a few hundred copies or less. Big or small, they provided the first exposure in print to writers who went on to fame in larger venues. Charles de Lint, David C. Smith, Ron Fortier, Joe Lansdale and Janet Fox are only a few of those writers. I am certainly proud to be included in such company.
As I compiled this collection, I realized that most of the stories needed editing. In some cases, it was simply a matter of tweaking the content to make it consistent with changes I made when I rewrote the Imaro novels for re-publication. For others, my older self couldn’t resist revising what my younger self had written – even though my younger self might have resented it.
During the 19th century, the infamous explorer Henry Morton Stanley published a book called Through the Dark Continent, which chronicled his wanderings in East and Central Africa. In contrast, Nyumbani Tales could very well be called Through the Bright Continent.
As you journey through these stories, you don’t need a pith helmet or a bunch of porters carrying supplies on their heads. All you need is an open mind – and a touch of imagination.
Charles R. Saunders
February 2017
KATISA
IN THE MIDST OF WRITING my first Imaro stories back in the early 1970s, I made an ambitious effort to write a novel about the warrior’s mother, Katisa. The novel chronicled the events
