Set a Purpose

Find out how the strangers treat the people.

I ran back under the trees, back to the place where my zemis stood. I fed it little pieces of cassava, and fish and yam from the feast. Then I prayed.

“Let the pale strangers from the sky go away from us.”

My zemis stared back at me with unblinking wood eyes. I gave it the smooth balls a stranger had dropped in my hand.

“Take these eyes and see into the hearts of the strangers from the sky. If it must be, let something happen to me to show our people what they should know.”

My zemis was silent. It spoke only in dreams. Indeed, it had spoken to me already.

When I returned to the feast, one of the strangers let me touch his sharp silver stick. To show I was not afraid, I grasped it firmly, as one would a spear. It bit my palm so hard the blood cried out. But still no one understood; no one heard.

They did not hear because they did not want to listen. They desired all that the strangers had brought: the sharp silver spear; round pools to hold in the hand that gave a man back his face; darts that sprang from sticks with a sound like thunder that could kill a parrot many paces away.

We were given none of these—only singing shells and tiny balls on strings. We were patted upon the head as a child pats a yellow dog. We were smiled at with many white teeth, a serpent’s smile.

The next day the strangers returned to their great canoes. They took five of our young men and many parrots with them. They took me.

I knew then it was a sign from my zemis, a sign for my people. So I was brave and did not cry out. But I was afraid.