DANUSHIKI

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

This continued until all one thousand warriors appeared at the ‘entrance’ of the place they’d earlier walked through three years ago. Danushiki felt his body while standing up to inhale the cold evening air, after three long years. He smiled while thinking of his sisters and parents whom he knew would be waiting eagerly for him at home.

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She sat outside Darjer’s room when Makiya saw it, the moment she stepped into her father’s compound with a bundle of firewood balanced atop her head. Sarme tried to get up while responding to Makiya’s greeting when she slumped back to her former position. Makiya threw the bundle on the ground, begged her to remain where she sat until she returned. Gohryo came in moments later from the stream where she’d gone to draw water. She had a clay pot balanced on her head, while hurrying into the kitchen. After she’d dropped the clay pot on the kitchen floor, she rushed outside to join Sarme.

“Sarme’s water has broken,” Makiya whispered to her mother, who’d been chatting with Darjer under a shed in his farm. Makiya tried to catch her breath, while her beautiful skin shone from perspiration. Both parents stood up immediately and stared at her in unbelief.

“Go home and make sure she’s comfortable” Harshiri instructed her, “I’m coming home right now with the other Simowa women…”

Darjer shouted some instructions to his farm workers before grabbing his walking stick and hurrying behind his daughter who seemed to have pins beneath her heels. Back at home Gohryo seemed to be happy with the fact that she was with a woman about to give birth, and almost forgot the excruciating pains the pregnant lady was experiencing.

“It’s okay, you’re going to be fine,” Gohryo whispered to her while placing a wet folded cloth on her forehead. Sarme didn’t respond as she felt as if her waist was wrapped with sharp and heavy objects. She tried in vain to control her laboured breathing, while her thoughts revolved around Danushiki. Less than an hour later, the Simowa women filed into the room, dismissed Gohryo and swung into action. The six of them including Harshiri carried her into a secluded room where old clothes, unused objects and utensils were kept. Harshiri rushed to the kitchen, hurriedly arranged some firewood around three large stones on the ground, before calling Gohryo to light and fan it until the flames appeared.

She proceeded to get a pot of water and placed it atop the stones, before going back to Sarme. Darjer paced up and down with his walking stick, and soon recollected the birth of his eldest daughter.

Even the most recent set of hardened warriors from Cobra Land could be ‘broken’ by the sound of a woman in labour, as Darjer jerked his head with every scream by Sarme. Inside, the Simowa women ignored her screams as she was now dressed in a plain gown, brown in colour, on a large raffia mat. Two of the women applied a special type of oil on her protruded belly, waist and thighs, while the rest began to whisper inaudible incantations, begging the gods and goddesses for a smooth delivery. They soon knelt down around her the moment Harshiri appeared from the kitchen.

Harshiri who had assisted in not less than sixty successful deliveries as a Simowa woman, knew she had to put in her best to ensure her latest grandchild came out smoothly at all cost. Before she settled down, she lit a small oil lamp and placed it in the center of the room, while the only window was shut. Soon, they sat together humming some incantations, and paid no attention when Harshiri stood up some minutes later to fetch the pot of boiling water.

The five women simply ignored Sarme as the contraction continued alongside her intermittent screaming. One woman took out a bundle of herbs and began to slice it into the pot Harshiri had just brought in with a small glinting knife. When she was through, Harshiri handed a thick rag to the eldest among them, which she subsequently placed over the pot’s handles, before standing up and walking around Sarme with it seven times. She had barely dropped the pot when the acrid smell filled the room.

“It’s time,” she whispered to her ‘colleagues’ as she adjusted the woven cloth she wore to make it more comfortable. She nodded to one woman who promptly got up, rolled some herbs and placed them gently in Sarme’s mouth.

“Hold it firmly with your teeth young woman… suck the juice that drips from it, and try not to swallow it.”

She sighed as she positioned herself some inches from Sarme’s v****a, thinking of the countless times she’d given that instruction to women in labour. While Sarme’s teeth bit into the herbs, word had already reached her parents, who were now hurrying to Darjer’s compound with fear and excitement. Makiya kept jamming her knees together as she sat on the same spot Sarme had been sitting some moments ago. She had become very fond of her over the past months, than her immediate elder sister and parents. She didn’t even realise when tears flowed down her face as she heard Sarme’s muffled screams from inside.

While the eldest women saw her v****a expand to expel the baby, two women held both arms down, and showed little or no concern for her grunts, thanks to the herb held firmly between her teeth.

With all the tenderness she could muster, another woman massaged Sarme’s tummy with another brown oily ointment, which they all believed made the fetus uncomfortable inside the mother’s womb. She stopped suddenly and proceeded to dip her hands in the pot of hot water, which was already cooling, and sprinkled as much as she could on Sarme’s tummy. The eldest among them was still maintaining her gaze on the same place, when she instructed the woman who’d been sprinkling water from the pot to check Sarme’s heartbeat. She obeyed and proceeded to place one ear on Sarme’s chest, raised her head up and nodded in satisfaction. Harshiri carefully parted Sarme’s legs and thighs, while the herbs in Sarme’s mouth were removed. The two women who’d been holding and supporting her arms relaxed their grip, and turned away their faces in anticipation for what was about to happen.

Darjer almost had his ear drums busted as the ear-splitting scream by Sarme seconds later rattled his senses. Harshiri folded an old cloth and gave it to the eldest women who placed it carefully under the baby’s head to absorb the blood which accompanied the baby’s arrival. She ignored the perspiration on her face as she marvelled at the effect of the herbs on Sarme. Harshiri kept raising her head to peer at Sarme’s agonizing countenance with the aid of the oil lamp. The flow of blood was soon replaced by the flow of a transparent liquid, which was dabbed by the old woman with the piece of cloth in her hands. Excitement began to build up in the room as Harshiri strained both eyes to see the second shoulder of the baby coming out. The screaming was now at its zenith as the eldest Simowa woman instructed the same woman to roll a fresh set of herbs into Sarme’s mouth.

“I can’t continue,” Sarme managed to mumble to the lady who was about to tell her not to swallow the herbs.

 “…It’s painful…my…waist…”

Few minutes later, the eldest woman soon turned sharply to Harshiri and told her to get ready with the knife. “The head is out…the shoulders and arms are out… please assist me with the umbilical cord.”

“Tell her not to stop pushing,” Harshiri snarled at the woman who’d rolled the second set of herbs into Sarme’s mouth. Seconds later, as and another Simowa woman carefully untangled the umbilical cord around the baby’s neck. The eldest woman ignored them and paid no attention to her face that’d been bathed in perspiration, while her old hands held the sinew covered head.

“You’re a Shaingwan woman Sarme, you can’t give up now…just a few pushes more and we’ll be through.” The woman who’d rolled the herbs into her mouth placed her right ear on Sarme’s chest as she began to inhale deeply, for the final push.

Outside the house, with the full moon now visible, Darjer welcomed Choshi and Mhonse, with their tensed and anxious faces. Mhonse felt the need to be beside her daughter in this trying moment, while pacing impatiently in front of the two men. She was aware of Shaingwa’s strict customs and traditions that forbade non-Simowa women from being with a woman in labour. Gohryo was amused as she watched two elderly men pleading with an elderly woman to exercise patience and hope for the best. Mhonse stood up, paced around and returned to her seat at intervals. She continued like this until her breathing could be said to be like the lady inside giving birth.

Suddenly, Darjer held her shoulders, shook them firmly and forced her to sit down, before instructing Gohryo to light an oil lamp. Inside the ‘delivery room’, Sarme didn’t even realise when the rolled herb was gently pulled out of her mouth. That same moment, Harshiri carefully pulled out the baby’s legs and held it with both arms. Thereafter, she handed it to her superior. While she severed the umbilical cord, the other two women dealt with blood and placenta.

“I wish I wasn’t the one to do this,” Harshiri muttered as the old woman held the baby upside down by both legs. The sound of the baby crying following Harshiri’s s******g on his small buttocks brought a sigh of relief to the five anxious souls outside. That same moment, Choshi stood up and gave Mhonse a warm embrace. Watching the baby cry, one of the women who’d been holding Sarme’s arms down, walked towards Harshiri and focused her gaze on the baby’s genitals.

“It’s a boy,” she whispered to her mate who held the other arm. Shaingwans believed it was only ‘very strong’ women who gave birth to male children the first time they took in, hence Sarme was regarded as a very strong woman. They helped her to sit upright, before the eldest among them gave the baby to Sarme to hold for a brief period. They began to tidy up the room, while Harshiri proceeded to the kitchen with the same pot of water mixed with herbs, and re-boiled it.

Thereafter, she made it warm by adding or water, before it was used to bath the baby. One after the other, the Simowa women filed out of the room with their ‘tools’ and herbs They couldn’t help admiring the beautiful baby boy with dark shiny hair. Sarme was soon stripped of her delivery gown, while the baby’s placenta was carefully placed inside and wrapped by the oldest among them. She kept mumbling some inaudible words in the process, without blinking.

After bidding Sarme goodnight she went outside and met Darjer and the others who thanked her profusely. She smiled and politely refused the gifts Darjer offered her, even though he knew the customs and traditions of the island more than anyone who stood there.

“I think the gods and goddesses have been very merciful to me. I’d always be grateful for your assistance to my family this evening.”

The old Simowa woman only smiled as Darjer spoke, before calling out to Harshiri to hurry up. Turning to Darjer, she whispered, “The boy has his father’s face…”

Darjer only smiled as his daughters dropped the gifts which Darjer had planned to give the Simowa women on the ground. Harshiri had barely responded when Choshi and his impatient wife rushed inside inside to see their daughter and grandchild. Placing her left n****e in the baby’s mouth, she planted a kiss on his forehead, while Mhonse opened the window and kept congratulating her daughter for her safe delivery.

“Welcome back Danushiki,” she whispered forgetting for a moment, that her parents were in the same room with her. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me for three long years without any company.”

The baby, who now concentrated on the mammary gland directly in front of him, was the center of attraction in the room as the two new occupants began to argue over what name he’d e christened with.