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.
