A fearless African warrior silently tracked a wildcat through the jungle. Suddenly, he heard beautiful music drifting through the air. He stopped, hypnotized by the throbbing rhythms and in a clearing an amazing sight met his eyes. A lion swung his wild, tawny mane and beat upon a magical gourd drum, creating rhythms that exploded like the wild heartbeats of a thousand jungle creatures. All the animals danced in wild abandon. An elephant tapped toes with a hippo; a crocodile swung a python in the air; and a bush buck hopped beside a leaping baboon.
The warrior, hiding behind a tree, longed to join in, but he dared not do so. That night he returned to his village to find the villagers sobbing at the campfire, fearing he had been killed in the jungle.
The chief rushed to meet him: “Where have you been? Why did you worry us so?” But when the warrior told his story about the lion drummer, the magical drum and the dancing animals, everyone in the village shrunk away from him in horror and disbelief
The chief shouted, “Liar! How can you expect us to believe such a ridiculous story? You’ve been up to no good!”
No matter how many times the warrior told his story, no one believed him. The chief commanded, “Leave this village at once! You are a liar and we are honest people. Never come back. Go live with your drumming lion and your silly dancing animals!” The villagers all joined in, “Go! Go!” and they grabbed their clubs and beat the warrior until he retreated back into the darkness of the jungle.
He huddled under a banana tree, alone and scared, and wondered how so much could have changed in one day. The next day he thought, “If only I could show the village people that magical gourd, they would believe me.” So he found the clearing again and with a blood-curdling war cry, he charged the mighty lion, tore the treasured gourd from his paws, and raced down the trail toward the village.
Once there, he held up the odd-looking gourd: “Here, my friends, is what I called the drum. It is what made all the animals dance!” After making the traditional sacrifice to the tribal ancestors, he began to beat upon the gourd, slowly at first, then faster and faster until his hands flew up and down with the same frenzy of the wild-maned lion.
And the people began to dance! Hesitantly at first, they soon danced without eating or sleeping. Day and night they twirled and leaped and stopped for nothing. It didn’t matter whether they were happy, sad, angry or sleepy, they danced and danced. Even when they were at war or in love or hungry, they never stopped dancing.
In fact, if you found that village deep in the jungle today, those villagers would still be dancing…
Family fun:
Making gourd rattles
Kids can make gourd rattles from almost any kind of gourd. Once they have dried out, some gourds have enough seeds in them to make a lot of noise on their own. But if kids want a louder rattle, parents can drill a small hole in the gourd, only big enough to be plugged up later with a cork or filler of some kind. Then kids can stick in a small wire and scrape the soft pulp out through the hole. The more pulp kids scrape out from the inside, the louder their rattle will be. They can also put rice, beans, beads, dried peas or any other kind of rattle-type objects in through the hole so that the gourd makes more noise. Then, once the hole is plugged up, everyone can have lots of fun going wild with painting outside of the gourds and spraying over the paint with a sealer coat.
Jackie Baldwin is the host of Story Lovers World on Sun FM 91.3, Sundays from 5 to 6 p.m. Her column supports sustainable agriculture and encourages families to plant their own gardens. To achieve this goal, the Sonoma Valley Sun is offering one free packet of seeds each week to anyone who drops by our offices at 158 W. Napa Street, Sonoma.
