NoMadLand by Francesco Verso

Author:Francesco Verso
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: flame tree press; solar punk; future fiction; near-future; utopian fiction; dystopia
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2024-07-17T14:02:58+00:00

Chapter Fifty

Hogon

It is first thing in the morning and the men and women of the village are already active and about their business. The Pulldogs reach the main piazza of Sangha, where the To-guna, the Council House, stands, anxious to know the outcome of last night’s meeting.

“There’s no one here. They must have been at it until late…” Hakim says, not knowing whether this is a good or a bad thing.

The building is square, about four meters high, built with layers of pressed millet stalks. The roof is piled on top of a rough frame resting on three rows of parallel drystone columns. Instead of lintels there are anthropomorphic trunks carved to look like heads and busts of the ancestors.

“Why is it so low? You can’t even stand up under there,” Rafabel says.

“People come to listen and talk in the To-guna, there is no need to stand, or raise your voice. If someone gets irritated or agitated, they end up banging their heads on the ceiling,” says Hakim, smiling. Then he gets serious again. “The word commands respect for the Dogon.”

“These sculptures aren’t wood though,” Shimbo says, looking at the lintels.

“No, they are cellulose and lignin 3D-printed copies. The originals are hidden in caves in the escarpment. There have been thefts in the past…someone let themselves be bought off cheaply.”

Then a crowd of people are surrounding the group.

“Happy, Nico? The essence from yesterday…” says Rafabel caustically, “…it must have spread with unpredictable consequences, or else the twins are experts in getting the word around.”

Nicolas is overwhelmed by bizarre requests and submerged by business opportunities: there are people who want to set up a business making soft drinks derived from cola nuts, with stimulant effects, there are people who want to film a web series on Dogon cosmogony, or a virtual museum of artifacts found over the course of the centuries.

Alphonse pushes his way shouting through the crowd and drags the Pulldogs to safety with the help of two well-built young men.

“Cheers to anyone who is thirsty!” he says cheerfully.

“How did the meeting go yesterday, Dad?”

“We’ll talk about that later. First I have to talk to Nicolas.”

The Pulldogs are escorted to Alphonse’s house. The two big lads stand guard by the doorway to stop any petitioners from getting in.

“Please, enter…” says Alphonse, doing the house honors. “Hakim, yesterday I didn’t ask you to sleep here because I could see you wanted to be with your friends. Our house is very different now to how it was when you left.”

The house isn’t bare like the other Dogon homes; there are paintings in bright colors by African artists hanging on the walls, a wooden dresser and a four-poster bed draped with mosquito nets. There are also decorated vases which are being used to ferment millet beer.

Alphonse invites his guests to sit on the rug and offers them tea, the three-cup ceremony. After the ceremony, Rafabel half expects to see the family treasure chest brought out, or a suitcase full of masks, handed down from father to son over twenty generations.

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