"Resnick, Mike - A Little Knowledge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

But though I waited for him until the sun was high in the sky the next day, he did not come back.
* * * *
Just as it is good for fledgling birds to test their wings, it is good for young people to test their powers by questioning authority. I bore Ndemi no malice, but simply waited until the day that he returned, somewhat humbled, to resume his studies.
But the fact that I now had no assistant did not absolve me of my duties, and so each day I walked down to the village, and blessed the scarecrows, and took my place alongside Koinnage in the Council of Elders. I brought new ointment for old Siboki's joints, which were causing him discomfort, and I sacrificed a goat so that Ngai would look with favor upon the pending marriage of Maruta with a man of another clan.
As always, when I made my rounds, I was followed everywhere by the village children, who begged me to stop what I was doing and tell them a story. For two days I was too busy, for a mundumugu has many tasks to perform, but on the morning of the third day I had some time to spare, and I gathered them around me in the shade of an acacia tree.
"What kind of story would you like to hear?" I asked.
"Tell us of the old days, when we still lived in Kenya," said a girl.
I smiled. They always asked for stories of Kenya -- not that they knew where Kenya was, or what it meant to the Kikuyu. But when we lived in Kenya the lion and the rhinoceros and the elephant were not yet extinct, and they loved stories in which animals spoke and displayed greater wisdom than men, a wisdom that they themselves assimilated as I repeated the stories.
"Very well," I said. "I will tell you the story of the Foolish Lion."
They all sat or squatted down in a semi-circle, facing me with rapt attention, and I continued: "Once there was a foolish lion who lived on the slopes of Kirinyaga, the holy mountain, and because he was a foolish lion, he did not believe that Ngai had given the mountain to Gikuyu, the very first man. Then one morning..."
"That is wrong, Koriba," said one of the boys.
I focused my weak eyes on him, and saw that it was Mdutu, the son of Karenja.
"You have interrupted your mundumugu," I noted harshly. "And, even worse, you have contradicted him. Why?"
"Ngai did not give Kirinyaga to Gikuyu," said Mdutu, getting to his feet.
"He most certainly did," I replied. "Kirinyaga belongs to the Kikuyu."
"That cannot be so," he persisted, "for Kirinyaga is not a Kikuyu name, but a Maasai name. Kiri means mountain in the language of Maa, and nyaga means light. Is it not more likely that Ngai gave the mountain to the Maasai, and that our warriors took it away from them?"
"How do you know what these words mean in the language of the Maasai?" I demanded. "That language is not known to anyone on Kirinyaga."
"Ndemi told us," said Mdutu.
"Well, Ndemi is wrong!" I shouted. "The truth has been passed on from Gikuyu through his nine daughters and his nine sons-in-law all the way down to me, and never has it varied. The Kikuyu are Ngai's chosen people. Just as He gave the spear and Kilimanjaro to the Maasai, He gave the digging-stick and Kirinyaga to us. Kirinyaga has always belonged to the Kikuyu, and it always will!"
"No, Koriba, you are wrong," said a soft, high-pitched voice, and I turned to face my new assailant. It was tiny Thimi, the daughter of Njomu, barely seven years old, who rose to contradict me.
"Ndemi told us that many years ago the Kikuyu sold Kirinyaga to a European named John Boyes for six goats, and it was the British government that made him return it to us."
"Who do you believe?" I demanded severely. "A young boy who has lived for only fifteen long rains, or your mundumugu?"
"I do not know," she answered with no sign of fear. "He tells us dates and places, and you speak of wise elephants and foolish lions. It is very hard to decide."
"Then perhaps instead of the story of the Foolish Lion," I said, "I will tell you the story of the Arrogant Boy."
"No, no, the lion!" shouted some of the children.
"Be quiet!" I snapped. "You will hear what I want to tell you!"
Their protests subsided, and Thimi sat down again.
"Once there was a bright young boy," I began.
"Was his name Ndemi?" asked Mdutu with a smile.
"His name was Legion," I answered. "Do not interrupt again, or I shall leave and there will be no more stories until the next rains."
The smile vanished from Mdutu's face, and he lowered his head.
"As I said, this was a very bright boy, and he worked on his father's shamba, herding the goats and cattle. And because he was a bright young boy, he was always thinking, and one day he thought of a way to make his chores easier. So he went to his father and said that he had had a dream, and in this dream they had built a wire enclosure with sharp barbs on the wire, to keep the cattle in and the hyenas out, and he was sure that if he were to build such an enclosure, he would no longer have to herd the cattle but would be free to do other things.
"'I am glad to see that you are using your brain,' said the boy's father, 'but that idea has been tried before, by the Europeans. If you wish to free yourself from your duties, you must think of some other way.'
"'But why?' said the boy. 'Just because the Europeans thought of it does not make it bad. After all, it must work for them or they would not use it.'
"'That is true,' said his father. 'But what works for the Europeans does not necessarily work for the Kikuyu. Now do your chores, and keep thinking, and if you think hard enough I am sure you will come up with a better idea.'
"But along with being bright, the boy was also arrogant, and he refused to listen to his father, even though his father was older and wiser and more experienced. So he spent all his spare time attaching sharp little barbs to the wire, and when he was done he built an enclosure and put his father's cattle into it, sure that they could not get out and the hyenas could not find a way in. And when the enclosure was completed, he went to sleep for the night."
I paused and surveyed my audience. Most of them were staring raptly at me, trying to figure out what came next.
"He awoke to screams of anger from his father and wails of anguish from his mother and sisters, and ran out to see what had happened. He found all of his father's cattle dead. During the night the hyenas, whose jaws can crush a bone, had bitten through the posts to which the wire was attached, and the cattle, in their panic, ran into the wire and were held motionless by the barbs while the hyenas killed and ate them.
"The arrogant boy looked upon the carnage with puzzlement. 'How can this have happened?' he said. 'The Europeans have used this wire, and it never happened to them.'
"'There are no hyenas in Europe,' said his father. 'I told you that we are different from the Europeans, and that what works for them will not work for us, but you refused to listen, and now we must live our lives in poverty, for in a single night your arrogance cost me the cattle that it has taken me a lifetime to accumulate.'"
I fell silent and waited for a response.
"Is that all?" asked Mdutu at last.
"That is all."
"What did it mean?" asked another of the boys.
"You tell me," I said.
Nobody answered for a few moments. Then Balimi, Thimi's older sister, stood up.
"It means that only Europeans can use wire with barbs on it."
"No," I said. "You must not only listen, child, but think."
"It means that what works for the Europeans will not work for the Kikuyu," said Mdutu, "and that it is arrogant to believe that it will."
"That is correct," I said.