My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter

Husband, now you despise me

Now you treat me with spite

And say I have inherited the stupidity of my aunt;

Son of the Chief,

Now you compare me

With the rubbish in the rubbish pit.

You say you no longer want me

Because I am like the things left behind

In the deserted homestead.

You insult me

You laugh at me

You say I do not know the letter A

Because I have not been to school

And I have not been baptised

You compare me with a little dog,

A puppy.

My friend, age-mate of my brother,

Take care,

Take care of your tongue,

Be careful what your lips say.

First take a deep look, brother,

You are now a man

You are not a dead fruit!

To behave like a child does not befit you!

Listen Ocol, you are the son of a Chief,

Leave foolish behaviour to little children,

It is not right that you should be laughed at in a song!

Songs about you should be songs of praise!

Stop despising people

As if you were a little foolish man,

Stop treating me like salt-less ash*

Become barren of insults and stupidity;

Who has ever uprooted the Pumpkin?

My clansmen, I cry

Listen to my voice:

The insults of my man

Are painful beyond bearing.

My husband abuses me together with my parents;

He says terrible things about my mother

And I am so ashamed!

He abuses me in English

And he is so arrogant.

He says I am rubbish,
He no longer wants me!

In cruel jokes, he laughs at me,

He says I am primitive

Because I cannot play the guitar,

He says my eyes are dead

And I cannot read,

He says my ears are blocked

And cannot hear a single foreign word,

That I cannot count the coins.

He says I am like sheep,

The fool.

Ocol treats me

As if I am no longer a person,

He says I am silly

Like the ojuu insects that sit on the beer pot.

My husband treats me roughly.

The insults!

Words cut more painfully than sticks!

He says my mother is a witch,

That my clansmen are fools

Because they eat rats,

He says we are all Kaffirs.

We do not know the ways of God,

We sit in deep darkness

And do not know the Gospel,

He says my mother hides her charms

In her necklace

And that we are all sorcerers.

My husband’s tongue

Is bitter like the roots of the lyonno lily,

It is hot like the penis of the bee,

Like the sting of the kalang!

Ocol’s tongue is fierce like the arrow of the scorpion,

Deadly like the spear of the buffalo-hornet.

It is ferocious

Like the poison of a barren woman

And corrosive like the juice of the gourd.

My husband pours scorn

On Black People,

He behaves like a hen

That eats its own eggs

A hen that should be imprisoned under a basket.

His eyes grow large

Deep black eyes

Ocol’s eyes resemble those of the Nile Perch!

He becomes fierce

Like a lioness with cubs,

He begins to behave like a mad hyena.

He says Black People are primitive

And their ways are utterly harmful,

Their dances are mortal sins

They are ignorant, poor and diseased!

Ocol says he is a modern man,

A progressive and civilised man,

He says he has read extensively and widely

And he can no longer live with a thing like me

Who cannot distinguish between good and bad.

He says I am just a village woman,

I am of the old type,

And no longer attractive.

He says I am blocking his progress,

My head, he says,

Is as big as that of an elephant

But it is only bones.

There is no brain in it,

He says I am only wasting his time.

“The woman with whom I share my husband”

Ocol rejects the old type.

He is in love with a modern woman,

He is in love with a beautiful girl

Who speaks English.

But only recently

We would sit close together, touching each other!

Only recently I would play

On my bow-harp

Singing praises to my beloved.

Only recently he promised

That he trusted me completely.

I used to admire him speaking in

English.

Ocol is no longer in love with the old type;

He is in love with a modern girl.

The name of the beautiful one

Is Clementine.

Brother, when you see

Clementine!

The beautiful one aspires

To look like a white woman;

Her lips are red-hot

Like glowing charcoal,

She resembles the wild cat

That has dipped its mouth in blood,

Her mouth is like raw yaws

It looks like an open ulcer,

Like the mouth of a field!

Tina dusts powder on her face

And it looks so pale;

She resembles the wizard

Getting ready for the midnight dance.

She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face

And when little sweat

Begins to appear on her body

She looks like the guinea fowl!

The smell of carbolic soap

Makes me sick,

And the smell of powder

Provokes the ghosts in my head;

It is then necessary to fetch a goat

From my mother’s brother.

The sacrifice over

The ghost-dance drum must sound

The ghost be laid

And my peace restored.

I do not like dusting myself with powder:

The thing is good on pink

skin Because it is already pale,

But when a black woman has used it

She looks as if she has dysentery;

Tina looks sickly

And she is slow moving,

She is a piteous sight.

Some medicine has eaten up Tina’s face;

The skin on her face is gone

And it is all raw and red,

The face of the beautiful one

Is tender like the skin of a newly born baby!

And she believes

That this is beautiful

Because it resembles the face of a white woman!

Her body resembles

The ugly coat of the hyena;

Her neck and arms

Have real human skins!

She looks as if she has been struck

By lightning;

Or burnt like the kongoni

In a fire hunt.

She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face

And when little sweat

Begins to appear on her body

She looks like the guinea fowl!

And her lips look like bleeding,

Her hair is long

Her head is huge like that of the owl,

She looks like a witch,

Like someone who has lost her head

And should be taken

To the clan shrine!

Her neck is rope-like,

Thin, long and skinny

And her face sickly pale.

Forgive me, brother,

Do not think I am insulting

The woman with whom I share my husband!

Do not think my tongue

Is being sharpened by jealousy.

It is the sight of Tina

That provokes sympathy from my heart.

I do not deny

I am a little jealous.

It is no good lying,

We all suffer from a little jealousy.

It catches you unawares

Like the ghosts that bring fevers;

It surprises people

Like earth tremors:

But when you see the beautiful woman

With whom I share my husband

You feel a little pity for her!

Her breasts are completely shrivelled up,

They are all folded dry skins,

They have made nests of cotton wool

And she folds the bits of cow-hide

In the nests

And calls them breasts!

O! my clansmen

How aged modern women

Pretend to be young girls!

They mould the tips of the cotton nests

So that they are sharp

And with these they prick

The chests of their men!

And the men believe

They are holding the waists

Of young girls that have just shot up!

The modern type sleep with their nests

Tied firmly on their chests.

How many kids

Has this woman sucked?

The empty bags on her chest

Are completely flattened, dried.

Perhaps she has aborted many!

Perhaps she has thrown her twins

In the pit latrine!

Is it the vengeance ghosts

Of the many smashed eggs

That have captured her head?

How young is this age-mate of my mother?

The woman with whom I share my husband

Walks as if her shadow

Has been captured

You can never hear

Her footsteps;
She looks as if

She has been ill for a long time!

Actually she is starving

She does not eat

She says she fears getting fat,

That the doctor has prevented her

From eating,

She says a beautiful woman

Must be slim like a white woman;

And when she walks

You hear her bones rattling

Her waist resembles that of the hornet.

The beautiful one is dead dry

Like a stump,

She is meatless

Like a shell

On a dry river bed.

But my husband despises me,

He laughs at me,

He says he is too good

To be my husband.
Ocol says he is not

The age-mate of my grandfather

To live with someone like me

Who has not been to school.

He speaks with arrogance,

Ocol is bold

He says these things in broad daylight.

He says there is no difference

Between me and my grandmother

Who covers herself with animal skins.

I am not unfair to my husband,

I do not complain

Because he wants another woman

Whether she is young or aged!

Who has ever prevented men

From wanting women?

Who has discovered the medicine for thirst?

The medicines for hunger

And anger and enmity

Who has discovered them?

In the dry season the sun shines

And rain falls in the wet season.

Women hunt for men

And men want women!

When I have another woman

With whom I share my husband

I am glad

A woman who is jealous

Of another, with whom she shares a man,

Is jealous because she is slow,

Lazy and shy,

Because she is cold, weak, clumsy!

The competition for a man’s love

Is fought at the cooking place

When he returns from the field

Or from the hunt,

You win him with a hot bath

And sour porridge.

The wife who brings her meal first

Whose food is good to eat,

Whose dish is hot

Whose face is bright

And whose heart is clean

And whose eyes are dark

Like the shadows:

The wife who jokes freely

Who eats in the open

Not in the bed room,

One who is not dull

Like stale beer,

Such is the woman who becomes

The headdress keeper.

I do not block my husband’s path

From his new wife.

If he likes, let him build for her

An iron roofed house on the hill!

I do not complain,

My grass thatched house is enough for me.

I am not angry

With the woman with whom

I share my husband,

I do not fear to compete with her.

All I ask

Is that my husband should stop the insults,

My husband should refrain

From heaping abuses on my head.

He should stop being half-crazy,

And saying terrible things about my mother

Listen Ocol, my old friend,

The ways of your ancestors

Are good,

Their customs are solid

And not hollow

They are not thin, not easily breakable

They cannot be blown away

By the winds

Because their roots reach deep into the soil.

I do not understand

The ways of foreigners

But I do not despise their customs.

Why should you despise yours?

Listen, my husband,

You are the son of a Chief.

The pumpkin in the old homestead

Must not be uprooted!