These are stories of magical telling and near magical situations: Sheriff’s story ‘Ndemu, the Crazy wife of Kuluma’, is about the use of stories to sow supernatural anxieties amongst people; Thulla’s ‘Falang’ tells of a lover returning from the dead to torment the living; and Mansaray’s 'A Pentacle For Jebbeh' is steeped in narrations about charms, witchcraft, and the fight against evil. MG Sesay’s ‘Amina and the Armed Robber’s Search for Miss Habiba’ tells of the magical reality of love; Farouk Sesay’s ‘Childbride’ narrates the ordeal of a girl whose dreams of being a judge are threatened by ancient practices that are much alive in the land; and Koroma’s ‘The Golden Crown of Ordu’ is an account of the magical origins of a man who would become a Paramount Chief. The stories all have a surreal feel in their telling, overflowing with themes as diverse as love, career aspirations, bravery, and prayers and actions for the end to be beautiful and much more. ...

INTRODUCTION

These are stories of magical telling and near magical situations. The stories all have a surreal feel in their telling, overflowing with themes as diverse as love, career aspirations, bravery, and prayers and actions for the end to be beautiful and much more.

Mohamed Sheriff’s story “Ndemu, the Crazy Wife of Kuluma” is about the use of stories to sow supernatural anxieties amongst people. It is a story with multifaceted angles and layers of interpretations: superficially, it’s a legendary story of a family curse, a ghost story, a love story and a clan’s story of cruelty, harshness and just rewards; however, at a deeper level, it can be viewed as a feminist story, which celebrates in our traditional societies,  the obscure and the unsung heroines such as the barren, the forthright, the adventurous, the visionary, and the creative and inventive female minds often called the eccentric of women. As a political satire, it’s an extended metaphor of myth formation in order to create fear and control to gain undue advantage. On the whole, it’s one story that blends the gothic with the romantic while maintaining the tonality of a traditional myth and legend. 

Phillip Foday Yamba Thulla’s ‘Falang’ tells of a lover returning from the dead to torment the living. Falang is a dramatic pastoral that contrasts urbanity with rurality. Building on Themne legends, fairytales and set against the backdrop of a village farming life, this light hearted story of adventure swiftly moves from the genre of love and relationship to a gritty and dramatic gothic story centered on the Themne belief in reincarnation – of people who can ‘falang’; in this case the apparition of Ruki. But as the poro society and the herbalists brace up to zap the spectre of Ruki, we - as readers- are left wondering, whether the vexed spirit of Ruki –who had caringly loved the disbelieving boy from the city, Pa Foday- will let her troubled soul be wrestled down and be caged.

Oumar Farouk Sesay’s “Child Bride” narrates the ordeal of a girl whose dreams of being a judge are threatened by ancient practices. The heroine, Ariatu, an eleven-year-old class six girl had been promised a husband since she was in the cradle. But she was determined to escape the fate chosen for her to one of a life she would choose for herself –being a judge and becoming a person “who stops wrong things from happening to young girls”.

It is a narration about the broadening of the perspective of young minds from a village during a career day expedition to the capital city. And more significantly, it is about women empowerment; and about female solidarity and friendship pushing the boundaries of the possible – boundaries that have long been manned by patriarchs wielding machetes of stifling interpretations of norms. But again, even those norms could be progressively re-interpreted and re-enacted. We see this in the final act of the story - the chief refused the traditional bora or handshake during the marriage ceremony for the child-bride, an act that brought about an avalanche of refusal, and set new norms and conditions for the acceptance of the bora, including this: the bride must be over 18.

Elizabeth Kamara's "No Fish on Sundays" explores the dilemma faced by the heroine, Jolit, a woman set in her ways, who is forced to change her attitude to food when she is hospitalized. This story focuses on food and transformation, and opens our eyes to the fact that though most of us eat whatever comes our way on any day of the week, for others, eating food has a cultural or traditional dimension. This piece of work demonstrates that we often cling to the old way of life because we have never been in situations where it is impossible to do the old or customary things.

Bakar Mansaray’s ‘A Pentacle For Jebbeh’ is steeped in narrations about charms, witchcraft, and the fight against evil. It tells the story of a woman, Jebbeh, falsely accused by an evil neighbour, Massa. Despite pressure from the community on Jebbeh to confess to being a witch on account of a pentacle with a dagger through it found on her door stop, Jebbeh refused to do that, her belief in the truth of her being innocent providing resilience against the threats. In the end, through the help of medicine man, the truth is revealed, and the accuser ran into the oblivion of her falsehoods.

Mohamed Gibril Sesay’s ‘Amina and the Armed Robber’s Search for Miss Habiba’ tells of the magical reality of love. It tells of how yearning for an ideal lover often limits possibilities of finding happiness with the imperfect persons who are all we have to love. Habib’s love for his teacher Habiba could not be realized, and his search for that realization led him into a life of reckless searching that turned him into an armed robber. In the end he finds the ideal lover in the flesh, but then even that lover has her own story of fated love.

Art Koroma’s ‘The Golden Crown of Ordu’ is an account of the magical origins of a man who would become a Paramount Chief. It is a magical story of talking trees and animals. There is the wise cotton tree, the cowardly breadfruit and the kind but gossipy cola nut tree. Ordu, the hero, emerging as a child from a blossoming bud, taught and taken care of by trees and animals, pines for beings like himself. He is shown the way to the dwellings of humans, where his endeavors would make him the inheritor of the golden crown of Gbonkor-Loko.

All the stories go in and out of the beliefs, myths, connections, and experiences that energize the unique entraining of the Sierra Leonean and general African condition to universal themes of love, friendship, determination, and enchantment with the mysterious.

Mohamed Gibril Sesay

Elizabeth LA Kamara

Njanguma Momodu

Jan 2023