This is the law of the wandering cattlemen of the savannas: that a man may elope with the woman of his choice, maiden or matron, wife or spinster. But woe betide him if he is caught on the run. Yet all is well if he can but get his beloved home without being caught. On the evening of our story a brother and sister were quarrelling. Modio, the brother, had just pushed Amina, the sister, violently. “Kai!” Amina shouted, struggling deftly backward. “Take your hands off me.”
Her lips were parted, but not in a smile, and her full breasts heaved so that the necklace of silver and fruit seemed to come to life. Amina just managed to retain her balance by clutching at the wall of the grass hut.
“Don’t you dare touch me again!”
“By Allah,” Modio raged, “I’ll teach you some sense.”
She glared at him. He was crouching before her, his hands curved like the claws of a hawk about to strike, his muscles tense. “You’ll go nowhere!”
“You lie!” she cried. “This night I will be with Yalla. He’s the husband
I’s the husband I’ve chosen.”
“What of Jama, the husband our father chose for you? What of the cattle Jama’s been paying?” “That is your affair,” she said. “Did you- Oh, let me go, you devil. Are you mad?”
She felt the stroke of his rough hand across her mouth. His arm tightened about her waist and she was struggling as he carried her out to his own hut. With his bare foot he kicked open the door; dust rose in a cloud. He thrust her in. She fell forward on her face in the dust and lay there, her body heaving with sobs. Amina was young and in the fullness of her bloom. Her long hair, unplaited, fell over her back and lay buried in the dust. Tears mingled with the red cream she had painted on her cheeks.
“You wretch,” she heard her brother say from the other side of the door. He was fastening the door and presently she heard him stamp away, cursing her. She let the tears flow freely as if tears alone could heal the ache in her heart, the desire for the man she had chosen. But there must be hope, she thought. No one, nothing could shut her away from Yalla for ever. She must go to him, she must.
Hatred burned within her breast. Was it her fault that she did not like Jama? Her father had accepted the cattle first and told her about it later. He turned out to be a weak-kneed, effeminate man. A man who could not weave mats or take the cattle out to graze. A coward who had wept and begged as they flogged him at the sharo. He had taken his flogging, it was true, but he had not taken it like a man and it would be humiliating to marry him. Her father might give her away to Jama, but he would not be present when the other maidens would taunt her with having married a coward: “And how’s your husband? The one who stays in bed till sunrise, who must not be soaked by the rain? Ha, ha! A husband indeed!” The mistake had been Yalla’s, for he had not honoured the arrangement in full. It had been a simple arrangement. She and Yalla were to escape from the camp before Jama brought the bulls that were the final instalment of the brideprice. Yalla was to have come to the hut at the hour when the hyenas begin to howl over the grazing fields. He was to scratch in the manner peculiar to the grey hawk that steals chickens and she would then know that he was waiting for her under the dorowa tree.
She had waited for Yalla’s screech. In the early hours of the evening before the hyenas slunk out of the rocks, she had thought about her man- tall, wide-shouldered, with a copper ring in his plaited hair, a man who could break a stubborn bull or calm the wildest pony in her father’s stables. Yet when he smiled or held her hand, his face was so gentle and so sweet. She liked to place her head against his deep wipe chest and look up into the darkness of his brown eyes. He was fond of playing with her ears, and sometimes he irritated her and she would threaten to go to Jama. Jama, the coward. Could Jama protect her home from the gales that swept the grazing fields? Could he outwit the wild dogs, and the hyenas, the leopard and the lion, when they came to raid the herd?
A husband indeed. She had been his ‘wife’ ever since she could remember. Five hundred head of cattle was a good price, but she was no article for sale.
Early this evening Yalla had come to her father’s settlement. He had stood outside near the dorowa tree and had whistled to her. She had been very excited. To think she was leaving her home for good. There could be no goodbyes, no tears. She was running away with a man they could gladly kill. There was dead silence over the veld. Amina had peeped out cautiously. There was the veld before her. It was all hers and Yalla’s if only they would dare. The stunted trees, bowing in the cold wind, the rushing streams, the rocks, the thorn forests. They were all calling out to her and to Yalla to go forth and conquer them; to begin their own camp with a group of bulls and cows- their own. Yalla had screeched again, impatiently, and this time he did sound like the grey hawk. She had not hesitated. She ran. She took nothing with her, not even one of the wooden ladles that her mother had given her for stirring the milk. And that was when her brother had intercepted her. She did not know that he had been hiding all the while in a nearby tree. He had a pack of wild cattle-dogs with him, and these he at once unleashed on Yalla. He had seized Amina and had laughed at her threats and clawing and curses. For Yalla and Amina the law of the grazing fields was broken.
Now she was a prisoner in the hut, but Amina found it impossible to imagine that Yalla never would be hers. There must still be a chance. If only he could somehow manage to free her from this prison and take her to his hut before Jama paid the full price of five hundred cattle, she could still be Yalla’s by right of his night. No one could deny this law of the grazing fields. All cattlemen knew it and respected it. But how was Yalla to know where she was, or when Jama would be coming. Everything was over, Amina decided with a fresh burst of tears.
“Oh, Yalla, my Yalla! Come and save me, Yalla. I am yours and you are my man!” She pushed and screamed and threatened until her brother warned her to be quiet. But how could she be quiet when her body itched from the dust and the thorns? Oh, death! It would be better to die than to live as Jama’s wife. Already she could hear an argument about the saddling of the horses. Her other brothers had returned from the fields. One of them said she must wear a black veil, and the other said a white one was the custom. Such trifles! The eldest brother said he would ride behind the bride; he could not trust her for a moment after what she had been through with Modio. And all this because of five hundred head of cattle.
Quite suddenly she became conscious of silence. The chattering ceased and the coarse jokes. A fearful pause lay over the veld. She began to cough. The air in the little room hung heavy and thick. And then her brother’s voice cut in hoarsely.
“Fire!” he shouted. “Fire!.. Yes… whoo… fetch water…fire!” Amina started. Heavy fumes began to fill her little prison. She was coughing and gasping fearfully. Desperation gave her the strength of ten. She flung herself at her door. The fumes were now pouring in through every crack in the hut. The boys outside shouted and yelled, keeping the cows from panicking. Their shouts beat dimly against her ears. She was choking. Did they not even remember her? Could they be so cruel? Were their cows more valuable to them than her life?
A rough hand thrust open her door, and a man’s gruff voice urged her, “Follow me. It’s Yalla.” Her heart gladdened, but no words came to her choking lips. The man’s arms circled her waist and swept her off her feet.
The thatch caught her hair, and the man’s hands detached the burrs tenderly. She must be dreaming. She felt the air rush into her throat. She saw the yellow sheets of flames shoot skyward in dazzling columns. And, as she raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glare, Amina saw her brothers dashing here, there and yonder, collecting sleeping mats, money purses, milk bowls. It was a dream no longer. That voice –it was real.
“There she is!… Brothers, there’s our sister. Catch her!”
“Yalla,” Amina sobbed, “what shall we do? They are coming.”
“Let them try. My hut is five miles from here. It will be a good race.” She felt herself carried across the encampment and saddled onto a horse.
“Away, now!” Yalla shouted. “Away…”
Every forward leap of the horse jarred her bones. Her hair streamed in the wind. Behind them came her brothers. Relentless, cunning riders, angered beyond repair. Amina could clearly hear the clatter of the pursuing horses. By Allah! What could she do?
Twang.
That was an arrow. Best to give up now.
“Oh, Yalla, let us get down and go back home. It’s useless running in this manner.” The man’s laugh, big and thunderous, made her feel silly. Was he laughing at the poisoned arrow that might have stiffened his back and sent him coughing and clutching to his death? What a nerve! Their horse had begun to pant under the combined weight. They were now in a part of the scrub with few trees and many rocks and hills. This was where clever horsemanship would tell. This was where this thief would lose her or gain her for ever. She held her breath. Her body prickled with a thousand pains but she knew the prize that lay ahead and it gave her courage. The horse labored. Even Yalla, man that he was, ground his teeth in pain and weariness, urging his steed ahead with a slashing whip. “Yee- whoo!” he shouted, the sweat running down his face and falling into Amina’s eyes. “Yee- whoo!” She was the first to see the light in the distance.
“My hut,” Yalla said. “My lonely hut!”
“Our hut, you mean.” He laughed again. Twang! And Yalla moaned.
“They’ve shot me! My back… Allah save me. I’m dying…” Before the words were out of his mouth, Yalla was sliding down the saddle, for an arrow’s poison acts fast. Yet more arrows twanged past even as the distance between them and their pursuers narrowed.
“If I die, you go ahead. They can’t touch you once you’re in my hut. It is the … the…”
Terror, panic, Amina looked over her shoulder and saw her elder brother’s figure looming out of the darkness. Yalla had barely enough strength to crawl. Amina dragged him on. She was a girl of the veld, fresh, strong and brave. His strength waned fast. Ahead of them, the cows in the gloom bolted out of their paths. Rams bleated anxiously. A cock cackled, waking all the rest which now set up a deafening crow.
They were actually in Yalla’s settlement, but not in the hut.
“You thief!” A few yards behind the paddocks, just beyond the poultry yard, Amina bent down. With all her might, she seized Yalla and pushed him into the hut, falling in after him. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“My wife!” he moaned. “Mine at last! But first, this arrow. You can still save me. The antidote…”
Amina’s brothers drew up before Yalla’s hut.
“You thief!” they raved. “Give us our sister.”
“Thief?” he sneered. “You are thieves. Have you not stolen the bridal horse?”
“Our father, Jama, will know no rest till you’ve compensated him for his cattle.”
“Leave that to me,” Yalla said. To Amina he murmured, “Oh my back. The antidote…”
The brothers wheeled their horses and cantered slowly back to their own camp. One of them said: “That lad, Yalla, he is a man. Setting fire to our camp, stealing our sister, and then calling us thieves for taking back our horse which we saddled for another bridegroom! The law of the grazing fields. He’s won.”
Understanding and appreciating the story
- In your own words, state the “law of the grazing fields.”
- In your own opinion, how appropriate is the image of a ‘hawk about to strike’?
- Describe Amina’s feelings as she lies in her brother’s hut.
- Make notes on the character of Jama, as seen from Amina’s perspective?
- In your own opinion, what kind of person is Modio? Explain your answer.
- Contrast Yalla with Jama. Describe Amina’s attitude towards Yalla and Jama.
- What goes wrong in Amina’s first attempt to elope with Yalla?
- Why does Yalla laugh when Amina tells him it is useless to run? What feelings does his laughter evoke in Amina?
- Identify figures of speech used in the story. How effectively have they been used?
- Identify the major theme in the story.
- The “law of the grazing fields” in this context refers to the custom or tradition among the wandering cattlemen of the savannas, which allows a man to elope with a woman of his choice, regardless of her marital status or family’s arrangements for her marriage. However, if the man is caught in the act of eloping, he may face serious consequences.
- The image of a ‘hawk about to strike’ is quite appropriate in this context because it conveys a sense of impending danger and aggression. It depicts Modio’s menacing posture and his readiness to attack Amina physically, reflecting the intensity of the conflict between the siblings.
- As Amina lies in her brother’s hut, her feelings are a mix of anger, desperation, and a strong desire to be with Yalla, the man she truly loves. She is determined to escape and be with him, despite the challenges she faces.
- From Amina’s perspective, Jama is portrayed as a weak and cowardly man. He is chosen as her husband by her father and has been paying the bride price, but Amina has no affection for him. She sees him as unfit to protect her and their home, especially in comparison to Yalla, whom she views as strong, brave, and capable.
- Modio appears to be an aggressive and controlling individual. He physically abuses his sister, Amina, when she opposes him and tries to elope with Yalla. His behavior reflects a sense of entitlement over his sister’s life and decisions, which is in stark contrast to Yalla, who respects Amina’s choice and desires.
- Yalla is depicted as a strong, daring, and courageous man. He is Amina’s chosen lover, and she sees him as someone who can protect and provide for her. On the other hand, Jama is portrayed as weak and effeminate, incapable of fulfilling the roles traditionally expected of a husband in their society. Amina’s attitude towards Yalla is one of admiration and love, while her attitude towards Jama is one of disdain and disappointment.
- Amina’s first attempt to elope with Yalla goes wrong because her brother Modio intercepts them. He had been hiding and releases a pack of wild cattle-dogs on Yalla, preventing their escape and ultimately capturing Amina.
- Yalla laughs when Amina tells him that running away is useless because he is confident in his abilities and determination to protect her. His laughter shows his courage and refusal to give up despite the danger they face. Amina’s reaction to his laughter is a mix of admiration and hope, as she sees him as a brave and resourceful man who can still find a way to save them.
- Figures of speech used in the story include:
- Simile: “his hands curved like the claws of a hawk”
- Metaphor: “Amina was young and in the fullness of her bloom.”
- Personification: “the necklace of silver and fruit seemed to come to life.”
- Hyperbole: “the strength of ten” (referring to Amina’s determination and physical strength)
- The major theme in the story revolves around love, defiance of societal norms, and the pursuit of personal desires. Amina’s love for Yalla leads her to challenge the traditional customs and expectations of her society, risking her safety and reputation to be with the man she truly loves. The story also touches on the idea of traditional roles and expectations placed on men and women in the context of marriage and societal norms.
Discussion questions
- In your opinion, should fathers have a say over who marries their daughters? Why? Do you think that dowry should be paid?
- Discuss the role of men in this society. Do you think their roles have changed in the present time?
The Law Of The Grazing Fields
By
Cyprian Ekwensi
- Setting
This story is set among the nomadic people of West Africa. It is most likely Nigeria. What is more important though is the time. The story is set in pristine Africa before the influence of the west. It is a typical short story with the events taking place in a very short time. The first part is set in Amina‟s compound. We then move to the open veld and ultimately
Yalla‟s house.
- The plot
This is a complex plot. The story is not in the order in which the events occur.
Flashback has been used.
The story opens with Modio struggling to return Amina into her hut. She was making an attempt to elope with her boyfriend but her brother had suspected this and lay in wait. When she had tried to make her dash to freedom, he stopped her.
Amina then tells us why she was fleeing now. The first arrangement had failed because Yalla had not honoured the time they had set. As Modio locked her in the hut her world collapsed. She wondered how Yalla was going to save her without even knowing where she was.
Unknown to her he was already around and had a plan. He set a hut on fire and used the resulting confusion to get Amina out of her hut. They took a horse that had been set aside for the groom and their adventure began.
Poisoned arrows were hurled at them and towards the end of the journey one got him. He was prepared for them. In his hut was an antidote. If only Amina could get him into the house they would be successful. She uses both her strength and determination to get him into the hut. He had won because the law of the grazing fields existed.
- Conflict
Amina and her father
She laments that she was not consulted over the marriage issue. Her father had accepted the cattle first and told her about it later (pp183).
When Modio asks her about Jama, she tells him that that is their affair.
Her father is excited about the bride price but not she. She says that her father might hand her over to Jama but he won‟t be there when she is being taunted by other women about his cowardice. (pp183) Amina and her brothers
Modio was suspicious of her behaviour and therefore set a trap for her. Jama had not paid the full bride price and therefore could not yet take her. This intervening period presented Yalla with an opportunity to steal Amina. That evening Modio lays in wait with a pack of wild cattle dogs which he sets on Yalla and then grabs Amina. He takes her back to the hut swearing that she was going nowhere but Jama‟s.
Her elder brother disturbed by this incident begins to plan how they were to escort her when the time finally came. He says he would ride behind her because she could not be trusted after what she had been through with Modio.
Amina and Jama
She is averse to marrying him because he does not fit the stereotype male of the community. This is supposed to be the masculine type that would protect their families from attack by wild animals. According to her he is weak-kneed and effeminate. He had failed the flogging test. She says that he had wept and begged
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as they flogged him at the sharo. She would be an embarrassment to her if she married him.
Her brothers and Yalla
They knew he was planning to elope with Amina. This is why Modio kept vigil. When he finally gets the girl they run after them and the brothers are not afraid to use poisoned arrows if only to get their sister back and take her to Jama.
When he finally beats them to his hut, they tell him that their father will know no rest until Yalla will have compensated for his cattle. (pp189)
Finally they acknowledge defeat. One of the brothers says that Yalla is a man. He set fire to their camp, stole their sister and then called them thieves for taking back their horse that they had saddled for another bridegroom. 4. Character and characterisation
Amina-strong willed, determined, proud Yalla-courageous, determined, humorous, loving Get your illustrations to prove the above traits.
- Themes
- Tradition
This is the most important theme in this story. We learn about the culture of these pastoralists in relation to marriage.
- First there is the law of the grazing fields. A man may elope with a woman of his choice as long as he is not caught.
- A man must complete the payment of dowry before he could take his wife. They were waiting for Jama to deliver the last instalment of his dowry before they could hand Amina over to him.
- Men had to be tested to determine their suitability for marriage. The stage for doing this was a ceremony called sharo in which the man would be flogged in public to determine how well he bore pain. Those who wept and begged during the flogging lost favour in the eyes of potential brides. iv. Parents arranged marriage for their daughters. Amina‟s father had first accepted the bride price then told her about it. She was not expected to have a say and that is why her brothers were trying to enforce the will of their father.
- Love
Another theme developed in this story is love. This is a story of passion. Nothing would stop Yalla from marrying the woman he loved. She says that he was strong enough to break stubborn bulls but when he smiled and held her in his hands his face was so gentle and sweet. When they are in Yalla‟s settlement and he points his hut out to her, she says: “Our hut you mean”.
She tells Modio when he stops her from eloping: “This night I will be with Yalla. He‟s the husband I‟ve chosen.”
Yalla on his part has suffered to get this woman to be his wife. He endured the pack of wild cattle dogs and later a poisoned arrow. Despite the poison he takes time to acknowledge Amina when he gets them to his house: “My wife!” he moaned. “Mine at last.”
6. Style a) Flashback
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- It is through flashback that we learn why Amina is opposed to marrying Jama. He had wept and begged when flogged.
- We also learn of how they had set to elope through a flashback. Yalla was to make scratching sounds to indicate his presence.
- It is also thorough flashback that we learn of the huge dowry that Jama is paying.
- Image
- The first time it is used with reference to Modio. He crouches before her with hands curved like the claws of a hawk about to strike.
In this instance the hawk is playing a protective role. Modio has just saved his family from embarrassment that would have come to them had Yalla been successful.
- The second instance is with reference to Yalla: He was to scratch in the manner peculiar to the grey hawk that steals chickens…”
Indeed Yalla is out to steal a “chicken”. Often times the hawk swoops in in broad sight of owners of the chickens and steals them. This is exactly what Yalla does. It develops his courageous, even adventurous nature.
- POV
The story is told from a third person point of view. It makes the story credible. Because of the emotive nature of this story, the first person may not have afforded us the balanced reporting that is availed here.
- a)Appropriateness of title
The story is based on the simple law that gives the story its tiltle. It is therefore appropriate because it helps us understand the actions of Amina and Yalla. Theirs was a desperate move but the rewards were worth it.
- Significant event
The significant event in this story is the payment of the dowry by Jama. Yalla and Amina are running out of time because Jama is expected to bring in the last instalment and take his bride. It therefore gives the story a sense of urgency.
- Aim of the author
This story is about making choices. Everything we do has serious implications for us and those around us. This ought to be the guiding factor before we make decisions. We need to ask ourselves whether we can live with the outcomes of our decisions.