Tribal Scars

10:00PM 22 July

We had lecture today focusing on the Cape Coast Castle. During the lecture Professor Kwadmo Opoku-Agyemang told us a side story about tribal scars and how they came about to be. I have often noticed children and adults having a particular scar on their cheek bone. The story goes, that one day hundreds of years ago, a man with his young daughter and mother-in-law were running from slave raiders that had come info their African village. The strong man and his family were running hard, but the old woman was slowing them down and the man could not carry both his daughter and his mother-in-law and run fast enough. The old woman told him to leave her behind, what good would she be to the slave raiders anyway? She was old and damaged goods. Then, the man stopped running and asked the woman to gather herbs that clot the blood. He took out his knife and ever so gently whispered to his daughter that what he was about to do would hurt very much. But that it was for her own good, and that he loved her very much. The father preceeded to cut the child all over her body, this way, then that. As she screamed in pain and terror, the father could hear the footsteps of the slave raiders drawing closer. The old woman came back with the herbs and the father mashed them up in his hands and rubbed the ointment all over his daughter's now cut and wounded body. The slave raiders caught up, and saw the father, a strong beau of a man and napped him. They saw the old woman laying in the grass, brittle and weak, and left her along the path. And then they saw the child; cut, bloodied, slashes over her beautiful, stunning face and young, otherwise healthy body. She was damaged goods. No longer worth her weight at the trading post. The raiders, disappointed, took only the father with them. Later that day the grandmother carries her grandchild back into their town. People are joyous that they have returned. And mothers and others come from near and far to ask how the old woman was able to protect her grand child. She would tell all who asked that the way to protect their children was once they have reached the age of it being clear that they will be staying in this world, that they have been named, one should gently cut their body this way and that and the slave raiders will no longer want them. They will be spoiled and imperfect. And this, the story goes, is how tribal scars originated.


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