Once, many years ago, I was passing on my way from one place to another and I had been traveling for a long time in the sun and therefore wanted very much to go swimming. I had found a pool which was very still and cool so that I felt within myself that this pool was the most beautiful place. I took my soul and all my other possessions and bound them up in a bag of skins, since I was afraid that a spirit or some other living creature would steal them while I was swimming in the pool.
I swam
until I was refreshed entirely and ready to go on my way, then I
became worried because I could not get my soul and my other
possessions out of the bag of skins I had wrapped them in.
I struggled with the bag and was angry that I had swum so long and
did not realize the magical place which the pool was. So I picked
up the bag and began to walk down the road to the magic market, for
I was a very great shaman even then and I knew that I would have to
find death because I would need it to get my soul and other things
out of the bag I was carrying.
After several days I came to the great town where the magic market was and stopped to look at the outside of the town in my excitement despite the importance to me of the errand I was on because the name of that town was "town seeing place" and a person had to look hard in order to find it.
The road to the town was a long circle entirely around the place so that a human being could enter the town from the most propitious direction according to the time of that person's birth or other circumstances of their nature, while no spirit or grotesque and terrible creature would want to cross that road and leave its place. I was very much afraid as I passed into the town and was worried that the people there would see that I was a victim of an evil magic and would drive me away like a ghost or bad spirit, but all those people who I met were not human beings though they resembled them in all ways and the people only looked at me as if I were a stone or a chair or some other than living creature. So I passed into the great town and did not speak to anyone until I reached the place where the magic market was.
The magic market was very large; some miles or more on any side
with perhaps even longer sides where I could not see. There were very many beautiful and useful things inside the market.
There were things that said they would be tasting like fruit, but
had never before this moment been fruit. There were things that
before this time had been meat, but would refuse to taste as they
were saying. There were things that had been made so that they
would be staying just completely the same and a human being could
still be eating or drinking them. There were clothes that were
looking very rich and seeming that they could not have been made
from any living or non-living creature. There were things with
very many beautiful colors that a person could never be making so
that I was dreaming about these things, though without sleeping or
closing my eyes. There were things that looked like other things
so that a person could be buying them without suffering as they
might otherwise be doing. There were things that a person could be
buying with or without suffering, but also without any kind of
reason. Some of these things had once been spirits or other living
creatures and many of them called out that I should take them with
me, but I told them that I had come for death and all the many
things in the magic market were afraid and became very quiet.
After a while I found the man who ran the market and tried to make my needs known to him using a complex language of hand motions.
This was a very hard thing for a person to do as that man had been
blessed by the gods who created the magic market so that as long as
the man ran the magic market he, the man, would be incapable of a
lie or the making of any evil thing, but because of this the man
could not talk or think. However, being unable to talk or think
did not hinder the man so much as the gods had also made a very
marvelous arrangement of things and symbols that made talking and
thinking unnecessary to the man, and so he was very happy and
forcibly without any sin whatsoever.
It took another long time for the man to understand the thing which I need. By then I was very tired from still carrying around the bag full of my soul and other possessions.
The man changed the very marvelous arrangement of symbols and things which the gods of the magic market had given to him and he did not say any words in the way that a person does and he did not make any signs with his hands, but these things which he changed caused me to know within myself that I needed money to buy death. So I hung my head down over myself and left the magic market. I felt a sadness so great that I did not know where I was for I thought then that I would never have enough money to buy death.
But as I walked away from the place where the magic market was, I saw that there was some creature or other person in the bushes. I made a loud yell and said to come out of the bushes to my face if you are a person or friendly spirit and not a terrible creature at all. Then an old man with a very dirty beard and torn clothes came out of the bushes and looked at me with eyes like shiny stones in the river at mid-day, so that I knew that he, the old man, was really God. When I saw that it was really God who had been hiding in the bushes I fell down upon my face and begged him to help me find enough money to buy death. The old man who was really God asked me to tell him my name and I replied that my name was "millions and millions of years," which of course was not my true name. He asked me if that was true and I said yes as it is more dangerous to lie to God, but it is most dangerous to tell God your true name since he, God, might ask you why you are there in the world and you would vanish because no one knows that. Then I begged God again for help as I could not see any way at that time.
The old man, God, smiled very widely and said that he used to be God when everything was newly made and did not have to be governed, but now that God ruled everything he, the old man, was only one of God's servants. The old man looked around himself and moved his face in a very sly way. He showed me a gourd which he had kept away from my seeing. He said that the gourd was full of spirits who would help him become God since the gourd also gave the old man just a little death, but not so much as to kill him. He said that drinking the spirits with just a little death would make him used to death so that he would not need it any longer, and I should feel more happy than before since he would be God later on and would no longer remember me but would help anyway. However, I just laughed at the old man and was even more sad than before, because I believed that I knew all about such things and I thought the old man might work magic with his gourds forever and he would still need death.
So I went away from the town and after I had gone away I wandered into the forest weeping and crying out so that I almost hoped that I would be eaten by a forest spirit or some other hungry creature.
This did not happen to me then so I continued wailing and being very upset within myself until I came to a place where there were very many people who all were busy making one thing into another thing and moving all these things which had been made from one place to another. I did not notice these things or that the people were making them for I was still expressing my sad feeling though not so loudly as before. Then the gods of that place heard me despairing outside myself and came to where I stood asking me why I made such a sorrowful noise. These gods appeared in the form of huge suits made of the most costly material and rare things so that these gods would have been the most expensive suits in the complete world if a person could have worn them.
I told them, the gods, that I was a very great shaman, though I was cursed by some evil sorcerer or malicious spirit and must now find enough money to buy death, but I did not fall down upon my face as these were only the gods of the place where I was then being. After I had said this, the gods of that place moved their faces to show that they were well pleased and asked me if I could change a way into a thing. I told them, the gods, that I could very surely do this so long as neither one was a spirit or other living creature. This was very fine and pleasant and I agreed to do this work for the gods if they would give me money to buy death.
Then I awakened each night at an unknown hour when all other living or not living creatures were asleep and I worked for the gods of that place. I changed ways into things and things into ways and then I would place symbols which I made in between them so that they, the ways and the things, would not turn back when they awoke the next day.
After one year the gods gave me money and I went away from their place into the forest as I was thinking I would return to the magic market in the town and buy death.
I was still far away from the road when I saw someone up ahead because of the wonderful light coming from this person. I tried to hide in a bush since I thought perhaps a spirit or awful thing was approaching and I was scared for having my soul and other possessions in a bag of skins though I was still a very great shaman. Then I saw that it was not a person but a running river with the eyes of an old man and I saw that this was God who I had seen at the magic market. I fell down upon my face in the bush and cried out, but God had forgotten me and continued to pass along his way with light so that I knew that the old man was a very powerful shaman who no longer needed death and this made me more happy than before.
When I returned to the magic market I again approached the man who was running this place and made gestures to him. Then he, the man, changed the marvelous arrangement of symbols and things so that I knew within myself that I did not have enough money to buy death. But as I now knew that the old man had been God and spoken truly I bought a gourd filled with spirits and put it in the bag with my soul and other possessions.
I know that God spoke truly and that the gourd of spirits contained just a little death, though not sufficient for me, because different parts of me would be used to the death but not all at once. Sometimes I was unable to walk, at other times I would be unable to think or talk, but at no time did I become all used to death and totally without need of it, as I would awaken and still could not get my soul and other possessions out of the bag of skins which I had put them in.
However, I am a greater shaman than before and have become very skilled at making ways and things forget their names, so that the gods of that place give me just a little bit more money each year. I know within myself that in a few more years I will buy death and be on my way and now I am quite content.
This tale was told to me by "millions and millions of years" himself, a nomad from the deepest, darkest Africa of the mind.
Copyright 1997 by William G. Whitcomb
