The Crocodile's Signature

Slim, boisterous, and disobedient, the indigenous child played by the riverbank with a few friends who were just as unruly as he was. The women were washing their colorful clothes in a cove of flat stones. The children moved away from the shore and swam in the current, laughing and splashing, when a crocodile appeared behind them. It snatched the child and disappeared into the murky water.

Several hours later, the mischievous boy woke up in the darkness, surrounded by an indescribable smell of decay. He had been abandoned by the reptile in a kind of burrow. It was a hole in a mound of mud, pebbles, and plant debris washed up by the river during floods.

The entrance, carved out by erosion, allowed a few small land carnivores to take refuge there and devour their prey away from hungry competitors. Some enlarged this natural shelter and shaped it into a gently sloping path. Each visitor did their bit to make the space less uncomfortable and safer. A dome-shaped cavity culminating one meter underground was thus carved out in the bank. Until one day, when the passage skimming the surface of the water and the underground space enlarged, it became possible for the large reptile to visit it.

An unwelcome guest if ever there was one! The potamid monster has tremendous strength when it closes its jaws, but it cannot chew. It swallows fish whole, but when it attacks larger prey, it drowns them and then pulls them underwater to dismember them more easily. The stench of the place was a rich mixture of smells from the rotting carcasses abandoned by predators, either sated or disturbed during their feasts, the scent of their urine and excrement, and the decomposition of vegetation torn up by the river's flow and then trapped in the cave.

Frightened and injured, in the relative darkness of the place, the boy could not see the entrance to the riverbed. Reflexively, he scratched above his head. He reappeared into the world of bright light, the rustling of the wind, and the warm smells of life, between the roots of an ancient mango tree. He caught his breath lying on his back, crouched down, then stood up trembling. Insects of all kinds were gorging themselves on the few fruits scattered along the riverbank. A margouillat, a large gray lizard with a bright blue throat, capable of climbing even smooth bark at great speed, watched him motionless, perched on a branch above him.

While the crocodile's jaws had made superficial cuts in places on his neck and waist, deeper and very painful wounds oozed from his chest, soaking his minimalist loincloth made of a piece of fabric held together by a string. Why hadn't he been devoured immediately? It was a mystery! Perhaps his attacker had been disturbed by a rival who had come to fight him for his victim, and he was finishing off inflicting a beating on him or, on the contrary, receiving one himself!

A young girl was watching over the multicolored laundry drying in the sun. Pensive because of the tragedy that had just shaken her village, she was waving away flies with a twig. She was dressed in a loose boubou with geometric patterns, leaving her shoulders bare and her arms free. Attracted by a movement, she saw the mangled child, screamed, and ran back to her family. He wanted to join her, but he couldn't run because he was dizzy, and his journey forced him to stop many times.

After what seemed like an interminable time, he arrived near the huts bordering the forest and was stunned by the welcome he received. In a panic, the villagers were gathering random objects to gradually form a barrier at the main entrance, preventing him from reaching his family's hut. The population had gathered, standing shoulder to shoulder, and had hastily painted themselves with bright colors that the boy recognized as being used to ward off evil spirits. The crowd chanted repetitive phrases, clapping their hands in a slow rhythm, bending their torsos, then straightening them, turning their heads left and right in an almost choreographed manner, women and men mixed together without distinction.

The sorcerer appeared, looking uncertain, waving a long stick decorated with small carved gourds. The child was afraid because he saw that the old man was afraid. Stammering incomprehensible words, he approached the wounded man, who was shivering with cold despite the late afternoon heat. With a wave of his arm, he silenced the mournful songs and, addressing the sheepish hero of this adventure, he sang: "Ha, hey, look, little brother, look at all that the village is offering you for the Journey. You know that we are poor, alas... Ho, hey, see, my dear son, how generous we have been, acknowledge it. See this abundant food, see these finery... Ha, ho, they are finely woven and brightly colored... Hey, ho, your village is sad and your parents mourn you, your brothers and sisters are inconsolable... Hey, hey, see these weapons, these harpoons that will allow you to hunt and fish in the kingdom of the dead..."

The realm of the dead! His cry of surprise was drowned out by the roar of the crowd. The griot's harangue resumed with renewed vigor, and the din of popular terror grew louder as the tam-tam players joined in. He was dead. In fact, he could not tell the difference between this and life, except for the offerings he had never received in his lifetime. Inhibited and frightened, he did not move, which made the villagers increasingly excited and hostile. Why did he not accept all these gifts so he could leave as soon as possible? When a ghost appears to his loved ones, he does so because he is unhappy. People then try to appease him by showering him with gifts so that he will return to the realm of the dead and leave the living in peace.

Realizing that there was nothing more he could do at home, and not seeing his parents, he turned on his heel and fled towards the river. He took refuge in the rocks bordering the spot where the washerwomen worked and curled up in an uncomfortable hollow, a rough crack at the top of the highest round stone. Out of reach of the greedy crocodile. In the early morning, he awoke feverish, hallucinating, numb, in pain, to the cries of a group of men. Brief orders flew under the canopy of trees on the shore. He recognized policemen and a huge Scheutist missionary, red with sweat and his beard in disarray. “Ah, he's coming to take me to paradise!” The giant's head, exhaling strong coffee breath, passed by the nest of the wounded bird: "Hey, I see him, come here! Hey, he's here, podferdek!"

The healing was slow to come, the scarring took a long time, but after much care, the authorities brought the child back to his family. The sword and the sprinkler joined forces to impose his return on the more than reluctant population and his family. Legal and religious pretexts had to be invoked to extinguish the fire of superstition that an imported and imposed monotheism had not yet stifled. The people pretended to comply...

Having become a taciturn young man, because he had been quarantined by everyone during his adolescence, he was presented to the recruiter of the Public Force. The latter was surprised by the quality of this recruit! Why introduce him to this villager, whom no one accused of a dubious or violent past, who looked like a simple, sturdy countryman, capable of working in the palm groves, starting a family, fishing with nets or harpoons to improve the family meal? The chief and his new griot—the old sorcerer having joined the realm of the dead sooner than the child who had fallen victim to the crocodile—even praised the many merits of this strange citizen. The recruitment officer did not hide his satisfaction at this high-quality “volunteer” and, without asking any further questions, took him by Jeep to his new destiny. A big celebration was then decreed by the local chiefdom for the following day: the ghost had finally left!