An Everlasting Gift: Apuk’s War and Peace Legend – Part 4

An Everlasting Gift of the Lion to the People of Apuk

By Thiik Mou Giir, Melbourne, Australia 

Monday, August 11, 2020 (PW) —  There was a profound stillness in the air.  The Lion had a full attention of the members of the Group on the Mission.  “I’m going to sing you a song, and the song I’m going to sing for you shall be your Song.”  The announcement caused murmuring among the members of the group.  “The Lion is going to sing,” said one.  “He is going to leave us a Song,” said another.  “And the Song shall be our Song,” said yet another.  

They were repeating what the Lion had said, not just because they were trying to let what the Lion said sink in, but also to check out from each other whether or not they were individually experiencing a profound hallucination; that their minds were not playing games by making things that were not real, real.  They concluded, without any doubt, that they were collectively witnessing something real.  It was real that the Lion was going to sing to them in Jieng Language.  There was nothing more to say but to keep quiet and listen.  The Lion broke the silence with a song.  He sang:

I’m a Lion.

My roars are a woud (battalion);

My teeth are another battalion;

Each of my leg is a battalion;

My tail is a battalion;

My claws are a battalion;

I’m a warrior!

He paused.

“Is that the Song he said he is going to leave for us before he dies?” asked one of the Men on the Mission.  “Is that it?” exclaimed another.  “Shush!  The Lion is speaking again,” whispered yet another.

“I can see that you are all drawn out from nine sections of Apuk,” the Lion said.  “I want Abioor people to step forward,” he demanded.  Three Brave Men from Abioor stepped forward.  Then the Lion said, “This is going to be your Song.”  The Lion sang the Song to the people of Abioor.  Three Abioor Brave Men, assisted by the people of the other sections, had to memorize the Song as the Lion recited.  When the Lion finished singing, he said, “Go back to your place and let the people of Abuok come forward.  Three Abuok Brave Men came forward.  They heard, memorized and recited their Song, along with all the others.

In the same fashion, the Lion sang songs for three Brave Men from each of the remaining sections of Apuk: Adoor, Amouk, Apool, Biong, Boiyar, Jurmananger, and Nyaramong.  It took a long time for the Group on the Mission to learn and memorize all those songs.  They started at night until late afternoon.  They were exhausted.  However, they were all pleased that they had heard and learned what would be their Songs, gifts from the Lion.  On the other hand, they were feeling sad at the thought that they would have to kill him; or, should they not kill him?

“The Song of your section is part of Apuk’s Song” explained the Lion.  “Whenever you sing the Song of your own section, it is your own Section’s Song.  Whenever you sing the introductory part and all those parts of the Song, according to the order I have delivered them to you today, you will be singing Apuk’s Song.  Together, they are one Song.  You, the Apuk people, have taken this Song from me; it is your own Song now,” he concluded.

Like a Benydit Jieng, in ancient times, who, at the twilight of his life, would order his subjects to take him into his grave and to bury him alive so that his spiritual powers would be transmitted, intact, to his successor, the Lion ordered all members of the Group on the Mission: “Kill me right now!”  Most of them were overcame by compassion and would not bring themselves into participating in killing such a good-hearted, Jieng-speaking Lion, especially after he had just delivered such beautiful Songs to them.  Only a few of them killed the Lion with their spears.  The Lion was then pronounced dead.

When the full story of the Mission was conveyed to the people at every Apuk’s cattle camp by those who participated in the Mission, people started to mourn the passing of the Lion.  It was only after two days that people came together and started to practise the Songs of their sections and also the part that formed an introduction to Apuk’s Song.

The Impact of Apuk’s War and Peace Legend on the People

Five hundred years, since the time Apuk’s people encountered the Stranger that turned into a Lion, the people of Apuk, once more, were in what is metaphorically known as Apuk Toch Rouk (Apukof a kidney), and also known as, Toch Jok Tong.  They were there because it was a rainy season.

People traditionally were given specific duties and responsibilities: boys, to clean up cow dung off a cattle camp grounds; girls, to milk cows; male adults, to take cattle from a cattle camp to a grass-rich pastures and to go to war during wartime; and women, to cook and to distribute food to all the campers.  Everyone followed this tradition, passed down to them by a generation that preceded it.

That day, two groups of young adults, members of two different camps, went to a popular pasture with their cattle.  While their cattle were grazing, the young men got together and started to have a conversation.  The conversation quickly turned into a spirited argument.  Two young men, from different camps, took what seemed to had been a trivial matter to the next level.  From an argument between the two of them, it quickly developed into wrestling fight, into sticks fight and, finally, into spear fight.  One of them killed the other.  The young man, whose brother was killed, witnessed the tragic incident.  There was nothing he and his group could do because they were outnumbered by members of the other group.

They ran back to their camp and after a while everyone at every camp heard, “Booom! …Booom! …Booom!”.  Those drum beats meant only one thing – war.  Those drum beats were reciprocated by drum beats of another drum of another camp.  People of all nine cattle camps were in action for Amakiir-Lual war.  “Booom! …Booom! …Booom!”  People were running, holding their spears and shields, to a battlefield, far away from women, away from boys, away from girls, and away from cattle.  “Booom!… Booom! …Booom!”  As each man ran to the battlefield, he thought that a moment had arrived to sing the Song that the Lion bequeathed to members of his section long time ago.  He would sing it with his people and then he would fight to kill and, probably, be killed.

As they arrive, they organized themselves under the banners of Amakiir and Lual, five sections against four.  They formed two divisions.  The two divisions of Amakiir and Lual took parallel positions with a space of about 300 metre separating them.  Each section in the division formed a column.  They were all singing their sectional songs.

Each man in both divisions made a war pose: genuflecting, a shield held by the left hand in the front, along with a bunch of spears, and a single spear held by the right hand.  In that space that separated the two divisions, some individual warriors, on both sides, were performing war manoeuvres: running back and forth, jumping up and twisting in the air as though to dodge an imagined spear thrown to get him; going low, with a shield held in the front of him, then suddenly, butt off an imagined spear thrown in order to snatch the life out of him and; jumping up as he pretended to be throwing a spear of his own to penetrate his enemy ahead.  All these manoeuvres were performed to instil paralysing fear in the mind of their enemy.  Each one waited for their members to come and join them.  When most of them came, they would expect their division’s leader to order them to move to the meeting point and start attacking.  As they waited, they were assessing the areas of weaknesses and strengths of their enemies.

In the meantime, they continued singing different songs of their different sections.  They sang, not one after another, but all of them at once.  This resulted in a deafening noise that scarcely raised anyone’s morale.  The more people of each section sang and listened to their song in such a noisy environment, the more they felt small and insignificant in the presence of the vast humanity.  Hundreds and hundreds of people, on this side as well as on the other side.

Discord, confusion, and self-doubt reigned supreme.

Time was almost up for the expected eruption when someone, in one of the two divisions, deviated from singing a song that he and members of his section were singing.  He sang:

I am a Lion!

People on both sides; namely, Amakiir and Lual, heard him.  They knew that that part was an introduction to Apuk’s Song.  They knew that when someone sang, “I am a Lion”, every Apuk’s person present must participate in singing The Song.

The next person to him joined in and both of them sang:

My roars are a battalion;

Order.  That part was loud enough for members of all nine sections of Apuk to hear and to join in.  They could not stand not to sing The Song anymore.  Here, came their chance; together, they sang:

My teeth are another battalion;

Each of my legs is a battalion;

What thunderous unison voices!  Instead of discord, there was harmony; instead of noise, there was rhythm; and instead of disunity, there was unity.  A song that was started by a single person, had then turned into a song sang by hundreds and hundreds of people.  The Song that was started low was now heading to reach its highest point.

When the introductory part of the Song was ended, members of Abioor section stood up and took a lead in singing their part of the Song.  As they remained genuflect, the rest of the members, of all nine sections, sang along with the people of Abioor section.  Next, members of Abuok section stood up and took a lead and all sang with them.  In the same fashion, Adoor, Amuk, Apool, Bionng, and Boiyar parts of the Song were being sang.

Through the air and over the grass, the sound of the Song had travelled and had reached every cattle camp.  The swaying grass seemed to dance with joy.  All those in the camps stood together and looked towards the battlefield, with many thoughts going on in their mind.  First, the women did not know whether they should stop worrying about what the fate of the members of their family and of their friends would be, if war were to break out in the battlefield.  Secondly, the girls, with their hands on their hips, had silly mirth over their faces as they listened to the Song.  Thirdly, boys were definitely moved by the Song.  “When I become an adult,” proudly announced a boy to all the other boys, “I will learn to sing that Song.”  The problem with that was: he did not know that, for over five hundred years, numerous attempts were made and no one had ever succeeded in singing the entire Song of Apuk because it was too long.  Only when members of all nine sections of Apuk sang the Song could anyone be able to sing the entire Song.  It had always been a let-us-sing-it-together Song.  Finally, the cattle, with their continual tail-wags and head-nods, appeared to had been moved by the Song as to be predicting a positive ending of the confrontation at the battlefield.

Back at the battlefield, Amakiir-Lual binary had dissipated in the mind of the fighters.  They sang the Song as Apuk people.  In turns, Jurmananger and Nyaramong people stood up and took a lead in singing their parts of the Song and all the people sang the Song with them.

The Song expelled fear; it made them feel bigger than they actually were as member of the sections.  Together, they felt one indivisible people.  They were all standing up.  They stood up, not for war, but for peace and good will.  The spirit of the Lion took hold of each and every one of them.  They became the Lion.  They were the Lion.  The Lion heard the call for war; he came to fight; he roared; he saw no enemy; he could not fight against himself; he turned and went back home, to his Lion’s den (Cattle Camp).  Each man returned a spear to his bunch of spears and a shield in his left hand, turned around and walked back to his camp.

The only people who were left at the battlefield were the camps’ leaders.  They came together and had a discussion.  They jointly authorized two leaders to accompany the relatives of the murdered young man and to present the murder case in Beny-ditApuk’s court urgently.  They then shook hands and went back to their camps.

Long time ago, the Lion encountered the people of Apuk.  In live, during those days, he dined on sixteen cows and bulls.  He paid the ultimate price.  In death, however, he saved the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people.  This legend has become one of the symbols of Apuk’s unity, a part of Apuk’s identity.

The End

Thiik Mou Giir, Bachelor Degree in Education from the University of Alexandria, Egypt; Post Graduate Diploma, from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He can be reached via his email contact: thiik_giir@hotmail.com

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