On-becoming the Night against the Evil that Stalks at Noonday.
As the power of the color of the night breathes, the Pallid Civilization, like death warmed over, crosses the precipice of a tumultuous Rubicon. The Sun beats down on fresh human decadence that bedecks the sidewalks of an Earth filled with bloodletting rituals, decapitations and cenote human sacrifices. The Sun lashes at the faces of invented ones to provide pretexts for wars on humanity, for perpetual wars, with their endless avalanche of blood, maintained by a desperate oligarchy in order to propitiate their angry desires – their greedy gods, their gluttonous angels – who like the devil, pour not libation, but throw bloody showers of gore.
When shall the night fall? When shall the night seek revenge – to offer a hand to the tainted day? The Owl replies, “Soon. Much sooner. I saw a hole in the devil, deep like a hunger that he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and extracting from everybody, from everywhere until one day the Earth will say, ‘I am no more. I have nothing left to give.’”
It is then, only then, that the night falls. The night comes. The night stops running away from evil. The chase ends. It lasted far too long. The night faces the devil. The night eclipses the day; it engulfs the evil leering at the apex.
But where, where shall I be? What shall I become? Whence shall my help come? As the forces of nature gather, the unstoppable mist falls. Much has transpired. Evil took my village at the height of the barbarity of the Pallid civilization. Herein lies the comeuppance of the journey I must make in order that I may yet escape the human sacrifices of the West and rescue my uncertain future.
The snare is broken. The arrow missed its target. I am injured, yet I must run. Four centuries I have run among the bushes, the shrubs, the vipers and the crocodiles, deep into the bellows of the forests. I have trekked away from a beckoning unrelenting menace. It is not the Deep I fear, but the marauding evil I despise. Injured and scared, I have escaped. One more century in the tree I have spent. The lion, the jaguar and the viper I have met. I cross not their paths. Still they must follow their instincts and I, mine. We are forged from the same furnace. So I lead them towards the evil behind, knowing full well that I shall also one day follow my own instincts. I must – or I die for nothing. Or I die betraying who I am.
This century I overcame my greatest fear. I jumped down the waterfall. The spirits of the deep kept my head from smashing against the rocks beneath. I swum clean. The water washing away the blue of devilish motifs on my body. The water washing away the smear of endless wars, the mark of slavery, the smudge of looting and colonialism, the blot of imperialism, and the stain of a blood-thirsty culture.
I have descended into my own, into my own forest where I am comfortable. I must become aware. But deeper I must go to find this consciousness, deeper into the Shadows into the Mud pit where I must find my memory. Against the Black Hole I must struggle to prove my worth for the fight ahead. Struggle I must within the warm embrace of the darkness of the deep. This time I am decorated. This time I am ornamented in blackness. This time for eternity. This time for good. This time for my ancestors. This time so that I can achieve oneness with my instincts. So that I can become one with my forest.
For the burden of fear with which I escaped from bondage is lifted. That fear, that deep rotting fear, is gone. It has infected my peace once. But no more. My forest is safe from its carnage. That fear, that sickness, has no place here. I shall not allow that fear to crawl into the soul of my certain future. I was not raised in this forest to live with fear. Fear is stricken from my heart. It will not enter my village. It will not enter my farm. It will not enter my house. I am transfigured.
My spirit is one with the lion. My soul is one with the jaguar. I move with the viper. My instincts I shall fully obey. The chase ends here. Look at me. I turn my back to you. Black as tar, as a Blackstar. Dark as the night-fall, melting into the shadows of my forest. I stare you down from behind. You are nothing to me. You deserve nothing. I owe you nothing. “My name is Lion Heart. I am the Roaring Night. I have descended from Narmer. I have descended from Tahaka. I am the son of Kemet. I am the grandson of Nubia. I am the great grandson of Punt. My Fathers hunted this forest for millennia way before me. My name is Lion Heart. I am the Roaring Night. I am the hunter here. This is my forest. And my sons will hunt it with their sons after I am gone.”
Are you scared? You should. All you who are vile – you Pallid faces. Would you like to know how you will die? The sacred Night is upon you. Behold the blackness of day, the darkness of the deluge. Behold the nightfall. Behold the man who thinks the lion’s thoughts, the man who snarls the jaguar’s growl, the man who whistles the viper’s hiss. Behold him, recreated from the Night, resurrected from the Mud, and reincarnated from the Earth. For the One to whom he takes you will cancel the sky and scratch you out of the Earth. He will scratch you out forever and end your world. He’s with us now. The Day will embrace the Night. And the man that is the Roaring Night will lead you to your end.
As the Pallid curse falls over, fooled in tow into the cadaverous path of a newly arriving and equally blood-thirsty chaff of Requerimiento wielding conquistadores, a Colorful Civilization beckons away, far away from the rabble of gibbering savages. Deep beyond the outskirts an epic journey home, where the wealthy souls dock and where the wholesome future berths, begins. This home, as comely as the Night, welcomes the Indomitable One.
Who is the Indomitable One? The exercise of power and the sense of power are separate experiences. There is an ancient piece of adage that has come to us by way of religious texts: “When I am weak, then I am strong.” This simple proverb underscores a unique philosophy of life. That even the silent, irresistible forces of the frost can fracture iron and split the hardest stone. That the innocent Moon, that nothing does but shine, moves all the labouring surges of the world.
Nothing is more powerful than the patience of a supreme power. It seems that the Indomitable One wields that silent power. He’s patient, although he’s wounded, although he’s weak, although he’s hungry, he treks laboriously towards the Night, towards his transfiguration into the Lion Heart once again. For the whole property of this silent but supreme power is to protect his birthright.
Thrice blest is he to whom is given the instinct – of flux tenses, shifts and fragmented phrases in prose – with which to tell that the Indomitable One is on the field when he is most invisible. Thanks Narmer Amenuti. This is another fascinating piece.
This is what happens when Black is peacefully and powerfully revealed to the world. Black, the Night – the most powerful, yet silent force of nature. I am striving to achieve that “Black as tar as a Blackstar” myself. The Indomitable One is there, he’s right there Akosua he will bring the world to cross the Rubicon just like the silent frost fractures iron and splits the hardest stone.
Well. What do I know? I hope so.
Eyi, Akosua that… channeling Faber while all the while sprinkling some Pascal all around it. Narmer has attempted something here that I am not so sure if everyone would get it. If you do, good for you.
He describes a series of scenes, in order but not entirely the sequence, from the film Apocalypto directed by Mel Gibson. The power of color seems to be of interest here.
I am floored by the insight. I tend to store these movies in my library. This morning I watched these scenes again. Gibson himself will be flabbergasted if he saw what Narmer had done here – pick his mind, which he doesn’t seem to have, apart. There’s no way this director could have imagined that Apocalypto would read this way to an African writer. Particularly the series of shots right about the mud pit – his transfiguration.
But sure thing the interpretation is right in place. The power of color in film can never be overemphasized. Especially the manipulation of color in Hollywood films. In this case Narmer has outwitted the usual straightforward gaze – that Gibson tried to portray the Ancient Mayans as some blood-thirsty savages who needed saving from their own decadence by the Spanish conquistadores.
Sometimes we spend so much energy looking at a closed door when we could have just escaped the pressure room through the window. This is tychi. This is capoeira – turning negative energy into a forceful one for change and transformation.
“Pick his (Mel Gibson’s) mind, which he doesn’t seem to have, apart”?
I am not so sure what Mel Gibson is – good or bad? Not sure. He seems to me a scatter-brain artist although somehow he always makes a watchable film. Apocalypto was a great film. However, after reading reviews, I was chocked at what Gibson was actually trying to do – paint the natives as some backward tribe of unconscious failings, subhuman almost.
I gather that this is what may have pissed off Narmer for him to dedicate such writing power and resources to correct this imagery. This is why I call it tychi, this is why I call it capoeira. Myself I am a tychi master and a capoeira chief!
Ah! I was wondering where I saw this. The picture was painted but I totally blanked on Apocalypto. What? This is it indeed. The jaguar, the waterfall, the mud pit. Now you have my attention. Nice work.
Akosua M. Abeka, this is the way that Santos, one of the film’s defenders, spoke about Mel Gibson’s depiction of the Mayan culture. This is what many historians like myself feared. The film may have led modern-day audiences to leap to conclusions like the following:
“[P]retty much precisely describes the whole point of the civilizations of such “noble savages” as the Mayans, if you ask us. There isn’t one, there wasn’t one, and there never will be one. Those bloodthirsty mongrels and many others before and after them were brutal, savage, cruel and entirely without redeeming qualities, and the best thing that ever happened to this planet was when they were wiped out, never to be heard of again.
“In fact, we owe the Spanish Conquistadores an eternal debt of gratitude for having wiped that blood-curdlingly bestial, brutal blight upon humanity off the face of the planet because, had they not done it, we would have had to do so ourselves.”
Now, I get why Narmer is pissed. I get why he has managed to turn that gaze on its head and declared: Black is good. Black is a force for change. The Night is good. The eclipse is good. It represents a change over. Color is a powerful thing in film. So far, this is the only review I have read that has turned this Santos narrative right on its head. This is what makes this brilliant.
Plus, if you know tychi or capoeira the way that I do, you would realize that the reason I love this review is central to my training as a tychi master and a capoeira chief. As a historian, I can write a review and defend the Mayans all I want. It’s like defending Kemet. It’s like defending the African way vis-a-vis the European infusion. It’s a difficult task. What is possible, what is even easier is to channel the negative energies directed at indigenous cultures from western perspectives and throw it back at them – like in Apocalypo when Jaguar Paw attacks the devils following him with a honey comb wrapped in plantain leaves. Great.
(Re)-signification, Solomon.
Here’s the (re)-signified story:
Old Story Teller: And a Man sat alone, drenched deep in sadness. And all the animals drew near to him and said, “We do not like to see you so sad. Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it.” The Man said, “I want to have good sight.” The vulture replied, “You shall have mine.” The Man said, “I want to be strong.” The jaguar said, “You shall be strong like me.” Then the Man said, “I long to know the secrets of the earth.” The serpent replied, “I will show them to you.” And so it went with all the animals. And when the Man had all the gifts that they could give, he left. Then the owl said to the other animals, “Now the Man knows much, he’ll be able to do many things. Suddenly I am afraid.” The deer said, “The Man has all that he needs. Now his sadness will stop.” But the owl replied, “No. I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and taking, until one day the World will say, ‘I am no more and I have nothing left to give.'”
Narmer Amenuti, this technique in film review is novel. I have checked everywhere… patent it brother! Patent it, you hear?
The amazing Blackstar Genius of Narmer Amenuti adds immense lustre not only to his visionary Afrikan Personality but also to our hopes for the inevitably victorious Pan-Afrikan Revolution for Global Justice!
LOL!
The waterfall jump and the mud pit scenes are very vivid. I could recall them as I read the essay. Narmer captures the essence of these scenes with such beauty. What a great scene analysis!
Wonderful construction of a passage that project the ideal world of where we have been, where we are currently and where we seek to go. But my worry is; considering the projected future, reconciling with the current circumstance do not scientifically produce such kind of future painted in the passage, however if i will live beyond logic to believe in faith and shift my thinking to mystical world. Then i hope such world could be created by some future generation to come. Cheers Great Fellow
I have a dream. Dreams sometimes win over reality. My dream might just do that. So, I believe in this dream.
Narmer Amenuti the more i study deeper into the global economic framework and the current undertone “order” in construction to respond to the developmental dynamics of Africa, Asia and Russia, hmmmm considering no serious strategy adopted by African leaders to build antidote to represent our interest, then i turn to believe that slavery will soon be completely fixed as part of our DNA and destiny. So as one man what could i do. Even if i write the books will not create any value for my people because they prefer to spend VIP-Ticket on Entertainment fares. The same few circle who are working on this “new order” will buy my books to understand Africa better to prepare stronger killer Virus to destroy our system. It wont be surprise to you almost all my technical publications are published by Lampert Publishing House in Germany by entering contract with me. Where is the local printing press? in the business of printing local exercise books and story books for GES approval for money. New Knowledge never make sense to the majority only photocopy knowledge expired in Europe is a brand new in Africa. Please let me go and have my rest to gain sound mind for work in my lab to protect myself and my generation to mitigate the way from the new world order.