An Akamba folk tale & Ayni
Our visit to Incahuara & los Yungas
When I was a little girl, my mom used to tell me stories. She wouldn’t just tell the story — she’d perform them with her entire being. Sometimes the story would overtake her and she would animate the characters by transforming her body and voice. My favorite was when she told me Kenyan folktales. I was transported with her back to the Motherland encountering clever and magical creatures. I often wondered after the stories, ‘What is the lesson?’ She helped shape me into the lover of stories that I am today.
There was one story in particular that I never quite understood. The story of a farmer who received unsolicited help from a magical being, with help cultivating, planting, and subsequently harvesting his corn. Here’s how I remember it1:
A long time ago there was a farmer in Ukambani2 who was getting ready to begin planting his next crop of corn. The farmer was so excited when he tilled the soil in prep for planting, to come back the next day and find twice as much land had been tilled that evening. This must be a miracle! With the field now ready, he planted all day to come back and find twice as many seeds planted that night. Incredible! He was truly in God's favor.
A few weeks later, he noticed some ears of corn nearly ready to test, so he thought he’d take one home for his wife to cook and to test its readiness. He came back the next day and to his horror found that two ears of corn had been taken at night. He was furious! The birds and critters must be stopped!
The next day he harvested a few bushels of ready corn. Of course, the next day he came back and found twice as many bushels gone as he had harvested the day before. That’s it! It wasn’t critters but an undeserving thief stealing his corn. So he went to the village elders and asked for help. The first to step up were the young warriors. They waited in the corn field that night. When they saw movement and ears of corn disappearing, they called out, “Stop thief! Show yourself!” Then a terrifying, booming voice bellowed through the corn,
“Mau Mau Syo Nzenga.
Naniwa Syo Nzenga.
Notheele utetelwa.
Na ngundi itomiiwa’a.
Ivavai! Ivavai!”
Listen to my mom sing the song!
Translation:
“Mau Mau (This is a sound to intimidate the listener)
Syo Nzenga (Nzenga is a persons name).
I belong to Syo Nzenga.
I have a fierce kick.
And my fist will knock you out.
Ivavai! Ivavai (Another sound to intimidate)!”
The warriors ran away at the sound of the voice. That night, the creature ate all of the remaining corn in the field.
No one else was willing to step up to help eradicate the thief… except for an crippled old lady in the village. Everyone laughed at her, but she was confident. That night, when she saw the corn moving and ears disappearing, she called out, “Hello there. Who are you?” From the corn came the terrifying, bellowing voice, “Mau Mau Syo Nzenga…” The old lady got closer and closer to the booming voice, until she came upon its source. She scooped it up, put it inside her chondo3, and went home to wait until the sunrise council meeting.
“I’ve found your so-called thief!” She put her hand into her chondo, grabbed something, and extended her closed fist to the council. Slowly she opened her fist. Inside was a small, fat worm. The council and the village folks in attendance laughed, scoffed, and rolled their eyes. “Tell them what you told me,” she said to the worm.
All of a sudden, a terrifying, booming voice filled the hut with these words, “Mau Mau Syo Nzenga…”
But what’s the lesson? I never understood as a child. Mostly I was taught that you should never underestimate someone’s power and ability to help in times of hardship, even if they appear weak and incapable. But after I visited Valentina Campos and Uywana Wasi’s agroforestry project in the Yungas last month, another meaning came to me, nearly 30 years later.
Growing up in the Central Valley of California, I learned that farms and orchards are made up of thousands of the same plant or tree lined up for miles. The more almonds, oranges, or corn you could squeeze out of a yield, the more successful your farm. That was my baseline understanding of farming until thankfully, after several years of privileged exposure to Indigenous land stewardship practices on Ohlone, Southern Pomo, and Coast Miwok territories, I’ve unlearned what farming and food production should look like and witnessed what it could be — a loving exchange of connection and nourishment. But I still had never seen anything like Uywana Wasi’s agroforestry project, just outside the pueblito of Incahuara.
From their website:“Uywana Wasi" is a community center guided by the Andean Cosmo-vision…to nurture Pachamama, mother earth, is the main principle of our cosmo-vision. "
It was an adventure to witness the Allin Kawsay (Quechua for “The sweet life”) of the agro forestry project. We hiked a few miles through machete-made trails, up a steep mountainside, traversing three sweet rivers, through humidity and biting bugs with a 4 year old in tow. Finally, we arrived to a lovingly tended food forest. If you squint, it might be hard to distinguish it from the rest of the jungle. For every coca plant or coffee tree, there were even more flowers, fruits, native trees, tall grasses, and “nonproductive” plants. As we familiarized ourselves with the land, I noticed Valentina casually pulling the grasses that sprung up between the coca plants and reapplying them to the roots of the trees. She was tending the land with the fussy attention a mother would give to her child.
Standing there on the side of that jungly mountain I realized: the flowers, fruits, grasses and native trees aren’t only for us; they’re for Pachamama. They’re for the bugs, monkeys, and birds to enjoy because they too are part of Pachamama. This place is a demonstration of devotion — a living altar and reminder of the abundance of Pachamama. And that is exactly what the farmer in my childhood story had forgotten! This was yet another moral of the story.
Encoded in the tale of the farmer and his magical helper is ancestral wisdom and warning I re-membered: without the reciprocity of the land, there is no food. We plant the seeds but it’s the land that makes it grow. And for this, we must show gratitude and give offerings to honor the sacred reciprocity so it may go on and continue. It is a choice we humans can make: we can acknowledge the exchange and give back with loving hearts or extract with greedy abandon; but the land will always take what it is owed.
I had to immerse myself in Andean culture and plant my feet in Andean soil to finally understand this earth-based spiritual lesson of my own Mukamba4 culture. I didn’t grow up with constant contact with Ukambani soil, but I’ve always longed to. Especially when my cousins tease me that I’m soft and have no idea what it takes to maintain a shamba5 like a proper Kamba woman lol! I’m grateful to witness this Andean land based practice of Ayni because it brought me closer to my Kamba ancestors who might have cultivated food in a similar way.
Looking down the mountain from the food forest back towards Incahuara, we could see smoke from neighboring farmers who were slashing and burning the land, clearing it in preparation to plant mono cash crops like coffee or coca. Valentina pointed out the dead zones all over the mountain range that were once part of the lush jungle. People all over the world have been burning the land in preparation for cultivation for centuries; nothing wrong with that. But this new kind of burning often levels old growth trees and replaces all the life with monocrops and nothing else.
The agroforestry project was dense with life. The quality of the coca was unmatched — the sweet flavor and enormous, tender leaves deeply coveted by those in the know. Similarly, shade-grown coffee is the best around. Why slash and burn when you could have this? Cultivating land with agroforestry methods requires ardent dedication and continued passion. This is not an extractive relationship with quick rewards — however, much to my happy surprise, agro forestry is an efficient and effective way to farm and grow food. It takes more initial work, but over the long term is very productive and requires no costly chemical inputs, enriching the soil, biodiversity, and the overall environment.
I don’t judge the farmers who slash and burn. I understand they must feed their families and want to keep cultivating the land. I just wish with all my being they had better options. Agroforestry requires a lot of upfront costs: money, intensive labor, and energy. The farmers who use slash and burn techniques don’t have access to that kind of support. Since we’re all racing to the bottom — who can have the biggest output (in pounds harvested, not nutrition or biodiversity) and get it to market fastest at the lowest price — the market pressure dictates how the land is cultivated. Slashing and burning often gives big short term results. Sadly another growing pressure on the farmers, creeping around the land, are hungry miners who would love nothing more than to take over the farm land and rivers in search of gold. And often they do; contaminating the rivers and soil with their clandestine mining, just as a group tried to do in Incahuara just a couple of months ago until the community pushed them out.
Thinking back to the farmer in the Kamba folktale, humans have always been afraid to face the fact that we do not control the land. Practicing agroforestry is an act of faith, making yourself vulnerable and acknowledging how small your part is in the making of food. It reminds me that in one generation, nearly all of my Kenyan family have left the rural farming life for urban areas because cultivating the land is so challenging and unpredictable.6 There’s no knowing if the outcomes that you want will happen, especially now with the intensification of climate chaos. How do you reckon with that alongside the machine of capitalism? Capitalism requires output, productivity, and what’s the cost? We live in a constant state of fear and abuse the Earth in the process.
Which leaves me to wonder: How do we free ourselves from the chokehold of extraction? I’m pretty sure it starts with acknowledging our fears. We are not in control of how much it rains, how fast the plants grow, how many other creatures will eat our crops, or whether in the end we’ll have enough to eat. But this has always been true. Mateo wants me to emphasize that we outsource that uncertainty to others, especially farmers who are the ones forced to make hard decisions in the face of this uncertainty.
So, how do we return to devotion and faithful reciprocity with the land? After my visit to Incahuara, I think it begins with slowing down and looking at what rebels like Uywani Wasi have started. Valentina said when they first started the project, the neighbors were skeptical at best. But now they cannot deny the sweetness and abundance of the coca and coffee that comes from their fields, thanks to the shade of the old growth trees and the richness of the well-tended soil. It’s a start.
This is an edited down version and honestly, not as much fun to encounter in the written word. We are an oral culture after all!
The land of the Mukamba people.
Chondo, Kyondo, or Kiondo. Chondo’s are woven baskets traditionally made of sisal or other natural fibers, but more recently can be made of recycled plastic or synthetic fibers. Chondo’s are utilitarian and used for carrying goods around. They can also be artfully crafted art objects that are deeply beloved and passed down from woman to woman in a family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamba_people
An area of land where you cultivate the food you feed your family. Traditionally it was the woman’s job to maintain the shamba.
I don’t want to fail to mention how British colonization created this tragedy. Much of Ukambani’s arable land was taken by the British and then partitioned with fences; making easy access to water and pasturing of animals impossible. They forcibly took the land, introduced forced labor camps, reservations and passed legislation that forced Indigenous Kenyan people to become subjects of the British settlers. What happens when you become a subject of the Crown? You pay taxes of course. Since farming is an unpredictable source of income, most people were forced to work for wages; beginning the migration away from the land to urban areas. Failure to pay taxes led to forced labor to the British. The British also made sure that every Kenyan worked for 60 days a year for the government, unless they were already employed by settlers.
Lovely written as always! What a wonderful getaway to Uywana Wasi!
Wowwwwww this went straight to my heart. Mwende—your storytelling and your you-ness really shines through. Thank you for these questions and thoughts.