The entry is based on the English translation of the play by Siga Asanga, Jeanne N. Dingome, Innocent Futcha and Nalova P. Lyonga under the title: African Ritual Theatre. The Power of Um and A New Earth, San Francisco: International Scholars Publication, 1996, 61–89.
This play is a sequel to the 1979 version of the same title, reviewed in this database.
It is a play written in three movements. The first movement opens in an imaginary village with a man, Nguimbus, arguing with his wife, Soo, at the end of a road. They are arguing about what to do about the deplorable state of affairs in the village. While Nguimbus thinks they should leave things as they are and suffer in silence, Soo thinks they should stand up and protest against their brothers dying in exile, the women losing their dignity and the children being uprooted from their land, which is being partitioned and sold off.
In the second movement, a village poet-musician called Ndinga plays the tambourine and sings a 'rhythm of despair' about the village's plight. He also finds a gun and a whip in the rubble and examines them. Then a character known as People arrives and talks about the oppressive use of the gun and whip. Chief*, their leader, also appears, accompanied by Cop, a policeman. Chief is desperately searching for his throne in the rubble. Cop leads him (Chief) to a chair with a missing leg. Chief tries to sit on it but falls to the ground. He gets up, leaning on Cop, who hands him a gun. Chief reinstates himself on the shaky throne using the gun to maintain balance. Then the two argue briefly about the futility of their lives, each maintaining that his plight is worse than the other. Chief is somewhat offended by this and points the gun at Cop. Nguimbus suddenly arrives at the scene entreating the Chief to fire at Cop. People also comes in, pleading on Cop's behalf that the latter is just another voice of his and should be forgiven. The wrangling heats up even more when Soo arrives at the scene, also entreating the Chief to fire at Cop, referring to him and his kind as 'thieves' and 'swindlers'. Cop swiftly seizes the gun from Chief and points it at Soo. Chief is impressed by Cop's swift intervention and appoints him the General of his army. The people rise against Cop, and Chief gives him the mandate to shoot at will. Soo says something to herself about pregnant women who eat snails and give birth to slugs. Chief interprets it as an insult and orders Cop to detain her. At this moment, someone plays a tune that ushers in Wiseman, accompanied by a child. The other characters all freeze on stage as Wiseman enters. He searches through the rubble and picks up a mask called Ngue. This mask represents the central deity of Bassa cosmology as it appeared to a woman named Soo in Bassa mythology. He addresses it thus: “You reflect Man his image twice enlarged / And Man is ashamed…” (p.72). He also claims that this image is of a Man who kills his gods. This accusation is enough to cause the other frozen characters to wake up and point accusations at each other as traitors, accomplices and swindlers. Ndinga comes down from his perch and resumes playing his tambourine and singing to the mask. He asks who deserves to stay in the village, and the rest of the characters argue about this. Ndinga attributes the state of affairs to the death of Ngue and the failure of the people to replace him. He calls on them to stop fighting and instead build a new community. They place the mask on the child's head, and he speaks in the name of Ngue, enjoining the people to unite. All the characters agree to perform rites of passage. All the characters perform the first rites of passage before leaving the old village by crossing their arms on their shoulders, the right under the left.
In the third movement, they settle in a new village and re-enact the rites of passage, though slightly differently; "in a newfound spirit of harmony / This time, the right hand above the left…." (p.87). Ndinga plays a new sound on his tambourine, and a new symbol of unity is enacted with a people more prepared and ready to start anew. By doing so, they lay the foundations of a new village and traced its boundaries, with "the radiant symbol of realization at the cosmic level, the infinite and the finite" (p. 87). Then the people gather and sing a song of unity and praise for they, the sons of Koba and Kwan**, have created a new earth which is also a new heaven.
* Chief, Cop, People, Wiseman, and Soo (which means 'exaggeration' in the Bassa language), are symbolic characters, or character types (i.e. fictional characters who, according to Baldick (2001:261) stand as a "representative of some identifiable class or group of people").
** Bassa people link their origins to two mythic heroes, Koba and Kwan, whose names, either separately or together, have come to signify cosmogonic or mythological time. These heroes are believed to have led the Bassa people from their original settlement in Babimbi to their present settlement, which stretches over a vast area of 34 000 square kilometres of land in present-day Cameroon. According to several myths and legends, Koba and Kwan became heroes when they helped the people escape the Hollow Rock or Ngog Lituba – a boulder or megalith which fell from the sky and almost wiped out the entire population, causing the people to flee. Also, when they got to the bank of the great River Sanaga in Cameroon, which they called Lom Mpubi (literally the white river), they could not cross it. So the two heroes helped them build a canoe with the elephant grass that grew on the river banks, with which they sailed across to the other side and settled.