By Baba Galleh Jallow
Busulu Forest stood in the middle of nowhere, but its boundaries bordered everywhere. Long long ago, when history was still a maiden, Busulu forest was ruled by Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr, king of all the lower animals. The descendant of a rather obscure lineage of lions, Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr rose to prominence by the sheer size of his muscles and the sharpness of his teeth. Having thrown and clawed to submission all his major adversaries for the throne, Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr chased away the former vassal chief of Busulu forest, who served a great alien king in some other distant forest, and assumed leadership of the great forest of Busulu.
For many glorious years, Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr ruled Busulu forest with great art and wisdom. Unlike the envoy of the great alien king, Kumajang Gaindeharr was a wise ruler who made all the lower animals happy and proud to be his subjects. By his great might and his expertise in the art of mind-hunting, Kumajang Gaindeharr made sure that absolute discipline reigned within the ten confines of Busulu forest, so that generally speaking, life on Busulu forest remained serene and peaceful throughout the long reign of the giant Kumajang Gaindeharr.
Not that there were no troublemakers on Busulu forest. There were, indeed, very troublesome folks like Buki the hyena, whose favourite past time was to ambush lesser animals and strike them dead or frighten them out of their wits, if his intention was discovered in time. There were the likes of Nice Boy the monkey, who specialized in stealing the hard-earned food of other animals and his friend Ngor Nopa the hare, who enjoyed playing tricks on other bigger folks like Nyai the elephant and Mbam the boar, who were rather slow of wit. Ngor Nopa particularly liked pretending that he was in fact Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr himself, by hiding behind some tree and making some fearful noise to frighten lesser animals. There were the likes of Njoll the giraffe, who bored everybody with his endless bragging over his ability to eat from tree tops as well as the likes of Saa the snake, who was such a notorious liar that all the animals disappeared whenever they saw him coming. He had created many an untold misery to many an innocent animal by his crafty tales of deceit and scheming. The animals never forgot that Saa was responsible for the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. Then there were the likes of Spotty the tiger and Nyuleh the panther, who were widely rumoured to have kingship ambitions and were said to be constantly plotting against Kumajang Gaindeharr. Indeed, so persistent did the rumours grow that Spotty the tiger and Nyuleh the panther were eventually banished to a remote corner of Busulu forest by Kumajang Gaindeharr. In addition to all these there was Cheku the parrot, the most unpopular animal in Busulu forest on account of his talkative nature. Cheku the parrot was reputed to have a very slippery tongue that just could not stay in one position for one single minute. He was always rattling about one thing or the other and when he had nothing to rattle about, he cooked up some phony story or the other, which he loudly narrated to all who cared to listen. If he had no one to listen, Cheku the parrot would sit on top of a tree and chatter loudly away. And since there was supposed to be freedom of speech and of expression in Busulu forest, no one ventured to stop the garrulous parrot from having his noisy say.
So Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr did have his fair share of woes. But it was not until the era of Wula the fox that his problems really started. Nothing prepared Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr for the sudden advent of Wula. Not even Chokerr the bushfowl, the king’s personal adviser and sorcerer, could foretell what a thorn Wula would prove to be in the flesh of Mansa Kumajang Gaindeharr.