The grim-faced group of mothers and initiates had come to offer prayers, to cleanse Amadu’s compound and the community, as they felt they must, as duty required. But when word of their impending visit first reached him, Amadu threatened to kill the first woman who dared to step foot in his compound. Aware of Amadu’s threat, the women wisely stopped short of his compound, in a clearing far enough away so as not to provoke him but near enough for him to hear the purification rituals. They sat in a circle on the ground, waiting for the legendary Pa Yatta, the healer from whose house, it was said, you could hear several animated voices though no one had been seen going in. Various items sat in the center of their circle: a tray of cooked rice, rice flour, kola nuts, several gourds of palm wine, and a bottle of palm oil. Next to them lay a white cock, its head tucked under one of its wings, resigned to its impending death. Every few minutes, the women’s chanting rose to a crescendo and assailed the occupants of Amadu’s house.

Inside, no one spoke. Frightened by his threat, Nabou had summoned Amadu’s brothers, two wiry men, to make sure he did not leave the house. They stood on either side of the log on which Amadu sat. Determined not to let him add the murder of a clansman to the desecration he had already committed, they eyed Amadu closely, their muscles taut with anticipation that he might break for the door. By it, Nabou sat on a small, hollowed-out log. She eyed the brothers, hoping they would be strong enough to stop Amadu if he made a move to carry out his murderous threat. She had experienced his strength in ways they had not, and she worried he might overpower them.

Finaba, in an adjacent hut, longed for the prayers to end. She wanted to do something but did not know what to do. She wanted to stand beside her father but knew she should sit with the women. She understood that the women had to offer sacrifices to purify the village because no man should ever enter the fafei, but she also understood that her father had pulled her out of it because he did not want her to suffer Dimusu’s fate. Finaba never fully understood what had happened to her older sister, but she had on more than one occasion heard Baramusu insist that the initiation had nothing to do with Dimusu’s death.