NONE OF THE DEADS TOO YOUNG TO ASSAULT. DEAD-BABIES ON THE ROAD. MARCH TO THE DEAD'S TOWN.

[violinloca]

We met about 400 dead babies on that road who were singing the song of mourning and marching to Deads' Town at about two o'clock in the mid-night and marching towards the town like soldiers, but these dead babies did not branch into the bush as the adult-deads were doing if they met us, all of them held sticks in their hands. But when we saw that these dead babies did not care to pass peacefully, but instead of that, they started to beat us with the sticks in their hands, then we began to run away inside the bush from these babies, although we did not care about any risk of that bush which might happen to us at night, because these dead babies were the most fearful creatures for us. But as we were running inside the bush very far off the road, they were still chasing us until we met a very huge man who had hung a very large bag on his shoulder and at the same time that the met us, he caught us (my wife and myself) inside teh bag as a fisherman catches fishes inside his net. But when he caught us inside his bag, then all the dead babies went back to the road and went away. As that man caught us with that bag, we met inside it many other creatures there which I could not describe here yet, so he was taking us far away into the bush. We tried with all our power to come out of the bag, but we could not do it, because it was woven with strong and thick ropes, its size was about 150 feet diameter and it could contain 45 persons. He put the bag on his shoulder as he was going and we did not know where he was taking us to by that night and again we did not know who was taking us away, whether he was a human-being or spirit or if he was going to kill us, we never knew yet at all.

-Amos Tutola, "The Palm-Wine Drinkard"