The practice of tapping palm wine has been with our great grandparents from generations to generations. Its role is to foster social connections among matured village residents. Palm wine is something that we drink to honor our ancestors by pouring it to the ground. It is served during casual visits, gatherings and formal occasions like Poro society graduation, funeral, worship sites, wedding, naming ceremony, etc.
The practice of tapping palm wine is also associated with the village men secret society. Its activities are closely monitor by the Poro Grand Master, the ‘Ngafuiwe”. That is why women and nonmembers of the Poro Society are not allowed to go under the palm wine trees. After my initiation in the Poro Society in the 1970’s as required for boys in the Gbandi Land, grandfather Fatoma Kulah could carry me under the palm wine trees daily. We visited the trees in the morning and evening to sap fresh wine from his farm, our ancestors’ winery.
This area consisted of several palms/bamboo trees cluster in the swamp land. To make palm wine, I could observe grandpa climbing insanely tall palm trees on ladders, supported by ropes on his waist to balance. At the tree crown, he could insert a little tube which slowly brings the saps out into the gourd that was tightly secured against the tree. Every morning we returned to collect the saps-the white liquid foaming. Under the palm tree, grandpa, me and uncle Zumo could make benches for visitors and spread raffia straws on the ground to sit on.
Uncle Zumo would climb, tapped the wine and brings it down. As the wine was brought down in the gourd hanging on a little rope, I the small boy could untied it and placed it before grandpa while others sitting around waiting to be served. I could observe most of our visitors’ throats craving and ready to suck the wine. Before it was served, grandpa had to eulogies our ancestors’ spirits spreading small on the ground asking them to protect and guide us in completing the farm and give us good luck.
I would now bring out grandpa drinking old bush cow horns from his deerskin bag that he usually carries on the farm. I could now move in the center and raised the gourd on my left knee and begin to pour the wine into individual calabashes. The first cup was usually for uncle Zumo who tapped the wine and brought it down before anyone else tasted it. The last cup of “googbo” would go to grandpa Fatoma. Sometimes when visitors were seated, a big cow fly would find it ways on the back of one of them as he sipped some of the sweet foaming new wine.
When grandpa could notice the cow fly, he could switch it down with his raffia whip. He told me under the palm wine trees, good never lost when you offered a stranger as he could give out the secret that he knows about the community failure to offer the stranger. As Poro Society members, under the palm wine was where we discussed issues and topics about the community that only Poro men had access to.
It was a generally belief that, what were discussed under the palm wine trees stays there. As a Poro member, not every secret thing that you hear or see and put your mouth inside. No Poro man who was a chief or big man ever boasted of being an eagle, Lion, elephant, or snake, only the grand master had that authority. That was how they knew back in the days whether you were a true Poro man to keep secret, if they didn’t hear it from no one in town.
When our visitors were drunk, they could discuss how to remove the clan chief or their head man. They could also talk about government officials in Kolahun and gossip about their friends who were in the habit of making love to elders wives in the village. In the evening, when we returned to town, grandpa could not allow me to go around my grandmother for fear of me leaking our big secret to the women in our big house until I was ready to sleep.
But at night, when lying behind grandma snoring and wet our bed sheets, she would know that I passed somewhere with my grandpa. But she could not ask me about it for fear of breaking Poro society law. The next morning, she could pack my wet clothes in the bucket, put it on my head and walked behind me to the creek for washing. She could lie about it to her friends who we met at the creek saying that it was a spider who fooled me into peeping (urinating) in my dream. Oh yeah! Palm wine sweet. It has played a major role in the tradition of the Gbandi people. May our ancestors guide us through our endeavor for unity in our Land. Ngala sala-hun, Ameena!
