Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

220 THINKING BLACK
Thus each gang of slaves is really a nest of hornets, and
patriotism is throbbing in every black breast. Try to
bribe this exiled slave with a sugar sop and he sniffs with
suspicion at the very sugar. Kwetu ! is his magic word
for ** Home," and there is clannish courtesy in the very
grammar of the plural : you dare not say " My Home "
in broad Africa. " Our Home " is the compound family
formula. In fact, there is no such word as " Home " apart
from plural usage, which proves that enshrined within
the one word "Our Home" there is locked up the
vision of all his kinsmen dear. This astounding attempt
of a slave race to coin and copyright a speciality in such
a word as ** Home " even beats its famous English rival
beats it, I say, because at least we can use "Home" with
or without any pronoun we like, but the African has so
tricked the tongue that no word for "Home" exists
apart from a pronoun— "Our Home" or "Your Home."
To say mere "Home" is not merely bad form, but no
form at all. There is no such usage. Now, lest per-
adventure this be thought mere " Exeter Hall," you must
stand with me, and listen to a slave crooning his
"logical" rhyme against the very idea of human bond-
age. Literally there are both rhyme and reason in the
words :
"As a bird in the course of its flight.
On some branch will not choose to alight.
For it likes not the tree,
So man's heart doth resemble a bird.
To coerce it would b© as absurd.
For the heart must be free,"