Pages 274–302 Summary
Note: The page numbers listed in this summary correspond to the 1994 Grove Press edition of The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. For those reading the original 1953 Grove Press edition of the novel, this summary refers to pages 96–125.
When the narrator arrives at Deads’ Town, the inhabitants tell him that it is forbidden for those who are still alive to enter. However, they inform the palm-wine tapster of his arrival, and the tapster comes to greet him. Seeing that the narrator and his wife are alive and thus cannot live in Deads’ Town, the tapster builds them a small house where they are standing, outside the town. Then he brings food for them, as well as ten kegs of palm-wine, which the narrator drinks immediately. He then tells the tapster the story of how he came to Deads’ Town in search of him and asks him to come back to their hometown.
The tapster brings the narrator another twenty kegs of palm-wine and then tells his own story. Before he came to Deads’ Town, he went to another place where he spent two years training to qualify as a dead man. After this, he says, he came to Deads’ Town, and he now has no recollection of what happened to him before he died. The narrator tells him that he fell from a palm tree, whereupon the tapster concludes that he had too much to drink on that day.
The tapster tells the narrator that he cannot come back and mix with the living. Their ways are too different. The narrator sees that this is so and prepares to leave. Before he does so, the tapster gives him an egg, which he tells him to keep safe, as it has the power to grant him anything he desires in the world. As they return on the road away from Dead’s Town, the narrator and his wife encounter many of the dead, who angrily avoid them, except the dead babies, who beat them with sticks. The babies chase them far into the bush, until they meet a huge man who catches the narrator and his wife and puts them in an enormous bag with many other creatures.
In the morning, the giant empties his bag and the narrator sees the fearful creatures. He shows them all his farm, on which they are to work as slaves. After they start work, the narrator fights with the creatures who were in the bag with him, and, when the creatures go to find the huge man to report this, the narrator and his wife escape. Eventually, they find the road that leads away from Deads’ Town but cannot travel on it for fear of the dead babies who are still there.
The narrator and his wife travel through the bush beside the road. There, they meet the Hungry Creature, who demands food. They give the creature some bananas, but it is still hungry and eventually swallows the narrator’s wife. When the narrator demands that he regurgitate her and starts a fight, the creature swallows him as well. The narrator shoots the creature from inside its stomach, then uses his cutlass to cut a hole through which he and his wife can escape.
The Hungry Creature carried the narrator and his wife far into the bush, meaning that they are now lost. Eventually, they reach a town of “mixed” people, where they settle for a while. The narrator regularly attends the court to listen to cases, and one day he is asked to judge a case. The...
(This entire section contains 1017 words.)
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case involves a borrower and a debt collector who were fighting over a debt. The borrower killed himself to avoid paying, and the collector also killed himself so that he could continue the fight and collect the debt in heaven. A man who was watching killed himself so that he could finish watching the fight in heaven. The narrator adjourns judgment for a year.
The narrator is given another case to judge. This one involves a man who had three wives and who died suddenly. His first wife killed herself to be with him. His second wife went to fetch a wizard to bring him back to life, and his third wife stayed with his dead body until the wizard came. When the wizard had brought the man back to life, he refused payment but said that he would like one of the wives. Now, none of them wants to go with the wizard, so the narrator is asked to decide which of them should be compelled to do so. The narrator adjourns this case as well and leaves the town before either judgment is due. He appeals to the reader to provide a judgment if one comes to mind.
The narrator and his wife climb a mountain, at the top of which are over a million mountain-creatures. These creatures love to dance, and the narrator’s wife dances with them, but they will not allow her to stop when she becomes tired. The narrator and his wife run away from the creatures, escaping over a river which they cannot cross. The river is close to the narrator’s hometown, which they reach without further incident. The narrator is welcomed home by his friends and family, and they drink two hundred kegs of palm-wine together.
The narrator’s hometown has been suffering from a famine, caused by a dispute between Land and Heaven. Heaven has refused to send rain or dew, and the people have nothing to eat. The narrator uses his magic egg, given to him by the tapster, to create food and drink for everyone in the town, and soon many people come from nearby towns. The egg produces enough to satisfy them all, but one day it is broken. The narrator repairs it, but now the egg produces nothing but millions of whips, which flog the people, driving them away. The famine ends only when the narrator and his friends make a sacrifice to Heaven. Heaven is pleased and sends a heavy rain upon the land.
