Now being a man and assigned to examining with diligence the women’s cooking pots (among other things), Kunta Kinte gets a bit disappointed because there doesn’t seem to be a single pot left to check. The number of young men who successfully return from their recent manhood training are so numerous that even after pots and wells are checked, rechecked, and checked again, there is simply nothing left to be done. Kunta doesn’t get too upset about this, however, because it affords Kunta the time to work on his small farming plot.

The Council of Elders has generously given each young man a plot of land on which to farm his own couscous, groundnuts, or whatever he might like. The young single men need to live off this food and also use it to trade for other items that they need (for in the beginning, they have nothing more than a hut). It is the young man’s deftness in trading that will decide whether he is, in fact, a prosperous young man. Eventually, a prosperous young man can trade a dozen choice goats for a calf. Further, this eventual herd can secure him a good, hard-working wife.

Kunta is on his way to becoming a prosperous young man. With so much time to farm his plot of land, so much couscous and groundnuts to trade as a result, and such a keen ability to trade shrewdly, Kunta Kinte has acquired more things than he will ever need. In fact, Binta begins to grumble about Kunta’s prosperity. Kunta has an exorbitant amount of “stools, wicker mats, food bowls, gourds” and other things. Kunta even has a high-quality bamboo mattress!

More important than these usual, household items are spiritual things for which Kunta also trades.  He has a few saphies (small pouches to be worn on the upper arm) and small vials of plant extracts. Kunta uses these plant extracts to rub on his head, arms, and legs each night. Keeping evil spirits away is of great importance to Kunta.

Kunta is also beginning to notice the girls of his age more and more. Unfortunately, they are more interested in the men years older than Kunta: men of marrying age. Still, Kunta can’t help both thinking and dreaming about them. Kunta notices some changes in the various parts that make him a man. In fact, he notices his “foto” getting hard and hears the murmurings among his friends that this part is to be put inside of a woman.

Kunta has one vivid dream of a beautiful maiden at the harvest festival who dances for him and, in fact, chooses him as her husband. Being a gorgeous, hard-working virgin from a good, strong family, Kunta is thrilled when the wedding takes place. Kunta is especially happy, in his dream, to hold the woman close that first night. When Kunta wakes abruptly from his dream, he goes through the emotions of shock, embarrassment, and pride. As he does so often, Kunta thinks “perhaps this is what happens when one really becomes a man.”