The Setting Sun and the Rolling World

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1987

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Story 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Story 5 Summary: “The Mountain”

Two young men, Nharo and Chemai, set out on foot for a bus station in the predawn hours. The five-mile walk requires them to cross an unnamed mountain. The hike frightens Chemai because he believes witches and ghostly drummers populate the mountain. By contrast, the more educated Nharo dismisses Chemai’s superstitious fears. Chemai also claims that there is a hidden gold mine atop the mountain that European explorers tried to plunder, only to be cast off by the Spirit of the Mountain. Moreover, he says that efforts to build a road over the mountain failed because the developers’ instruments mysteriously stopped working.

As the path grows darker amid thick foliage, Nharo becomes frightened despite himself. The two sense what feels like warm breath on their faces, which Chemai attributes to a witch. When they exit into a lighter, less forested area, they discover a black goat following them. Nharo laughs at the goat, aware of the old legend that if a person insults a black goat, it will follow them for the rest of their life. In this instance the legend appears to be true; the goat follows the pair across the mountain.

The pair decide to take a detour to a nearby village, where Nharo’s grandmother Jape lives. Given her strong belief in old legends and creatures, she may be able to rid Nharo and Chemai of the goat. As soon as Jape sees the goat follow the two young men into her hut, she immediately readies her medicine pots to ward off the animal. As she works, Nharo recalls, “I felt safe. Somebody who knew was taking care of things at last. It is a comforting feeling to have someone who knows take care of those things you don’t know” (48).

Story 5 Analysis

Mungoshi presents a seemingly simple hike across a mountain to set up a broader discussion about the durability of old traditions in the face of modernization. The titular mountain is framed as a place of ancient supernatural forces that are poised to release their wrath upon anyone who fails to show proper respect for the old ways. This is particularly true for European colonizers who, according to Chemai, sought to mine the mountain for its legendary stores of gold but were driven away by the Spirit of the Mountain.

Nharo, however, is far more skeptical than Chemai. Tellingly, he does not outright deny the existence of spirits, witches, and phantom drummers on the mountain. Rather, he believes industrialization and modernization will simply drive these supernatural forces away. Of the paved road that workers are struggling to build across the mountain, Nharo says, “But they are going to build it. They are going to make that road and then the drums are going to stop beating” (44). This is consistent with the attitudes held by many of Mungoshi’s characters who embrace modernity. To them, it’s not that the old supernatural forces are the stuff of fantasy; it’s that modernization and Western cultural influences have driven the old spirits so far underground that they no longer play any role in the lives of Zimbabweans, save for in rural areas untouched by industrialization.

Yet the macabre and mysterious pull of the occult proves to be far more resilient than Nharo expects, at least on a psychological level. He is so unnerved by the goat following him and Chemai that he makes a detour to meet his grandmother Jape, who remains in commune with the old spirits. By calling on Jape, Nharo acknowledges the continued importance of old cultural beliefs to his country’s identity and culture, thus representing the uneasy Zimbabwean position of having one foot in tradition and another in modernity.