WORD IS BOND

WORDS: Chris Nyst PHOTOGRAPHY Supplied

The declaration that a person’s word is their bond is the central theme of the old Brothers Grimm fairytale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

IF you’re a fan of American hip-hop, you’re probably familiar with the anthem-like affirmation ‘Word is Bond’.

Popularised in the late 1960s by the African American Nationalist movement Five Percent Nation, it soon found its way into the New York street beats of hip hop and rap. Meaning an enthusiastic buy-in, akin to the sign-off Amen, the phrase ‘Word is Bond’ increasingly featured in the lyrics of artists from Emcee Rakim to Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J and the Wu-Tang Clan until it became an intrinsic part of the lexicon of hardcore East Coast hip hop.

But the sentiment behind the catchcry ‘Word is Bond’ dates back to Biblical times. Referenced by the Five Percenters from a familiar old saying in African American oral tradition, the declaration that a person’s word is their bond finds its roots as far back as the fourth book of the Jewish Torah, the Book of Numbers, in which the Hebrew elder Moshe instructs the tribes of Israel that “When a man … swears an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”

It was a sacred obligation enshrined in ancient tradition which underwrote an essential pledge of honesty and integrity in all human interaction. Long before the advent of written contracts, the knowledge that every person’s word was their bond enabled the merchant traders of the middle ages to make permanently binding agreements with nothing more than a handshake.

The absolute sanctity of such a handshake deal is the central theme of the old Brothers Grimm fairytale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin. When I first heard it, I was just a little kid in short pants and it terrified me. Well it might have. In case you’ve forgotten, the chilling tale of the piper went something like this …

The town of Hamelin found itself overrun with dirty, marauding rats. They were everywhere. Naturally, the townsfolk were getting a little fed up and insisted their local councillors do something about their rat infestation. But what? No one had any suggestions and the mayor was tearing his hair out. Then suddenly, one day, out of the blue, a fancy-pants ratcatcher blows into town, all decked out in a coat of multiple colours, offering to get rid of every last rodent for them – permanently – provided the price is right. Of course, the mayor and his councillors can’t do a deal fast enough. They offer him one thousand guilders, no questions asked, if he can just get the job done.

The stranger immediately whips out a pipe from his pocket and starts playing.

Suddenly, rats come from everywhere, seemingly spellbound by the piper’s tune. They start following him in droves as he wends his way through the streets of Hamelin. He leads the whole horde of them down to the banks of the river and into the water, where every single last one of them drowns.

But when the piper goes back to the mayor and his cronies with his hand out for payment, he’s told it was all too easy. All he did was whistle a dumb little tune – any chump could’ve done that. They’re not going to pay him a bean. Enraged, the piper promptly starts playing a new tune entirely.

This time, the town’s children become entranced by him as he walks through the streets and 130 of the little tykes follow him out of the town and into a nearby cave, never to be seen or heard of again. Like I said, terrifying, right?

Of course, the moral of the tale is simple. Your word is your bond and if you break it, there will be terrible consequences. It is a message that over the centuries has burned its way deep into our collective psyche. The centuries-old admonition “the piper must be paid his due” harkens back to the dark and sinister legend of the Piper of Hamelin.

But how much really is legend and how much is actually fact? Hamelin, or Hameln, is a real town in northern Germany, near Hanover. Long ago, it seems some unspeakable tragedy did happen there, although no one is quite sure what. The earliest known reference to the event appears in a note written in Latin by the monk Heinrich von Herford in 1370. He told of ‘a marvellous wonder’ in Hamelin ‘in the year of Our Lord 1284, on the Feast of Saints John and Paul’, when a young stranger played a pipe ‘of the most magnificent sort’ and was followed out of the town by 130 children who ‘vanished so that no trace of them could be found’.

A later entry in the town records in 1384 laments: “It is 100 years since our children left.” The Hamelin town gate, erected in 1556, had etched in its stone facade: “In the year 1556, 272 years after the magician stole 130 children from the city, this gate was founded.” A private residence in Hamelin – dating back to 1602, and known as Rattenfangerhaus, or House of the Piper – still bears the inscription: “In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul, 26 June, 130 children born in Hamelin were lead out of town by a piper, dressed in all kinds of colours, and lost…”

In the street where legend dictates the lost children blithely followed the piper away – the Bungelosenstrasse, or ‘street without drums’ – dancing and the playing of music is completely banned, as it has been for hundreds of years.

Fact or fiction, this curious morality tale is a salutary one. Word is Bond.