H. D. HIGGINS
The Aukmondi: Secret of the Yululu Bone
In The Aukmondi: Secret of the Yululu Bone, by H. D. Higgins, the time is the mid-eighteenth century - slave-hunting time. The setting is East Africa, where the village of the Chinchigwe tribe is overrun by the Batushi, slave hunters, who carry off thirty survivors and sell them to a colonial American slave trader named Oliver McIntyre.
When Captain McIntyre pays the Batushi with defective firearms, they return the affront by presenting McIntyre with a mysterious necklace - the Yululu Bone. As the Chinchigwe are driven, chained and shackled, to the African coast to begin the "middle passage" to America and a life of plantation slavery, they are put into makeshift pens to guard against escape. In one pen with them is Adaulah, an eight-year-old captive boy who claims to be a prince of the Aukmondi tribe. When the opportunity comes, Adaulah helps the Chinchigwe escape and, determined to find his home, he guides them to his people, who inhabit the lush and fruitful Aukmondi Valley.
Driven by greed, McIntyre follows them, with the Yululu Bone which grants the power of a tribal chief to its possessor. McIntyre uses it to order the Batushi to help recover his escaped slaves. But the Yululu Bone also carries with it a curse, and Ramuza, the Aukmondi chief, must find the secret of the Yululu Bone in order to save not only the Chinchigwe but also the Aukmondi and their peaceful way of life.