My father taught me the word mutupo before he taught me his language.
Say it like water leaving a bottle, he said. Say it like you mean to keep something.
Shumba. Lion.
Not the animal — the lineage. The name you call before your own name at a funeral, at a wedding, when you arrive somewhere and must account for yourself.
I lost it once, at a border. The officer asked my name and I gave him the one on the passport, the one that fits in a box, the one that travels.
He stamped the page and I walked through and on the other side I stood for a moment with my hand on my chest making sure something was still there.
My father is old now. He calls me by the clan name sometimes by mistake, or maybe on purpose — the way you hold a door open for someone who is still coming.