Jay Cannon
Mtumé grows up in a small village in Eastern Senegambia in the early 1800s, learning to become the village shaman from his mother. Those dreams are dashed when Portuguese slavers invade the camp, killing over half of the villagers and securing the rest for the trek through the jungle to a slave ship waiting at Gorée Island. Along the trail, Mtumé uses his ingenuity and knowledge of herbal remedies to keep his fellow-villagers safe and garner privileges from his captors.Once the slave ship carrying Mtumé reaches New Orleans, he is sold to the Whitney Plantation, where he teaches his offspring how to use nature’s bounty to ward off illnesses. Decades later, his descendant, Chantel, is the Director of the Infectious Disease Center at LSU. When a pandemic strikes, wiping out much of the world’s population, Chantel must reach Mtumé’s ancient village to find the special herb for the cure to save civilization.
