He had been abused

His mother understood, but she didn’t know what to do about it. The perpetrator had died, although his death didn’t alleviate the boy’s suffering. She tried to talk with Bata about it, but he wouldn’t listen. She found she could speak in only generalities, and her religious training didn’t help her; she found attributing his suffering to the gods made his suffering more acute. Other people in his life didn’t understand at all. They simply thought he was defective, like a cracked urn.