The Innocent Anthropologist

by Nigel Barley

  Having finally met my Dowayos, I was at something of a loss for conversation. ‘You are all Dowayos?’ I inquired. There was a stunned silence. I repeated the question. As one, they roared with outrage. Haughtily, they disclaimed any kinship with that debased race of sons of dogs. They, it seemed, were Dupa. It was implied that no one but an idiot could confuse the two. The Dowayos lived over the other side of the mountain. Our conversation was over. Some ten miles or so further on they disembarked at their school, still looking somewhat affronted, and thanked me politely. I soldiered on alone.

  According to my map, Poli should be a town of some size. True, there was no indication of population, but it was a sous-préfecture, had a hospital, two missions, a petrol-station and an airstrip. Even on large-scale English maps it had featured prominently. In my mind’s eye it assumed the proportions of a town like Cheltenham, but with somewhat less imposing architecture.

  It was quite simply a small village. The single street stretched for a couple of hundred yards with mud and aluminium sheet shacks on either side. Finally, it just ran out of steam in a tangle of undergrowth and a flagpole. I turned round, looking for the rest of it; there wasn’t any. It had the air of a Wild West town down Mexico way during the siesta. A few ragged figures sidled about the streets and stared at me. A tin sign announced the presence of a bar, a depressing shanty tricked out in advertisements for the national lottery and the campaign against illiteracy. It was full of snappy expressions such as: The illiterate adult, incapable and lacking information, has always constituted an obstacle to the setting of any initiative tending towards the general upliftment of a country.’ It was not clear how illiterates were supposed to read the placard. The bar was deserted but I slumped down on a stool and waited, glumly considering the sea of mud that made up the street.

  Bars the world over are the place to go to get the feel of a town and the general lie of the land; this was no exception. After about ten minutes a furtive-looking man appeared and told me there was no point in my sitting there as they had run out of beer three weeks ago but the truck was expected within twenty-four hours. I was by now familiar with the disease of optimism and left, with directions to the Protestant mission.

  This turned out to be a collection of tin-roofed houses such as I had come to recognize as the general mission style, grouped round a church of breeze blocks with a corrugated spire. The establishment was run by a wild-eyed American pastor and his family who had been in the business for some twenty-five years. It was an offshoot of the N’gaoundere mission and they had kindly offered to put me up until I got settled in a village. One thing had puzzled me: whenever I asked about the Poli mission people were immediately shifty or evasive. They spoke of the strains of the bush, the isolation, the heat. The first time I saw Pastor Brown, things began to fall into place. (Pastor Brown is not his real name and you can regard him-as a fictitious character if you like.)

  A bizarre figure sailed forth from the house, naked to the waist and exhibiting a huge paunch. On his head was a solar topee of imperial stamp, the effect of which was rather at variance with the bright purple sunglasses beneath. In his hand he bore a huge bunch of keys and a spanner. In the entire time I knew Herbert Brown I don’t think I ever heard him finish a sentence, even though he used three languages simultaneously, switching from English to Fulani to French and back in the space of four words. A short, rapid burst of speech would be cut off by a Fulani oath, a gesture, a complete change of subject. His life-style was similar. He would punctuate a Bible class with welding a bicycle frame in the garage that was all his joy, abandoning this to rain blows on the aged generator of the station that was acting up, rushing off to dispense cough medicine at the house before the effectiveness of beating the generator had been established, and being waylaid before he got there by the need to chase goats from his garden or deliver a homily on the evils of debt. All this was accompanied by great screams and cries of rage, despair and frustration that turned him crimson in the face and led one to fear for his life. He believed fervently in the Devil with whom he was locked in a bitter personal combat. This explained why everything he tried to do for the people came to nought. The tractors he imported fell to pieces, the pumps broke down, the buildings fell apart. His life was an unabating whirlwind of struggle against entropy – making do, mending, borrowing a bit from here to bodge that, using this to hold that down, sawing, cutting, hammering, beating.

  The station was engulfed in an atmosphere of manic tension that was totally opposed to that of the nearby Catholic mission; there, all was calm and well ordered. A single French priest ran the mission with his two ‘mothers’, nuns who dispensed medicine. There were even flowers. The Dowayos explained this by pointing out that the Protestant was a blacksmith. Among the Dowayos, blacksmiths are a separate group, contacts with whom have to be strictly regulated. They cannot marry other Dowayos, nor eat with them, draw water with them or go into their houses. They are disruptive because of their noise and smell and the strange way they speak.

  5

  Take me to your Leader

  Days begin early in Africa. In my London life I had been used to rising about half past eight of a morning; here everyone was afoot at five-thirty, as soon as it was light. I was wakened punctually by sounds of beating metal and screaming and guessed that my local missionary was about his business. I had been allocated a large, old mission house to myself. At the time I had no idea what luxury I was enjoying; this was the last time I was to see running water, not to mention electricity. I was intrigued to find a paraffin refrigerator next door, the first time I had seen one of these monsters. Capriciously unpredictable, these erstwhile staples of bush life have become rare and expensive as electricity has been introduced into the towns. Out of sheer perversity, they will spontaneously defrost and destroy a month’s meat supply or give out so much heat as to incinerate anyone in the room. They must be protected from draughts, damp, unevenness of the floor and with luck they may consent to exert a mild cooling effect. In Cameroon, with numerous languages and pijins, there are other dangers. English paraffin and petrol get mixed up with French pétrole and essence, American kerosene and gas. It is not unknown for helpful servants to top paraffin refrigerators up with petrol, with devastating results. I peered inside; carefully stacked were bags of large yellow termites. Even in death they seemed to seethe. I was never able to bring myself to eat more than one or two of these African delicacies, of which Dowayos are inordinately fond. The insects swarm at the beginning of the rains and are attracted by any light. The standard means of collecting them is to place a light in the midst of a bucket of water. When they reach the light, the insects drop their wings and fall into the water whence they can be collected and their fatty bodies either roasted or eaten raw.

  After a day’s respite it was time to deal with the administration again. At the N’gaoundere mission I had been urged not to forget to register with the local police and to introduce myself to the local sous-préfet, the government representative. Accordingly, I armed myself with all my documents and set off on foot into town. Although it was something less than a mile, it was clearly a major eccentricity for a white man to walk. One man asked me whether my car had broken down. Villagers rushed out and shook hands with me jabbering in garbled Fulani. I had learned the rudiments of this tongue in London so I was able at least to say, ‘I am sorry, I do not speak Fulani.’ Since I had practised this sentence many times, it came out rather fluently and added to the incomprehension.

  The police post was manned by about fifteen gendarmes, all armed to the teeth. One was polishing a sub-machine gun. The commandant turned out to be a huge Southerner of about six foot five. He summoned me into his office and inspected my documents minutely. What was my reason for being here? I displayed my research permit, a most impressive document, covered with photographs and stamps. He was clearly very unhappy as I tried to expound the essential nature of the anthropological endeavour. ‘But what’s it for?’ he asked. Choosing between gi
ving an impromptu version of the ‘Introduction to Anthropology’ lecture course and something less full, I replied somewhat lamely, ‘It’s my job.’ Subsequently, I came to realize what a highly satisfactory explanation this was to an official who spent most of his life in pointlessly enforcing rules that seemed an end in themselves. He considered me lengthily under hooded eyes. I noticed for the first time that he was chewing on a needle. He would balance it, blunt end outwards, on his tongue. With a deft flick, he drew it wholly inside his mouth and performed an adroit adjustment so that it reappeared at the other side of the mouth with the point outwards. Back in, and there was a blunt end again. It was horribly like a snake’s tongue. I felt there would be problems here, and I was to be proved right. For the time being, however, he let me go with the air of one allowing a rogue enough rope to hang himself. My name and personal details were recorded in a large volume that recalled the tomes of prohibited persons from the Embassy.

  The sous-préfet lived in a dank and peeling house dating from the French colonial period. Moss and mould clung to every crack and crevice in its façade. On a hill above the town he had constructed a gleaming new palace but it stood empty, its air-conditioning unused, its tiled floors untrodden. Several explanations were given for this. Some said that the government had confiscated it as proof of corruption. The Dowayos, when I got to know them, told a different tale. The house had been built on an old Dowayo burial ground, despite their protests. They had not threatened, they claimed, they did not need to; they knew the spirits of their ancestors. They had simply informed the sous-préfet that the day he moved in was the day he would die. Either way, he never did move in but was doomed to look at his new house from the window of the old.

  Having listened to my tale, a dour servant showed me in. I was struck by the fact that he knelt down before daring to address his superior.

  I had been tipped off in advance that a present of some cigars would be ‘acceptable’, so these were duly produced and graciously accepted, disappearing swiftly inside the flowing robes. I was still standing up, the servant was still on his knees, the sous-préfet sat. My documents were once more examined with minute attention. I began to fear that they might wear out before I left the country. ‘Out of the question,’ he declared impassively. ‘I cannot have you in Poli.’ This was something of a setback; I had regarded this as a courtesy visit. ‘But my research permit, from Yaounde,’ I emphasized carefully, ‘gives me permission to be here.’ He lit one of my cigars. ‘Yaounde is not here. You have not my permission.’ Clearly this was not a situation where the passage of currency between us would be politic since the venerable retainer was still on his knees, taking in every word. ‘How might I obtain your permission?’ I persisted. ‘A letter from the prefect, absolving me of responsibility, would be sufficient. He is to be found in Garoua.’ He turned away and busied himself with papers. Our interview was at an end.

  Back at the mission, Pastor Brown seemed to regard this as a vindication of his pessimism. He was touchingly cheered by my misfortune. He doubted whether I would ever get to see the prefect even if he happened to be where they claimed he was and not away in the capital; it was virtually certain he would not return for months. His own life had been fraught with many such frustrations. There was no hope; this was Africa. He walked off chuckling.

  Calculating that I had just enough petrol to reach Garoua, about a hundred miles away, I resolved to set off at dawn the following day.

  When I left the house next day, I was rather taken aback to find a sea of expectant faces confidently intending to accompany me. It has always been something of a mystery how such information circulates. Westerners often fail to realize with what minute attention they are observed. Being seen checking the fuel level is enough to trigger a barrage of requests for transport. To refuse is held to be inadmissible. Those who reproach Europeans with paternalism fail totally to perceive the relations that traditionally exist between rich and poor in much of Africa. A man who works for you is not just an employee: you are his patron. It is an open-ended relationship. If his wife is ill, that is as much your problem as his and you will be expected to do all in your power to heal her. If you decide to throw anything away, he must be given first refusal on it. To give it to someone else would be most improper. It is almost impossible to draw a line between what is your concern and what is his private life. The unwary European will get caught up in the vast range of loose kinship obligations, unless he is very lucky indeed. When an employee calls you ‘father’, this is a danger sign. There is surely a story about an unpaid dowry or dead cattle to follow and it will be perceived as a genuine betrayal not to assume part of the burden. The line between ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ is subject to continual renegotiation and Dowayos are as expert as anyone else in trying to get as much as they can out of a link with a rich man. The failure to realize that the relationship is being seen in very different terms from either side has led to much friction. Westerners are always complaining of their workers’ (they are not called ‘boys’ or ‘servants’ nowadays) ‘cheek’ or ‘nerve’ in their bland expectation that employers will look after them and always bail them out when in trouble. Initially, I was much put out on occasions such as that which now presented itself. It seemed as if I could never do anything spontaneously or go anywhere without dragging a huge burden of obligation behind me. When in the city, it was even more galling to find that people one had given lifts to would be most annoyed if loans to finance their stay were not also readily forthcoming. I had brought them to this strange place; to forsake them here would be unthinkable.

  However, on the first occasion I understood none of this and embarked as many as seemed possible. Here again, European and African notions are strongly divergent. By local standards, a car with only six people in it is empty. Any claim that there is no more room in it is greeted as a patent falsehood. It is a further annoyance, having finally limited numbers by striking those rather firm attitudes that Africans expect from Westerners who really mean what they are saying, only to find that all manner of baggage is suddenly dragged forth from concealment to be tied to the roof with the inevitable strips of rubber cut from inner tubes.

  By now much delayed, I finally set off, the car heaving and groaning, for Garoua. Various other features dependent on numerous passengers soon became apparent. Dowayos are not enthusiastic travellers and react badly to motion. Within ten minutes, three or four of them were vomiting with great gusto all over the car, none of them bothering to use the window for this purpose. It was a decidedly seedy driver who finally reached the city limits for more inspection of documents. Whereas a lone white man attracts very little police attention, he is a matter of some concern when hauling around Africans. The police were very interested indeed in my movements and motives.

  The appearance of the word ‘doctor’ on my passport seemed to do more than anything else to dispel doubts, but my passengers were not so lucky. While I was seeking to explain the absence of a registration card for the car by leading the sergeant through the dossier I had prudently brought from N’gaoundere, my passengers were dolefully lined up and required to produce receipts for tax for the last three years, identity cards and membership cards of the sole political party. Inevitably, they fell somewhat short of perfection and this caused further delays. It became clear that little would be achieved before the midday siesta.

  Garoua is a strange town situated on the River Benoue, a watercourse of sporadic appearance that varies from raging Mississippi in the rainy season to damp sand in the dry. Its dedication to its wayward river explains the smell of ripe fish that hangs over it like a pall of smoke. Dried fish is one of its main industries, the others being beer and administration. The beer is a particular source of fascination to Dowayos. They are keen customers of the breweries that produce the ‘33’ beer, a mark of a previous French administration. Its peculiar quality is that it enables one to pass directly from sobriety to hangover without an intervening stage of drunkenness. The factory has
a glass wall through which it was possible to see bottles of beer gliding, without the intervention of human agency, from one stage of the process to another. This deeply impressed the Dowayos and they spent hours watching the miracle. To describe it, they used the word gerse which means ‘miracle’, ‘wonder’, ‘magic’. It was in this context that I first heard the term that was later so to occupy me as an anthropologist. It was also a fertile source of metaphor for their most metaphysical concepts. The Dowayos believed in reincarnation. It was like the beer at Garoua, they explained; people were like bottles that had to be filled with spirit. When they died and were buried, it was like sending the empty bottle back to the factory.