Return to Laughter

Elenore Smith Bowen

• Publisher: Burtyrki Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781839742897
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

This classic of anthropological literature is a dramatic, revealing account of an anthropologist's first year in the field with a remote African tribe. Simply as a work of ethnographic interest, Return to Laughter provides deep insights into the culture of West Africa—me subtle web of its tribal life and the power of the institution of witchcraft. However, the author's fictional approach gives the book its lasting appeal. She focuses on the human dimension of anthropology, recounting her personal triumphs and failures and documenting the profound changes she undergoes. As a result, her story becomes at once highly personal and universally recognizable. She has vividly brought to life the classic narrative of an outsider caught up and deeply involved in an utterly alien culture.
"The first introspective account ever published of what it's like to be a field worker among a primitive people."—Margaret Mead

Return to Laughter

Chapter One

“I EXPECT you’ll be all right.” Tall Mr. Sackerton, the administrative official in charge of that district, fingered the thin mustache that marked him a confirmed optimist. Nevertheless, he seemed dubious as he gazed at the three-ton truck loaded with wooden boxes packed as half-hundred weight headloads, canvas parcels of bed, bath and tent, my three new servants whom I’d already learned to call “boys,” three kerosene tins destined to become a stove, and the fifteen carriers who were to take me from the road to the resthouse near Chief Kako’s homestead.

I crawled up beside the driver. Sackerton slammed the door: “You’ll be all right at Kako’s. I’ve told him you want to learn the language.” As the truck growled off to a start on the muddy road, he shouted after me, “If you get into trouble...” but the rest was lost in the noise of the engine.

The truck alternately jounced and slithered over the dirt road; after last night’s rain, the first of the season, it was a lake of mud with occasional reefs of laterite. To either side spread the grassland, dead gray grass patched with the green of yam fields and the brown of newly cleared land. Dotted about were their homesteads: circular clusters of round huts with thatched roofs like dinner bells, domed and golden in the sun. Men and women were out in the fields, hoeing and pulling grass. They straightened at the noise of our coming, shouted, and shook their fists at me. Sackerton had thought to tell me that this was their form of greeting. I shook my fist in return.

Gradually we left the treeless, rolling plains. Mountains appeared above the southern horizon. The country grew more wooded; giant trees towered over the thin bush. We crossed narrow streams hedged in by vine-meshed palm and bamboo. Occasionally we passed a man—cloth tied around his waist like a towel, bow and arrow in hand, walking by the side of the road with a sleek dog trotting behind—or a party of people: an elder in front, leaning on his spear, followed by armed youngsters and by women whose heads balanced great yellow calabashes of farm produce.

Once a duiker bounded across the road. Excited, I chattered at the driver and got a fluent spate of sound in reply. We tried again: I more slowly, he more loudly. Eventually I was forced to the conclusion that he knew no more of my language than I did of his. I felt rather inadequate, and had to remind myself that there was no need to say anything: everything had been arranged. The driver knew where to let me off; the carriers knew where to take me, and I had been told how much to pay them. Chief Kako had been warned of my coming. And if anything should go wrong, I reassured myself, I had food, a tent and a cook. Furthermore, the cook knew about six sentences worth of pidgin.

That no one with me knew more English was my own fault, and my set intent. It had been the first advice given me. “Never use an interpreter,” my professors had intoned, “or you’ll never learn the language properly.” “You’ll learn the language more quickly,” Sackerton had confirmed cheerfully, “if no one around you can speak anything else.” The cook’s bit of pidgin was my compromise between their counsel and my misgivings. I could at least get food and drink through him—when he was with me. Right now he was in back with my water, and I couldn’t tell the driver to stop. As the truck went on and on, I sincerely hoped that the other advice I’d taken would prove more immediately helpful.

About to go to Africa for the first time, I had conscientiously rooted about among my acquaintances for helpful information. On their advice I’d been inoculated for yellow fever, smallpox, typhoid and paratyphoid, tetanus, typhus, and only my own reluctance had saved me from a cholera shot. I had gone to a tropical outfitter in England, and had been expertly outfitted with all manner of folding equipment, with evening dresses (trouble to pack and seldom worn), a soda siphon (an unmixed blessing) and an elaborate set of silver, dishes and glassware (a nuisance, but good for my steward’s morale). The outfitters said I would be able to get nothing at all in West Africa. The wife of a trader on leave told me I could get everything I might want there. Both were right, from time to time.

My main trouble had been that I had no idea of what I might need. My own imagination carried me no further than a typewriter, paper, notebooks, and a miscellany for reading: detective stories, desert-island stand-bys like Shakespeare and the Bible, and a terrifying handbook of tropical diseases. I had myself introduced to ex-traders and retired administrators. They all recommended a meat grinder to make goat meat edible and curry powder to make it palatable; unanimously they instructed me to trek early (“trek” in West African English covers almost any distance of walking), to sleep in the heat of the day, and at sundown to bathe, put on a sweater and have one drink with my quinine. I was grateful, but I wanted to know more.

Anthropological advice, though much less consistent, was equally limited. “Always take your boys from among the tribe you are studying, or there will be trouble.” “Always take a boy who is a stranger; then he’ll be your man.” Circumstance made me compromise again. The tribe among whom I was going had a bad reputation with their neighbors; no outsider would consent to stay in the bush among the “cannibals and wicked witches” under the protection of a mere woman. Within the tribe, trained servants were to be found only in the most sophisticated section (close to the administrative and mission stations); they regarded Kako’s people as nothing worse than “thieves.” (I soon discovered the basic principle behind such name-calling: the more foreign, the more suspicious; hence the worse the reputation. The character commonly ascribed, in bush, to Europeans suffers accordingly.)

The best advice, in the long run, came from the ripe experience of two professors of anthropology. One said, “Always walk in cheap tennis shoes; the water runs out more quickly.” The other said, “You’ll need more tables than you think.” Both had added, without going into detail, “Enjoy yourself, and never, never be an embarrassment to the administration.”

The truck stopped. Then I saw a small, weather-beaten sign that said KAKO; beside it a narrow path led off through the thick, high grass. I turned my back on it and tried to make my need for water clear to my boys by loud repetition. The carriers tossed my loads out of the truck and began to debate them, with shouts and gestures so violent that I thought a fight was imminent; actually they were only settling which one of them was big enough to commandeer, by force if necessary, the lightest load.

The carriers set off down the narrow path. I waved good-by to the driver; I wished it was for me and not the carriers that he was settling down to wait. And as I started off into the bush, I thought how nice it would be to be at home with friends or at least still sitting in the station drinking beer with the Sackertons.

The sun was high. The tall grass cut out any view and any breeze. Then the carriers began to sing, and my momentary depression vanished. Seeing them file down the path, boxes on their heads, made me feel like something out of an old explorer’s book. True, I was not in traditional costume: neither Mary Kingsley’s stays and petticoats, nor in the pith helmet, shorts and boots of the traveler’s frontispiece. It’s difficult to feel adventurous in tennis shoes, a cotton dress, dark glasses, a shoulder bag and a floppy straw hat, but I managed it. I even managed to feel competent, almost experienced. The water from the small streams we waded was running out of my tennis shoes just as I had been told it would.

Some five miles from the road, we halted by a shallow river. The carriers wanted to swim. My “small boy” Monday—six feet of gangling youth—set up my folding chair in the shade of the trees. My steward Sunday produced chicken sandwiches and my new thermos flask full of hot tea (I still don’t know where he got the ingredients). I forgot that this efficiency was none of my doing, and I felt mistress of all I surveyed. Then I wondered how to indicate my preference for coffee, and had my chair taken away from me because the carriers were ready to start. Willy-nilly, feeling not quite so confident, I chased down the path after my entourage. I was unable to ask them to wait awhile.

My feet began to hurt. I had not yet learned the trick of walking without socks in tennis shoes. The water leaked out, just as the professor had foretold. However, he had obviously thought it an insult to my intelligence to add that I must wash them out at each stream; otherwise the pebbles and bits of gravel stay inside the wet shoe to create blisters, break blisters and finally work inside the blister.

Twelve miles as the crow flies. I began to regard every wind and turn in what I then thought an extraordinarily sinuous bush path as an enemy. I stopped. My entourage went on. I yelled. Sunday turned around, looked at me thoughtfully, and gave orders to Monday, who produced a knife and dived into the bush. A few moments later I had a passable walking stick—more staff than cane and very knobbly. Sunday made encouraging noises. Since there was nothing else to do, I hobbled on.

I don’t remember now how long it took me to get there. Later I found it a pleasant four-hour walk, but later I had also discovered that the tall grass hid many homesteads where one could rest in the shade, chat and eat a roasted ear of corn hot from the coals. That first time, I dragged further and further behind. The carriers were completely out of sight, though I could still hear them singing. Monday, who had apparently been detailed to stay with me, gave me water at judicious intervals and finally took over my shoulder bag as well.

Walking had become an eternity. I scarcely noticed that we had turned onto an even narrower path. Then I saw all the carriers resting beside my boxes in a space cleared of all grass, in the middle, a tree, and under it, my folding chair. I collapsed into it. Slippers appeared. Tea was brought and more tea. Even more reviving than the tea and slippers was the sight of the canvas sacks containing bed, bath and folding tables disappearing to my right into a cracked mud hut—square, and taken with its narrow veranda, somewhat larger than my tent. I looked to my left, and saw three more huts. The cook had pounded one of the kerosene tins flat and was moving with it into one of the huts to set up the kitchen stove: the flattened tin was laid across the other two, on their sides as ovens, with the fire between them. Monday had extracted my keys from my bag. Whenever the cook shouted, he brought out pots and pans. Whenever Sunday shouted, he dashed into the square hut with some of my personal boxes. Obviously these four huts around a bare yard were the resthouse. We had arrived.

Sunday appeared with my money box conveniently open. As I dug out the shillings and pence for the carriers, I began to realize that keeping things locked from one’s boys was largely a gesture. Even if I should continue that gesture...I looked at my very portable and rather flimsy safe-box and remembered Sackerton’s story of the thieves who had carried off on their backs a four-hundred-pound treasury safe to get at the £50 inside it at their leisure. Keys clearly could not prevent my boys robbing me if they wished. Before long I made all the boys a speech, handed the keys to Sunday, and retained an inventory. Except for half a jar of melon jam (traced to Monday’s sweet tooth), nothing was ever missing.

The carriers left, singing a swift song to speed them to the road. It was getting late, and they wanted to be back to the truck before sundown. Only the most urgent business or overwhelming curiosity, I soon learned, takes anyone but a witch out on the paths after dark.

The bed was up, and I wanted to lie down. My feet hurt; I ached with weariness. But Sunday, Monday and the cook disapproved, first softly and fluently and then, as I didn’t understand, loudly and even more fluently. I caught the word “chief” and Kako’s name. I looked at the cook. His meager pidgin English would have to carry me through my initial difficulties.

The cook stepped forward. “Kako come. Bring chop.” I groaned at the thought of social effort. The cook reproved me, “You thank Kako too much!” and stepped back, his say finished. Sunday then repeated in his own language the greeting I had already learned and added another phrase. Parrot fashion I said over whatever he told me. With the added help of a missionary’s really excellent word list (unfortunately only from the language into English), I learned “I greet you” “How are you?” “How are all your people?” “Are you sure all of you are really well?” I learned to receive gifts with both hands cupped (to take with one hand indicates that the gift is insufficient and to receive anything with the left hand is a downright insult), to comment as I received, “You have done well; I rejoice,” and to hand the gifts then to one of my boys while I said, “Hasn’t he done well?” to this the boy would then reply, “He has indeed. We all rejoice.”

I was too tired to be quick; we were still on “thank you” when my visitors arrived. At their head was an old man, white-haired, with a white stubble on his cheek. A tattered indigo cloth was slung togawise over his shoulder. Indeed, it was by my boys’ deference and not by any external sign of state that I recognized Chief Kako. He walked slowly toward me, leaning on his spear, but with a firm step. Behind him came a small, naked boy, almost hidden by the bamboo chair that he carried on his head, upside down, like a hood; then two women, wrapped in Manchester cottons, carrying a chicken, corn and eggs. Then came a glorious procession of elders in bright red hats, long white, yellow and purple robes, and blood-red goatskin shoulder bags: these were the notables. I scarcely saw them. Kako’s dignity of bearing reduced them to a gaudy backdrop for his own somber shabbiness.

Kako and I shook fists. The chicken, corn and eggs changed hands with all due etiquette. The little boy shed his chair and placed it carefully opposite mine. Kako sat down. I sat down. The notables spread sheepskins on the ground beside Kako, and they sat down. The women stood behind Kako’s chair, stiffly, like Victorian wives. We all looked at each other and smiled.

The notables produced long-stemmed pipes and tobacco from their bags. The little boy filled Kako’s pipe for him, dived into the kitchen and returned with a glowing coal perched on top of the pipe bowl. Kako puffed until the pipe was going to his satisfaction, then dropped the coal on the ground. A notable hastily picked it up and started his pipe with it. The little boy ran for more coals. Almost smelling scorched fingers, I brought out matches and handed them to Kako. He nodded benignly and repeated the thank-you phrases, but to my dismay he pocketed the matches. The notables continued to use the coals. They smoked. I smoked. We all smiled.

The sun sank lower. The conversation that had sprung up among the notables died down. They put out their pipes by holding a thumb over the mouthpiece, a toe over the bowl. I didn’t know how to say good-by. In desperation I repeated the greetings. Kako and the notables replied gravely and the older woman kept a straight face, but the younger one giggled and the little boy laughed outright. Finally Kako stood up, pointed to the setting sun, said something to my boys, and departed with his train of notables.

I sat on in a sort of stupor, exhausted from the unaccustomed walking and by the utter strangeness of everything about me. Just at dark Sunday passed me with a lighted pressure lamp; behind him came Monday with a bucket of steaming water. I filed after them into my hut. The canvas bath was set on a grass mat. My wooden boxes, neatly set around the walls, perched unevenly on stones for the discouragement, or at least the easier detection, of termites. The mosquito net made a cool pavilion over the camp bed. Sunday set the lamp on a box, Monday poured the bath, and they retired, rolling down the mat that was the only door.

There are several varieties of canvas bathtub. Mine looked rather like a round water lily leaf, with faintly raised edges and room enough for a not very fat person to sit tailor fashion. A tin hip bath is real African luxury, and like so many luxuries these days, hard to come by. The canvas soon loses its waterproofing, turning the clay beneath into mud. Worse, a careless movement can easily depress one side of it enough for all the water to run out. But it is much more relaxing than the enamel basins in which one can set only one foot at a time. However, the bath is the main thing: to be clean and rid of general sweat and stickiness is one of the greatest pleasures of life in the tropics.

Sunday had apparently never heard that one should put on a sweater after sundown. Indeed, during all our time together, he persisted in regarding my sweaters as suitable noontime wear. He had laid out my mosquito boots and my most backless evening dress. There was no sign of my dressing gown. I hesitated. After all, this was the evening of my first day in the field as an anthropologist and on my own; I had looked forward to this moment through years of theses and examinations. It deserved celebration. I slipped into the dress.

At my call, by the simple process of carrying the lamp before me, Sunday led me outside into the yard and to my deck chair, put the lamp on a box, then reappeared with a tray of cigarettes and drinks: g...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• DEDICATION
• Author’s Note
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One