ISBN: 014009556X
Godina izdanja: 1987
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Nigel Barley - A Plague of Caterpillars: A Return to the African Bush
Penguin, 1987
158 str.
meki povez
stanje: dobro

Nigel Barley returns to Cameroon on hearing that the elaborate and fearsome Dowayo circumcision ceremony, performed at six or seven year intervals, is about to take place. Yet, like much else in this hilarious book by the author of The Innocent Anthropologist, the circumcision ceremony proves frustratingly elusive, partly because of an extraordinary plague of black, hairy caterpillars. In the meantime, witchcraft fills the Cameroonian air, a man is lied to by his own foot and an earnest German traveller shows explicit birth-control propaganda to the respectable tribespeople. Beneath the joy and shared laughter in this comic masterpiece lies skilful and wise reflection on the problems facing people of different cultures as they try to understand one another.

This very failure, compounded by the plague of caterpillars of the book s title allows Nigel Barley to concentrate on everyday life in Dowayoland and the tattered remnants of an overripe French colonial legacy. Witchcraft fills the Cameroonian air; add an earnest German traveller showing explicit birth?control propaganda to the respectable Dowayos, an interest in the nipple?mutilating practices of highlanders, unanswered questions of the link between infertility and circumcision and you have the ingredients of a comic masterpiece. But beneath all the joy and shared laughter there is a skilful and wise reflection on the problems of different cultures ever understanding one another. The Dowayos are a mountain people that perform their elaborate, fascinating and fearsome ceremony at six or seven year intervals. It was an opportunity that was too good to miss, a key moment to test the balance of tradition and modernity. Yet, like much else in this hilarious book the circumcision ceremony was to prove frustratingly elusive.

Contents:
Intro; Title Page; Contents; Map Showing Poli and Surrounding District; 1: Duala Revisited; 2: To the Hills; 3: Rendering unto Caesar ... ; 4: Once More unto the Breach; 5: The Missing Mastectomy; 6: Veni, Vidi, Visa; 7: Of Simians and Cinemas; 8: When in Doubt
Charge!; 9: Light and Shade; 10: Thrills of the Chase; 11: The Black-White Man; 12: An Extraordinary Plague of Black, Hairy Caterpillars; 13: Ends and Beginnings;


Nonfiction, Sociology, Anthropology, Travel, 014009556X