African Silences Read Free Page B

than the huts seen inland, rectangular with high-peaked pyramidal roofs and a space that permits air circulation between wall and the low-hanging eave, but this improvement on the hut of his own Ouolof tribe does not impress our lordly Baba Sow, who jerks his chin impatiently at these
paysans
, these
animistes.
He discourses at length on the
slowness
of these forest people, these “people of the south,” so markedly in contrast to the mental agility of northerners—“
le Ouolof, par exemple.
” He shrugs his shoulders. “
Sont des vrais Africains, ceux-la
,” Baba Sow concludes, and not in praise. Since they are
animistes
, not Muslims, the Diola happily eat pork, and pigs are common here; perhaps these pigs came with the Portuguese, or perhaps, here at the jungle edge, they are relicts of the old pig cultures uprooted by Islam all across North Africa.
    Near the Guinea-Bissau frontier, a track turns off toward the sea and the Parc National de Casamance, a coastal rain forest dominated by big dark
Kaya
trees and figs and palms. Gratefully we walk about on foot, leaving Baba Sow to take his ease in his small, hot machine. Though the day is warm, the sea forest remains cool, its deep shade thinlyfiltered by the sun. We find the print of a small antelope, hear the telltale puff of what might be a nervous
buffle
back in the forest, but here as at Niokolo Koba, the
buffle
eludes us. The only mammals seen, in fact, are squirrels and monkeys—green vervets and the guenon or mona monkey, that handsome red-and-black relation of the blue monkeys of Central and East Africa. The rare western red colobus remains hidden—this is the species I most wish to see. The paths are strewn with
tamba
, the small brown monkey-apple, which is relished in these parts by every anthropoid, from these small circopithecines to
Homo sapiens.
    Where the forest subsides into red mangrove estuaries behind the coast, an observer with more time than ourselves might see a clawless otter or the swamp antelope called sitatunga. Here palm-nut vultures have convened in the most seaward of the trees—striking white birds that have mostly abandoned the vulturine habits of their kin and subsist largely on nuts of the oil palm, in the vicinity of which they are usually encountered. Therefore I am surprised, a little later, to see one alight on mud along the estuary and waddle about among the mangrove stilts in pursuit of fiddler crabs and perhaps mudskippers, both of which abound on the tidal rivers. Perhaps this is a well-known habit of this species, but I shall record it here in case it’s not.

    At Ziguinchor is an “artisan’s market” where a few old masks and carvings may be found amidst the heaps of that shiny, mass-produced
art folklorique
that finds its way into unsuspecting homes around the world. The artisans’ traditional bird-head adzes, with their sets of hand-forged blades for finer work, are far superior in style and manufacture to their “art,” and though these carvers were distressed at first that these rough implements and not their wares were what we wanted, they soon got used to the idea,and old adzes came at us from all directions—“
le vrai hâche de mon grand-père!
” one fellow shouted, an inspired lie that was taken up instantly by all the others. But we were satisfied with just one each, and so innumerable “true grandfather’s adzes” remained behind in Ziguinchor—the nucleus, I fear, of a whole new industry.
    Outside the market, workers stacked enormous sacks of peanuts on a truck. Two men on the ground would heave the heavy sack onto the truck bed, where two more would seize it up to waist level, then slam it down again, stooping quickly as they did so to make the most of an infinitesimal bounce, then hiking it high above their shoulders, where it was plucked from their outstretched arms by yet two more atop the cargo. The feat was funny and exciting, and the workers were merry in the pride of strength and timing,