15. and 16. The annual ‘pilgrimage’ at Rocia, Alicante, Spain
Acknowledgements
Plates. 1, 2, 3: Paul Strand. 4, 5, 6, 10: Werner Forman, 7: author. 8, 9: plates 5A and 5B from Neville Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966. 11, 12: Mansell Collection. 14: Phillips Studio, Wells. 15, 16: John Hilleson Agency Ltd.
Drawings in the text. p. 63, from Godfrey Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1961. p. 79, from Neville Dyson-Hudson, Karimojong Politics, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1966. p. 171, redrawn from Marcel Griaule, Conversations with Ogotêmmeli, O.U.P. for the International African Institute, 1965. p. 228, from Peter Morton-Williams, ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organisation of the Oyo Yoruba’, Africa xxxiv.3, 1964.
All drawings in the text not otherwise acknowledged are by Caroline Sassoon, who made them for this book.
Akan shrine priest, central Ghana 1965
Tallensi hut interior, northern Ghana 1965
Akan ceremonial stool, central Ghana
Ancient bronze ceremonial vessel, Ita Yemoo, Yorubaland
Ancient terracotta head, Ife, Yorubaland
Benin royal shrine, 1965
Balante village shrine, Guinea–Bissau, 1967
Assembly for public ritual of adult juniors of Karimojong, 1957
Assembly for public ritual of Karimojong elders, 1957
Small bronze figure representing an Alkan ancestor
Spanish witches in flight, with attendant owl: aquatint from Goya’s Caprichos
A medieval ‘Witches’ Sabbath’: woodcut by Hans Baldung–Grien, 1510
Missionary opinion from Seven Sevens of Years and a Jubilee:: a history of the S.I.M. by its founder
The bodies ‘spiritual’ and ‘nayural’ of Bishop Thomas Beckingham (d. 1464) on his tomb at Wells Cathedral, Somerset
The annual ‘pilgrimage’ at Rocia, Alicante, Spain
part one
Africa’s World
Behold, I have set the land before you. . . .
Deuteronomy 1.8
And ye shall divide the land . . . for an inheritance among your families . . . according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit.
Numbers XXXIII.54
1
‘Just plain nonsense. . . .’ and after
AT ONE OF THEIR GATHERINGS OF 1861 THE DISTINGUISHED Victorians of London’s Ethnographical Society found themselves with a delicate problem. They had invited a foreigner, a gentleman from France, to speak on travels through the unexplored forests of equatorial Africa. And why not? They were men who took pride in a liberal breadth of international outlook. Unfortunately this French gentleman, this M. du Chaillu for whom their shocked Transactions could afterwards find no Christian name, had not proved satisfactory. In discussing a horde of largely naked savages called the Mpongwe, M. du Chaillu had appeared to suggest that these natives might be other than they seemed. He had gone so far as to argue for certain redeeming features. He had even spoken with some respect of their religion.
It was understandable that the ethnographers should have felt a need to set matters right in the wake of such remarks. They lived in dangerous Darwinian years when the frontiers and even the foundations of proper and accepted belief had begun to take a serious buffeting. There were even moments, if you took a long view, when it seemed as though there were no longer any natural and reliable divide to save the members of the Ethnographical Society from a distant origin in beings so unfortunate as those they called the ‘tawny Bosjeman’ and the ‘leather-skinned Hottentot’. Carried to logical conclusions, such opinions could only be subversive of established law and order. Feeling that something must be done, the ethnographers called in Captain Richard Burton. He, they knew, could be relied upon to use his great authority in the proper way.
Captain Burton did not let them down. This already famous explorer began by offering a redeeming African feature to match M. du Chaillu’s. He opined that ‘an abnormal development of adhesiveness, in popular language a peculiar power of affection, is the brightest spot in the negro character’. Yet this was about as much as could sensibly be said for the natives he had known. M. du Chaillu, they must believe, had been lucky: he had run into a better lot than usual. Compared with them, however, there was the ‘superior degeneracy of the eastern tribes’, not to mention all the others one could think of. No doubt the Mpongwe might have some sort of religious belief. It might also be true that ‘the religion of the Africans is ever interesting to those of a