The Mende

Raymond Hames Author

08/30/2017 Added

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Anthropology Video for ANTH 212

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[00:00:00.167](contemplative flute music)
[00:00:09.477](upbeat rhythmic percussion music)
[00:00:18.637](singing in foreign language)
[00:00:28.157]On the west coast of Africa
[00:00:29.588]between Liberia and Guinea lies Sierra Leone,
[00:00:32.714]and in land half a day's walk from the nearest market town,
[00:00:35.993]at the dead end of a dirt track,
[00:00:37.600]there, where footpaths snake off
[00:00:39.060]into the rainforest, is the village of Kpuawala.
[00:00:46.705]Between 1984 and 1986, an anthropologist, Mariane Ferme,
[00:00:50.950]lived and farmed in the village.
[00:00:52.920]She returned with us in April, 1990, to help make this film,
[00:00:56.850]a collaboration in which she often had to ask simple
[00:00:59.053]and naive questions as we fumbled our way
[00:01:01.225]to some understanding of the village.
[00:01:03.515]Usually we agreed the general direction of the film.
[00:01:05.877]Sometimes we didn't.
[00:01:07.074](children cheering)
[00:01:15.528](all singing in foreign language)
[00:01:58.756]This is a portrait of Kpuawala,
[00:02:00.411]a village of about 260 Mende people
[00:02:03.176]living in a clearing in the forest
[00:02:04.583]in houses of mud, brick and tin.
[00:02:07.001]Like any village portrait, it shows successful citizens
[00:02:09.861]and unlucky ones, clowns and gossips,
[00:02:12.383]happy households and divided ones.
[00:02:14.830]We spent Ramadan here, the Muslim month of fasting,
[00:02:18.061]and quickly began to feel we could recognize people
[00:02:20.249]and patterns of behavior found in any village.
[00:02:23.496]But day-by-day differences emerged.
[00:02:25.853]The things we and the Mende could all see,
[00:02:27.944]we saw in different ways, and the Mende saw
[00:02:30.308]things we couldn't see at all.
[00:02:37.697]Every person in Kpuawala belongs to one of 10 households.
[00:02:41.043]At the head of each is a man who
[00:02:42.317]appears to hold complete authority.
[00:02:43.855](baby crying)
[00:02:45.043]One of the most successful is Bockari Carpenter.
[00:02:47.648]We decided to start with him as
[00:02:49.202]a model for the whole village.
[00:02:50.934]We asked him to name the members of his household.
[00:03:53.877]All these people have some call on Bockari.
[00:03:56.361]He is responsible for them, and they in turn have
[00:03:58.857]responsibilities to the household.
[00:04:00.675](people socializing)
[00:04:11.479]In the heat of the day, Kpuawala is almost deserted.
[00:04:15.124]Whole households have decamped
[00:04:16.477]to their clearings in the forest.
[00:04:18.695]These are private family working places off narrow paths
[00:04:22.277]and have names of faraway places like Waterloo and Italy,
[00:04:25.286]ironically exaggerating their distance from the village.
[00:04:28.545](woman singing in foreign language)
[00:04:33.247]In Bockari Carpenter's clearing,
[00:04:34.926]we asked how he got his family to work for him.
[00:05:06.331](woman singing in foreign language)
[00:05:13.496]At dusk, Bockari and
[00:05:14.737]his family return to the village.
[00:05:16.469](people socializing)
[00:06:20.713](people socializing)
[00:06:41.415]Uyia isn't being awkward.
[00:06:42.915]She's trying to talk with a quid of tobacco in her cheek.
[00:07:28.797]Bockari is a prosperous man,
[00:07:30.579]but his prosperity is in the number
[00:07:32.277]and vigor of his household, not in assets.
[00:07:34.930]They produce a lot and eat a lot.
[00:07:36.624]There's no backup.
[00:07:38.078]If the harvest fails, they are as precariously placed
[00:07:40.839]as everyone else in the village.
[00:07:43.226]Now, at the end of the dry season, everyone is
[00:07:45.145]anxiously waiting to burn their newly cleared farms.
[00:07:47.995]They must burn before the rainy season sets in.
[00:07:50.330]That's essential for the next harvest cycle.
[00:08:19.152](family socializing)
[00:08:30.707]Food lies at the very
[00:08:31.876]heart of what matters to a family.
[00:08:33.736]Ask Massa what she likes about Bockari
[00:08:35.976]and she will say, "He gives us food."
[00:08:38.496]This isn't unduly calculating.
[00:08:40.251]In a place where you might not eat, the statement,
[00:08:42.598]"He is a good husband, he feeds his family," can carry
[00:08:45.236]with it the power and warmth of a declaration of love.
[00:08:50.507]As one of the most prosperous farmers,
[00:08:52.068]Bockari attracts envy.
[00:08:53.465]There are rumors that his success comes
[00:08:55.117]from bargains he has struck with spirit forces.
[00:08:57.621]We asked him if it was true that
[00:08:58.784]people invoked supernatural powers.
[00:09:21.316](all laughing)
[00:09:26.702]Behind where Bockari
[00:09:28.002]eats and sleeps is the big house.
[00:09:29.794]This is the women's domain.
[00:09:31.720]In every household, it is where
[00:09:32.928]the wives and mothers-in-law, children
[00:09:34.631]and foster children, nursing daughters
[00:09:36.563]and daughters-in-law and their babies all live.
[00:10:43.651](all laughing)
[00:11:27.969](all laughing)
[00:13:34.472](rooster crowing)
[00:13:37.976]Up early to film the mosque,
[00:13:39.480]we passed a house we didn't know
[00:13:41.210]and overheard the tail end of a row.
[00:13:43.270]No privacy in the village.
[00:13:53.721]During the month of Ramadan,
[00:13:55.336]the devout and fit rise before dawn
[00:13:56.983]to pray and fast during the daylight hours.
[00:14:12.150]There is a clarity about Bockari Carpenter
[00:14:14.320]and his humming family activity that serves
[00:14:16.673]as a model but is not universal.
[00:14:18.851]Most people do not have as many wives and direct family.
[00:14:21.840]When they have heavy work to be done, they must call
[00:14:24.091]on more distant family and friends for help.
[00:14:32.898](fruits clacking)
[00:14:42.214]In another clearing in another
[00:14:43.605]part of the forest, we met Fati.
[00:14:45.689]She is not working for her husband at his family clearing,
[00:14:48.537]but has come with her baby to Selu's clearing.
[00:14:50.928]He needs oil in a hurry and doesn't have wives to help him.
[00:14:55.357](pole thudding) (Selu singing)
[00:15:08.988](water splashes)
[00:16:44.776](people socializing)
[00:17:03.036]We heard a distant and surprising noise.
[00:17:05.601](motorbike rumbling)
[00:17:08.167]We learnt this man was a development official come,
[00:17:10.646]not for the first time, to reclaim payment for a rice loan.
[00:17:53.006](all laughing)
[00:18:13.037]Aduli's wives are accusing him
[00:18:14.663]of wanting to eat his daughter's baby.
[00:18:16.776]He insists he was only demanding
[00:18:18.292]that she should go to work in the family clearing.
[00:18:20.578]Perhaps eating babies is a turn of phrase.
[00:18:23.271]First the row at dawn and now this,
[00:18:25.567]the village is a very public place.
[00:19:16.461](engine rumbling)
[00:19:28.594]Aduli didn't get his own way, modifying
[00:19:30.720]our simple picture of powerful men and acquiescent wives.
[00:19:34.030]And had they really meant he would eat his own grandchild?
[00:19:36.830]No, they meant he had a witch spirit inside him who would.
[00:19:41.218]The rice man failed once more to collect
[00:19:43.233]his rice, leaves promising to return.
[00:19:45.778]The startling sound of his little motorbike fades.
[00:19:51.205]Away from the village, more ordinary life continues.
[00:19:56.897](women socializing)
[00:21:29.151](all laughing)
[00:22:40.761]Monjama leaves for the village.
[00:22:42.774]She is the only wife of Sylvester,
[00:22:44.414]a man in early middle age.
[00:22:46.310]His best friend, Braima, also has only one wife.
[00:22:49.498]It can take a man years to accumulate the wherewithal
[00:22:51.881]to marry and years more to get a second wife.
[00:25:37.367](lively percussion music)
[00:25:38.686](women singing in foreign language)
[00:25:43.961]We had now learnt that the rice man
[00:25:45.612]was an official from the government seed rice loan scheme,
[00:25:48.467]and that about 20 Kpuawala farmers had taken the loan,
[00:25:51.151]agreeing to pay back the seed rice from their harvest.
[00:25:53.762]Four had defaulted.
[00:25:55.563]The first one we found, Bessay,
[00:25:57.082]a serious and hard-working man, took it seriously.
[00:26:00.340]He explained that his father-in-law had
[00:26:01.830]also borrowed but had been unable to repay.
[00:26:04.654]By Mende rules, Bessay was responsible.
[00:26:06.993]He had paid back his father-in-law's debt
[00:26:08.857]and was now almost able to cover his own.
[00:26:11.601]The next defaulter, Selu, agreed he owed rice,
[00:26:14.339]said he would pay it back but laughed as he said it.
[00:26:17.971]Third, Abdu, husband to Fati, who we had talked to
[00:26:20.516]about bedbugs and Mende food in the clearing,
[00:26:23.195]Abdu's reason for default were arresting.
[00:26:25.626]His entire rice crop had failed,
[00:26:27.483]not due to natural causes, he said, but as an omen.
[00:26:30.397]Someone would die, in this case, his aunt.
[00:26:33.176]And though he didn't deny taking the rice,
[00:26:35.219]he felt the victim of higher forces
[00:26:36.706]and lacked enthusiasm for repayment.
[00:26:40.243]Fourth and largest culprit, Joe Braima,
[00:26:42.768]had left the village some time before our arrival,
[00:26:45.064]guilty of unspecified misbehavior.
[00:26:47.561]It seemed he had a track record of default,
[00:26:49.639]and when the rice man had asked
[00:26:50.716]if it was worth hanging on for Joe,
[00:26:51.995]there had been general laughter.
[00:26:54.205]Surprisingly, Joe had come back
[00:26:55.557]to the village for our arrival celebration
[00:26:57.685]under his performing name of Joe Kai, Joe the Snake,
[00:27:00.768]though once the festivities were over, he had vanished.
[00:27:03.931]The rice man's chances didn't look too good.
[00:27:07.270]Fati's husband, Abdu, was pretty
[00:27:08.809]uninterested in the subject of rice.
[00:27:10.792]But he perked up considerably when Mariane asked him
[00:27:12.720]for news of Jina, a woman who had also left the village.
[00:27:16.094]Jina was the wife of Mussa, nickname Bad Night,
[00:27:18.879]Abdu's brother, another performer
[00:27:20.699]at the welcome celebrations.
[00:27:22.298](rhythmic percussion music)
[00:27:24.824](man singing in foreign language)
[00:30:07.611]We had thought at first
[00:30:08.764]that "selling Mussa to be eaten" was a figure of speech.
[00:30:11.759]According to him, it was not.
[00:30:15.080]But Mussa had a second wife, Hawa,
[00:30:16.823]to console him after Jina's treachery.
[00:30:19.118]Unfortunately, all was not well.
[00:30:21.205]The dawn row we had overheard was about Mussa and Hawa.
[00:31:36.013](all singing in foreign language)
[00:31:37.227]There was more to it.
[00:31:38.289]Mussa had decided to take a third wife,
[00:31:40.295]a teenage girl, Miatta.
[00:31:42.216]He was working to help his parents initiate her
[00:31:44.346]into Sande, the women's society.
[00:31:46.723]By Mende rules, Mussa expected Hawa to welcome a new wife.
[00:31:50.213]He expected her to help with the extra
[00:31:51.672]work needed to cover the costs.
[00:31:53.793]By Mende rules as well, a wife is not supposed
[00:31:56.039]to be jealous, not even to know the meaning of the word.
[00:33:00.001](girls laughing)
[00:33:23.223](girls laughing)
[00:33:47.005](girls laughing)
[00:34:02.817]One of the elders
[00:34:03.868]in Kpuawala's Sande society is Mama Kayma.
[00:34:17.804](rhythmic percussion music)
[00:34:47.780](rhythmic percussion music)
[00:36:00.303](lively percussion music)
[00:36:02.666]Mende men have their own society, too,
[00:36:04.702]the Poro, secret from the women.
[00:36:06.868]Poro is about the use and control of men's potency
[00:36:09.158]and power over people and place.
[00:36:11.783]These men have a palm wine drinking session dawn and dusk.
[00:36:14.938]It's not surprising to find women are excluded,
[00:36:16.815]but it would be a mistake to take it
[00:36:18.158]simply as locker room chauvinism.
[00:36:20.260]Here, there is a deeper division between the sexes.
[00:36:22.812]Each side holds knowledge and power
[00:36:24.514]that can and does frighten the other.
[00:36:58.658](thunder rumbling)
[00:37:16.837](men singing in foreign language)
[00:37:53.973]Back in the village, the devout are at prayer.
[00:37:56.099]The rest catch up on the day's news.
[00:37:58.458]This particular hammock house favored
[00:38:00.158]for evening meetings is called the BBC,
[00:38:02.981]a perplexingly wry tribute to the world service.
[00:38:06.004]The men rock and gossip.
[00:38:19.417]We had been in the village for almost a month.
[00:38:21.437]Ramadan would be over the next day.
[00:38:23.607]Later, the women would fish for the
[00:38:25.012]feast of Watube that marks its end.
[00:38:27.453]There had been no rain for three days.
[00:38:29.566]The Master Farmer decided to burn.
[00:38:31.938](people socializing)
[00:38:44.136](fire crackling)
[00:39:02.109](men whooping and cheering)
[00:39:20.633](people socializing)
[00:39:44.573](water splashing)
[00:40:03.248]But almost as soon as they got into the water,
[00:40:05.187]there was a sense of deflation.
[00:40:07.014]The women couldn't get amongst the fish
[00:40:08.975]and got irritable with the children
[00:40:10.385]who had just come along for the splash.
[00:40:42.996]The rice man, a kindly soul, saves his old
[00:40:45.274]engine oil for the village women, who use it on their hair.
[00:40:48.767]As for repayment of rice, he has drawn a blank again.
[00:40:51.856]Worse, the Master Farmer has washed his hands of the matter.
[00:40:55.026]The threat of withholding rice
[00:40:56.342]from the whole village had no apparent effect.
[00:40:58.675]I wondered how he felt.
[00:41:00.178]We get fed up.
[00:41:02.355]I mean, it's actually hard,
[00:41:05.622]especially at this time of the year when
[00:41:11.317]fuel, getting fuel has
[00:41:15.369]become a problem for us.
[00:41:20.314]The government is only entitled
[00:41:21.645]to give us 30 liters a month.
[00:41:24.047]That is one liter per day.
[00:41:26.728]You must like your job then.
[00:41:29.325]Pardon me? Do you like your job then?
[00:41:31.235]I do like it.
[00:41:35.287]Personally, I like the job.
[00:41:38.231]Otherwise, I give up. (chuckles)
[00:41:42.794](bird chirping)
[00:41:45.563]Of the four defaulters,
[00:41:46.971]only Bessay had paid up.
[00:41:48.727]Abdu and Selu still said they would, but not yet.
[00:41:51.750]And the main culprit, Joe Braima, was still missing.
[00:41:54.817]We had learnt that his other problem in the village
[00:41:56.659]was the nonpayment of a hefty fine incurred for deflowering
[00:41:59.709]an initiated but as yet unmarried woman.
[00:42:02.327]We also learnt that as well as being known as Joe Braima
[00:42:04.587]and Joe Snake, he was also known as Joe Let's Have A Party.
[00:42:08.779]We passed messages to him through an intermediary
[00:42:11.388]and went looking for him on his farm some way
[00:42:13.493]from the village, but like the rice man, we drew a blank.
[00:42:39.976](people socializing)
[00:44:04.528]We had remarked the boy Koje
[00:44:06.044]as son of Bockari Carpenter from the start.
[00:44:08.497]He was very active and cheerful
[00:44:10.065]and sometimes came and helped us carry our gear.
[00:44:12.633]But it was only now that we learnt that Koje, his nickname,
[00:44:15.457]was the name of an ominous rock spirit.
[00:44:18.165]We passed Koje on the way home.
[00:44:20.087]I wanted to talk to him.
[00:44:21.569]Mariane did not.
[00:44:23.000]She thought there was a danger of placing
[00:44:24.704]undue significance on the accusation.
[00:44:26.881]He had been only one amongst several
[00:44:28.455]reasons suggested for the poor catch.
[00:44:30.425]She also thought it would frighten the boy.
[00:44:32.902]I felt it was a remarkable opportunity.
[00:44:35.052]All the talk of the supernatural, hearsay and gossip,
[00:44:37.849]and here was a small boy actual who they were saying
[00:44:40.666]sometimes housed a witch spirit.
[00:44:42.933]I also thought that because spirits were commonplace here,
[00:44:45.499]we would not frighten him if we took care.
[00:44:48.281]Mariane and I could not agree, but as only she spoke Mende,
[00:44:51.391]we couldn't and didn't talk to him.
[00:44:54.342](people socializing)
[00:45:51.971]Initiation is suspended during Ramadan.
[00:45:54.498]Mussa told us that he and Miata
[00:45:56.017]would marry the moment she was initiated,
[00:45:57.987]and that they would live together
[00:45:59.183]happily ever after in Kpuawala.
[00:46:01.240]He had spent so much time and effort,
[00:46:03.260]suffered so many dangers and disappointments
[00:46:05.227]on the marriage trail, why did he keep going?
[00:46:37.318](motorbike rumbling)
[00:46:38.333]The rice man leaves
[00:46:39.398]determined to prosecute Joe the Snake.
[00:46:41.552]He'll have to find him first.
[00:46:43.269]For the rest, he is disappointed but not surprised.
[00:46:45.871]A Mende himself, he knows that any loan scheme
[00:46:47.944]can only fit Kpuawala imperfectly.
[00:46:50.060]In the Mende world, where a whole crop can
[00:46:51.920]be hijacked by an omen, life is just too unpredictable.
[00:47:44.787]Sylvester and Braima, like all Mende,
[00:47:46.734]have an exceptional knowledge of rice farming.
[00:47:49.017]And side-by-side with the natural world
[00:47:51.009]with which they have to deal, they recognize
[00:47:52.787]a supernatural one as omnipresent and as mundane.
[00:47:55.912](people socializing)
[00:48:02.695]The supernatural affects farming and fishing.
[00:48:05.072]It comes into family arguments
[00:48:06.543]and explains why the palm wine is strong.
[00:48:08.851]In Kpuawala, the magical is part
[00:48:10.478]of the ordinary, and in Kpuawala,
[00:48:12.182]the ordinary can have in it the extraordinary.
[00:48:14.928]The deep feeling that Massa felt for her husband, Bockari,
[00:48:17.681]expressed in terms of him providing food,
[00:48:20.369]the passion in the voice of Braima next,
[00:48:22.765]he is talking of the deepest love,
[00:48:24.829]though he describes the most common place.
[00:48:27.105]The question, what is a love wife?
[00:49:31.192](lively percussion music)
[00:49:32.672](people singing in foreign language)
[00:50:06.215](people shouting and cheering)

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The Mende

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