The one-hour daily news broadcast on a government donated radio, which frequently announced America’s bombings in the Vietnam war also scared villagers. Some believed that John belonged to the CIA and was only posing as an anthropologist and was planning to give the maps to the U.S. government in order to bomb their village. KutuKutu’s father solved this problem by tearing up the maps into tiny fragments in front of all the villagers.
John’s fieldwork revealed that the main African influence in Langatabiki were religious beliefs, rituals, and sacred items brought from West Africa. This religious culture was challenged by Western missionaries and their converts in the village and John found he needed to participate in both religions in order to understand the larger culture. When John admitted he didn’t believe in or pray to a God, many villages believed he prayed to the devil; this stymied their willingness to speak with him. Only when John participated in a possession ritual in which he was cleared of any evil spiritual presence and attended church services was he more wholeheartedly accepted in the village. His subsequent participation in both the Protestant church and the African rituals was central to his documentation of Africa in the Amazon.
As months passed, John became more deeply a part of Pamakan society but he was also seared by loneliness as he understood how different he was from the larger community. He took on masculine chores like cutting logs in the forest, which helped him gain ground as a real Pamakan. After helping out in an important church event, the pastor gave a speech reminding the villagers how close John was to the Pamakan people. He ended his speech by reminding them that every man must have a woman and that John did not have one. He then invited the audience to help John find a Pamakan woman so he could truly be part of their culture. John had studied gender relations among the Pamakans but had not formed any female relationships and knew he would have to tread carefully.
I don’t want to spoil the surprise ending but do want to emphasize that John’s now intimate Pamakan relationships taught him the meaning of life in a culture totally different from his own. Through Brother Mambo’s memoir, we can achieve the same essential understanding in a constantly globalizing and changing world.
©2022 Serena Nanda for SeniorWomen.com
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