Wandering through Time and Place

Exploring the world with Curtis and Peggy Mekemson
  • About This Blog
  • Bios
  • Chapter from The Bush Devil Ate Sam
  • Five Reasons to Travel
  • Meet Bone: World Traveler, Fearless Adventurer, and Sex Symbol
  • Tag: Bush Devil

    • Bush Devils, Juju, and Lightning Men

      Posted at 5:00 am by Curt Mekemson
      May 25th
      Liberian Bush Devil photo by Curtis Mekemson.

      A Grebo Bush Devil, with his jaws open and teeth showing, was guest of honor at a Haight-Asbury party put on by Liberian Peace Corps Volunteers in 1967. I was quite surprised to find my photo from then being used by the Liberian Observer newspaper a few months ago. It is an interesting article.

      The book about my Peace Corps experience in West Africa, The Bush Devil Ate Sam, is now available in printed as well as digital form on Amazon. It’s taken a while to get the print copy. To celebrate, I decided to post a sample chapter from the book and feature the story that gave the book its name. Every month or so, I will post another chapter.

      Here is this month’s chapter:

      Sam, the young man who worked for us in Liberia, was enamored with western culture. It fired his imagination. He spent hours listening to the Kingston Trio get Charlie off the MTA and dove into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like a frog dives into water. Still, for all of his excitement about things modern, ancient African was an integral part of who he was. He had the scars to prove it. They marched down his chest in two neat rows.

      “How did you get those,” Jo (my former wife) asked with ten percent concern and ninety percent curiosity.

      “I can’t tell you,” Sam replied with obvious nervousness as Jo’s eyebrows rose. “But I can tell Mr. Mekemson.”

      Aha, I thought, Sam and I belong to the same organization, the Men’s Club! Actually Sam belonged to a very exclusive men’s organization, the Poro Society, which I wasn’t allowed to join. Its functions were to pass on tribal traditions, teach useful skills, and keep errant tribe members in line. Everything about the organization was hush-hush. Tribal members who revealed secrets could be banned and even executed.

      Political power on the local level was closely tied to membership in the Poro Society. On the national level, President Tubman assumed leadership of all Poro Societies in Liberia. Tribal women had a similar secret organization called the Sande Society, which prepared young women for adulthood and marriage. A controversial aspect of the Sande initiation ceremony was female genital mutilation— cutting off the clitoris.

      Sam got off easy.

      He had been to Bush School the previous summer and learned how to be a good Kpelle man. Graduation to adulthood consisted of an all-consuming encounter with the Poro Society’s Bush Devil. It ate him— metaphorically speaking. Sam was consumed as a child and spit out as a man. The scarification marks had been left by the devil’s ‘teeth.’ It seemed like a tough way to achieve adulthood, but at least it was fast and definitive. Maybe we should introduce the process to our kids in the US and skip the teenage years. Think of all of the angst it would avoid.

      The Bush Devil was a very important tribal figure who was part religious leader, part cultural cop and part political hack. Non-Kpelle types weren’t allowed to see him. When the Devil came to visit outlying villages, a frontman preceded him and ran circles around the local Peace Corps Volunteer’s house while blowing a whistle. The Volunteer was expected to go inside, shut the door, close the shutters and stay there. No peeking.

      We did get to see a Grebo Devil once. The Grebo Tribe was less secretive, or at least more mercenary. Some Peace Corps Volunteers had hired the local Devil for a Haight-Ashbury style African party. It was, after all, 1967, the “summer of love” in San Francisco and the “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” Along with several other Volunteers, we hired a money bus to get to the party. Had we been thinking, we would have painted the bus with Day-Glo, like Ken Kesey’s bus, Further.

      The Devil was all decked out in his regalia. His persona was somewhere between a voodoo nightmare and walking haystack. Grebo men scurried in front of him with brooms, clearing his path and grunting a lot. We stayed out of the way and took pictures.

      The Grebo men carefully tended the Bush Devil.

      The Grebo men carefully tended the Bush Devil.

      Another area where Sam showed his tribal side was his fear of the newly dead. A person’s spirit was considered particularly powerful and dangerous right after he or she died. Later, the spirit would move away into the bush and fade. But first it had to be tamed with appropriate mourning, an all-night bash. One didn’t take chances. When Sam worked late for us after someone had died, he would borrow a knife and a flashlight in case he had to fight off the malevolent ghost on his way home. I had grown up next to a graveyard and was sympathetic with his concern.

      Juju, or African witch doctor medicine, was another area where African reality varied from modern Western reality. Late one evening, in the middle of a tropical downpour, one of my high school students appeared on our doorstep very wet and very frightened. Mamadee Wattee was running for student body president. His opponent had purchased ‘medicine’ from a Juju man to make him sick.

      It was serious business; people were known to die in similar circumstances. Had the opposition slandered Mamadee or stuffed the ballot box, I could have helped, but countering a magic potion wasn’t taught at Berkeley, at least not officially. I took the issue to Mr. Bonal, the high school principal, and he dealt with it. Mamadee stayed well and won the election.

      The use of Juju medicine represents the darker side of tribal culture. Human body parts derived from ritual human sacrifice are reputed to be particularly effective in creating potions. Cannibalism may be involved. On the lighter side, my students once obtained a less potent ‘medicine’ and buried it under the goal post on the football (soccer) field with the belief that it would cause the other team to miss goals. Apparently, it wasn’t potent enough; the other team won.

      This is my senior class. Mamadee is second form the left. Later he would become an elementary school principal in New Jersey.

      This is my senior class. Mamadee is second from the left. Later he would become an elementary school principal in New Jersey.

      Mamadee was also the reason behind our introduction to the Lightning Man. When Jo and I went on vacation to East Africa, we left Mamadee with $50 to buy a 50-gallon drum of kerosene. When we returned there was neither kerosene nor $50, but Mamadee was sitting on our doorstep. Someone had stolen the money and Mamadee was extremely upset. Fifty dollars represented a month’s income for a Kpelle farmer. Mamadee’s father, a chief of the Kpelle tribe, was even more upset and wanted to assure us that his son had nothing to do with the missing fortune. It was a matter of honor. He offered to have Mamadee submit to the Lightning Man to prove his innocence.

      The Lightning Man had a unique power; he could make lighting strike whoever was guilty of a crime. If someone stole your cow or your spouse, zap! Since we were in the tropics, there was lots of lightning. Whenever anyone was struck, people would shake their heads knowingly. Another bad guy had been cooked; justice had been served.

      We didn’t believe Mamadee had taken the money, and even if he had, we certainly didn’t want him fried, or even singed. We passed on the offer. The Chief insisted on giving us $50 to replace the stolen money.

      Another Liberian Peace Corps Volunteer in a similar situation chose a different path. Here’s how the story was told to us. The Volunteer had just purchased a brand new $70 radio so he could listen to the BBC and keep track of what was happening in the world. The money represented close to half of the Volunteer’s monthly income. He had owned his new toy for two days when it disappeared.

      “I am going to get my radio back,” he announced to anyone who would listen and then walked into the village where he quickly gathered some of his students to take him to the Lightning Man. Off he and half the town went, winding through the rainforest to the Lighting Man’s hut. The Volunteer took out five dollars and gave it to the Lighting Man. (Lighting Men have to eat, too.)

      “I want you to make lighting strike whoever stole my radio,” he said.

      The Volunteer and his substantial entourage then returned home. By this time, everyone in the village knew about the trip, including, undoubtedly, the person who had stolen the radio.

      That night, there was a tremendous thunder and lightning storm. Ignoring for the moment that it was in the middle of the rainy season and there were always tremendous thunder and lightning storms, place yourself in the shoes of the thief who believed in the Lightning Man’s power. Each clap of thunder would have been shouting his name.

      In the morning the Volunteer got up, had breakfast and went out on his porch. There was his radio.

      NEXT BLOG: Wednesday’s photo essay.

      Posted in Peace Corps, Wandering The World | Tagged Bush Devil, Liberia, Lighting Man, Peace Corps, Peace Corps Liberia, Sam Quellie, The Bush Devil Ate Sam, writing
    • A Devilishly Hard Decision… The Title to My Peace Corps Africa Book

      Posted at 2:54 pm by Curt Mekemson
      Apr 8th
      Pat hay stack and part voodoo nightmare, a Liberian Bush Devil shuffles through the dirt toward me.

      A fading photo from 1967 captures a Liberian Bush Devil, part hay stack and part voodoo nightmare, as it shuffles toward me through the red laterite dirt.

      So, I’ve been struggling with the title of the book about my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. As part of the process, I asked for help from my fellow bloggers and friends.

      Step one included developing four options and providing backstories. Step two involved reviewing and summarizing the input.

      Now it’s my turn.

      I have two objectives for my title. First, it needs to be catchy. Unless people are familiar with an author or have recommendations from a trusted source (friend, author they enjoy, media), the first thing that leads them to choose a book is its title.

      Second, the title needs to reflect my Peace Corps Africa experience.

      For example, on the one level, The Dead Chicken Dance is about cutting the head off a chicken and watching it dance– slightly unusual and a little macabre. As such, the title might gain attention. But there was more. Early Peace Corps was struggling with how to prepare people to jump into another culture that was totally foreign to them. Killing, gutting, and plucking a chicken was guaranteed to provide trainees with a challenging experience that few of them had ever had but might face as a Volunteer. It’s a long ways between buying a pasty white, pre-packaged chicken in the grocery store and picking up a hatchet to cut the head off a feathered, clucking Henny Penny.

      The Bush Devil Ate Sam and The Lightning Man Strikes Again reflected two aspects of African culture that were quite real to tribal Liberians. Both of these titles were designed to capture attention, but they also represented the dramatically dissimilar world that tribal Liberians existed in. Understanding Liberia, in fact understanding much of Africa, depends upon recognizing these differences.

      How Boy the Bad Dog Ended Up in Soup represents a sharp break from our Western dog-centric world… of which I am very much a part. Dogs were a legitimate food source in Liberia. Students would tease me by coming by and pinching my cat, Rasputin. “Sweet meat, Mr. Mekemson” they would say while smacking their lips. They were cautious, however. Rasputin could take care of himself: “Pinch me once and I’ll squawk a warning. Pinch me twice and I’ll take off your finger.” As with each of my other titles,  there was more to the story with Boy than a gastronomical challenge.  It went beyond scary that soldiers would show up at my house in the middle of the night solely because the dog had eaten a guinea fowl.  It was strange with a strangeness that I would think of more than once when Liberia fell into the tragedy of its civil wars.

      As I noted when I summarized the responses on titles, each title received strong support but Boy received the fewest ‘votes.’ Part of this may because we are so dog centric. As one blogger observed, the title might turn people off. I get that.

      Support for the other three titles was evenly split. For me, it finally came down to either the Bush Devil or the Lightning Man. The Dead Chicken relayed an insight into early Peace Corps and cross-cultural challenges, but the other two did more to capture the Africa experience. Tossing a mental coin, I’m going with the Bush Devil. As my blogging friends James and Terri Gallivance, who have lived in Africa, noted: “We’re voting for The Bush Devil Ate Sam because we feel it embraces the mystery that is Africa.” The mystery that is Africa seems like a good place to start.

      On a more prosaic level, I am adding “And Other Peace Corps Tales of West Africa” as a subtitle because it is important to have both Peace Corps and Africa included. Next up: the cover. As soon as I develop examples, I’ll post them.

      NEXT BLOGs: Peggy and I will soon be heading into Nevada where I have several posts I am thinking about including 1) an art hotel in Reno created by Burners from Burning Man, 2) the remote town of Hawthorn with its history of being America’s primary ordnance depot (bunkers fill the desert), 3) the Extraterrestrial Highway and Area 51– subject of more conspiracy theories than there are people in Nevada, 4) Death Valley in the spring, 4) the Valley of Fire, 5) Red Rock Canyon, and 6) Las Vegas being Las Vegas. BUT, IN THE MEANTIME, I will post on another of my favorite petroglyph sites, Painted Rocks out of Yuma Arizona. I think I will also revisit the actual Big Foot trap about three miles from my home and see if Bigfoot is hanging out there. (It sort of goes along with the ET Highway.)

      Posted in Peace Corps | Tagged Africa, book on Peace Corps Liberia, Bush Devil, Lightning Man, Peace Corps, Peace Corps in Liberia, Peace Corps Tales of West Africa, The Bush Devil Ate Sam, West Africa
    • Chapter 25: The Bush Devil Ate Sam

      Posted at 5:57 am by Curt Mekemson
      Dec 29th

      Welcome to “The Dead Chicken Dance and Other Peace Corps Tales.” I am presently on a two month tour of the Mediterranean and other areas so I thought I would fill my blog space with one of the greatest adventures I have ever undertaken: a two-year tour as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. Every two days I will post a new story.

      When I have finished, I will publish the stories in digital and print book formats.

      The Bush Devil is a powerful figure within traditional Liberian Culture. This is a Bush Devil of the Grebo Tribe that visited a Peace Corps Haight-Ashbury Party Liberia circa 1967.

      The Bush Devil is a powerful figure within traditional Liberian Culture. This is a Bush Devil of the Grebo Tribe that visited a Peace Corps Haight-Ashbury Party Liberia circa 1967.

      Sam spent hours listening to our record player getting Charlie off the MTA and Tom Dooley hung. He lived between two cultures. Scars marched down his chest in two neat rows.

      “How did you get those,” Jo asked with 10 percent concern and 90 percent curiosity.

      “I can’t tell you,” Sam replied with obvious nervousness as Jo’s eyebrows rose. “But I can tell Mr. Mekemson.”

      “Aha,” I thought, “Sam and I belong to the same organization, the Men’s Club!” Actually Sam belonged to a very exclusive men’s organization, the Poro Society, which I wasn’t allowed to belong to either. Its functions were to pass on tribal traditions, teach useful skills, and keep errant tribe members in line. Everything about the organization was hush-hush. Tribal members who revealed secrets could be banned and even executed.

      Political power on the local level was closely tied to membership in the Poro Society. On the national level, President Tubman assumed leadership of all Poro Societies in Liberia.

      Tribal women had a similar secret organization to the Poro Society called the Sande Society, which prepared young women for adulthood and marriage. A rather controversial aspect of the Sande initiation ceremony was female genital mutilation, i.e. cutting off the clitoris.

      Sam got off easy.

      He had been to Bush School the previous summer and learned how to be a good Kpelle man. Graduation to adulthood consisted of an all-consuming encounter with the Poro Society’s Bush Devil.  It ate him. Sam went in as a child and was spit out as a man. The scarification marks had been left by the devil’s ‘teeth.’

      It seemed like a tough way to achieve adulthood but at least it was fast and definitive. Maybe we should introduce the process to our kids and skip the teenage years. Think of all of the angst it would avoid.

      Bush Devil was the missionary’s designation for a very important tribal figure who was part religious leader, part cultural cop and part political hack. Non-Kpelle types weren’t allowed to see him. When the Devil came to visit outlying villages he was preceded by a front man who ran circles around the local PCV’s house while blowing a whistle. The Volunteer was expected to go inside, shut the door, close the shutters and stay there. No peeking.

      We did get to see a Grebo Devil once. The Grebo Tribe was a little less secretive or at least more mercenary. Some Volunteers had hired the local Devil for an African style Haight-Ashbury Party. It was, after all, 1967, the “summer of love” in San Francisco and the “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”

      Local Peace Corps Volunteers hired a money-bus to take us to the Haight-Ashbury party. The bus sits in front of our house in this photo.

      Local Peace Corps Volunteers used a money-bus to take us to the Liberia Haight-Ashbury party in 1967. Here, the bus picks Jo Ann and I up at our house in Gbarnga. The rain forest lurks in the background.

      The Devil was all decked out in his regalia. Description-wise, I would say his persona was somewhere between a Voodoo nightmare and walking haystack. Grebo men scurried in front of him with brooms, clearing his path and grunting a lot.

      We stayed out of the way and took pictures.

      Another area where Sam showed his tribal side was in his fear of the newly dead. As I mentioned earlier, a person’s spirit was considered particularly powerful and dangerous right after he or she died. Later it would move away into the bush and fade. But first the spirit had to be tamed with appropriate mourning, an all night bash.

      One didn’t take chances. When Sam worked late for us after someone had died, he would borrow a knife and a flashlight in case he had to fight off the malevolent ghost on his way home. I grew up next to a graveyard and was sympathetic with his concern.

      In my next blog I will introduce the Lightning Man, a figure so powerful he could make lightning strike people.

      Posted in Peace Corps | Tagged adventure, Bush Devil, Liberia, Peace Corps, Peace Corps Liberia, Peace Corps Volunteer, West Africa
    • The Bush Devil Ate Sam

      Posted at 5:17 pm by Curt Mekemson
      Feb 14th

      (This travel blog is one of a continuing series where I relate my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the mid 60s in Liberia, West Africa honoring the Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary.)

      Joining the Peace Corps should come with a label like they put on cigarette packs. It would read “Warning: This experience may change your concept of reality.”

      Our vision of the world is perceived through culturally tinted glasses. Not surprisingly, the reality of our parents and our society becomes our reality. It’s hard to imagine life from any other perspective. Close encounters with other cultures can shake this vision but not easily. We wear our culture like bulletproof vests, rarely allowing a stray thought to enter. Or we focus so hard on extolling our own culture that we fail to learn valuable lessons another culture may teach us.

      One of the great values of the Peace Corps experience is the sensitivity and respect it teaches for the beliefs and values that other people hold. Often this leads to a greater appreciation of our own culture.

      There are definite risks involved in running headlong into another society, however. Culture shock is one. The environment may be so different that it becomes disorienting and may lead to depression. My transition from California to Liberia was relatively smooth. At first, Gbarnga didn’t seem significantly different from my old hometown of Diamond Springs. I suffered much greater shock going from Diamond Springs to UC Berkeley.

      Going native, or bush as it was called in Liberia, is another risk. A person becomes so enthralled with the new culture that he adopts it as his own. A joke circulated among West Africa Volunteers on how to determine if you were teetering on the edge.

      Phase One: You arrive in country and a fly lands in your coffee. You throw the coffee away, wash your cup and pour yourself     a new cup.

      Phase Two: You’ve been there a few months and a fly lands in your coffee. You carefully pick the fly out with your spoon and then drink the coffee.

      Phase Three: It’s been over a year and you have become a grizzled veteran. A fly lands in your coffee. You yank it out with           your fingers, squeeze any coffee it swallowed back into the cup, and then drink the coffee.

      Phase Four: You’ve been there too long. A fly lands in your coffee cup. You yank the fly out of the cup, pop it into your mouth     and throw the coffee away. It’s time to go home.

      If Peace Corps Volunteers had a hard time with culture shock and going bush, the tribal Liberians had a tougher one. Traditional cultures normally find their confrontations with the western world a losing proposition. It isn’t that our culture is so great; it’s just that our technology is so glitzy. How do you keep Flumo down on the farm when he has heard the taxi horn calling or climbed on the Internet?

      Gbarnga was on the frontier of cultural change in the 60s. On the surface, life appeared quite westernized. An occasional John Wayne movie even made it to town. My students would walk stiff-legged down the main street and do a great imitation of the Duke. They dreamed some day of traveling to America where they would swagger down dusty streets and knock off bad guys with their trusty six shooters.

      In town, loud speakers blared out music at decibel levels the Grateful Dead would have killed for while Lebanese shops pushed everything from Argentinean canned beef to London Dry Gin. The epitome of Americana, a Coca Cola sign, dominated the road as you left town on the way to Ganta and Guinea.

      We had enough US-based churches to satisfy Pat Robertson. Missionaries were everywhere. Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and numerous other Christian groups worked the streets in unending competition to recruit African souls.

      Sometimes, if I closed my eyes and pretended, I could almost believe I was home. Almost. Then Africa would whip around and bite me.

      Sure, the local villagers would dutifully file in to church on Sunday morning and pray for blessings like their western counterparts did but Sunday afternoon would find them out sacrificing a chicken to make sure God got the message. And yes, the Coca Cola sign was there but next to it was a giant Cottonwood with offerings to the spirit that lived inside the tree.

      Sam, the young Liberian who worked for us and spent hours listening to our record player getting Charley off the MTA, was another case in point. Scarification marks marched down his chest in two neat rows.

      “How did you get those,” my ex-wife Jo Ann asked with 10 percent concern and 90 percent curiosity.

      “I can’t tell you,” Sam replied with obvious nervousness as Jo’s eyebrows rose. “But I can tell Mr. Mekemson.”

      “Aha,” I thought, “Sam and I belong to the same organization, the Men’s Club!” Actually Sam belonged to a very exclusive men’s organization, the Poro Society. Its function was to pass on tribal traditions and keep errant tribe members in line. The women had a similar organization called the Sande Society.

      Sam had been to Bush School the previous summer and learned how to be a good Kpelle man. Graduation to adulthood consisted of an all-consuming encounter with the Poro Society’s Bush Devil.  It ate him. Sam went in as a child and was spit out as a man. The scarification marks had been left by the devil’s ‘teeth.’

      It seemed like a tough way to achieve adulthood but at least it was fast and definitive. Maybe we should introduce the process to our kids and skip the teenage years. Think of all of the angst it would avoid.

      Bush Devil was the missionary’s designation for a very important tribal figure who was part religious leader, part cultural cop and part political hack. Non-Kpelle types weren’t allowed to see him. When the Devil visited outlying villages, a front man came first and ran circles around the local Peace Corps Volunteer’s home while blowing a whistle. The Volunteer was expected to go inside, shut the door, close the shutters and stay there. No peeking.

      We did get to see a Grebo Bush Devil once. The Grebo Tribe was a little less secretive or at least more mercenary than the Kpelle. Some Volunteers had hired the local Devil for an African style Haight-Ashbury Party. The Devil was all decked out in his regalia. Description-wise, I would say his persona was somewhere between a Voodoo nightmare and walking haystack. Grebo men scurried in front of him with brooms, clearing his path and grunting a lot.

      We stayed out of the way and took pictures.

      While the Bush Devil and the Sassywood Man I blogged about last week seem foreign and even threatening to the Western mind, the truth is that they played an important role in maintaining order within the tribal culture.

      Next up: If somebody steals your dog, car or wife, who do you call: The Lightning Man!

      Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged Bush Devil, culture shock, Gbarnga Liberia, going native, Peace Corps 50th Anniversary, Poro Society, travel blog, West Africa
    • Bush Devil Ate Sam

      The Bush Devil Ate Sam is an important record and a serious story, yet told easily, and with delightful humor. This is one of the most satisfying books I have ever read, because it entertained me thoroughly AND made me feel better informed. —Hilary Custance Green: British Author... Click on the image to learn more about my book, the Bush Devil Ate Sam, and find out where it can be ordered.

    • Special Thanks to Word Press for featuring my blog and to my readers and followers. You are all appreciated.

    • Top Posts & Pages

      • The Starfish of Harris Beach State Park, Oregon
      • A Close-Encounter with a Train... Plus
      • First Grade Flunkee… Growing Up in a Graveyard
      • Truth Is Beauty: A 55-Foot Tall Woman... Burning Man 2013
      • Watson Lake: A Forest of 70,000 Signs… North to Alaska
      • New Mexico’s Three Rivers Petroglyph Site… Where Art Rocks
      • Sixty Thousand Bikes… Burning Man 2012
      • Highway 191: National Parks and Navajos... The Backroad Series
      • The Ghostly Town of Bodie: Part II... The Highway 395 Series
      • How in the Heck Do You Pronounce Kirkcudbright?
    • RSS Feed

      • RSS - Posts
      • RSS - Comments
    • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

      Join 8,555 other followers

    • Thanks for stopping by.

      • 612,936 Visitors
    • Categories

      • At Home in Oregon
      • Burning Man
      • Essays
      • Genealogy
      • Memoirs
      • MisAdventures
      • Miscellaneous
      • National Parks
      • On the Road US
      • Outdoor Adventures
      • Peace Corps
      • Uncategorized
      • Wandering The World

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×