A Plague of Caterpillars: A Return to the African Bush

The Innocent Anthropologist #2

by Nigel Barley

Nigel Barley returns to Cameroon on hearing that the elaborate and fearsome Dowayo circumcision ceremony, performed at six or seven year intervals, is about to take place. Yet, like much else in this hilarious book by the author of The Innocent Anthropologist, the circumcision ceremony proves frustratingly elusive, partly because of an extraordinary plague of black, hairy caterpillars.

In the meantime, witchcraft fills the Cameroonian air, a man is lied to by his own foot and an earnest German traveller shows explicit birth-control propaganda to the respectable tribespeople. Beneath the joy and shared laughter in this comic masterpiece lies skilful and wise reflection on the problems facing people of different cultures as they try to understand one another.

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction, Travel, Anthropology, Cameroon, Biography, Comedy

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Born 1947. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Ba...

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

Nigel Barley described his first research visit to the Dowayo of northern Cameroon in The Innocent Anthropologist. The Dowayo were (and hopefully still are) a pagan tribe in a mountainous region of the country whose geography sheltered them to some extent from the slave raids of the Muslim Fulani people and later the colonial rule of the Germans and then the French. They came across as having a well developed sense of the ridiculous, although perhaps this was an unexpected result of having this white, British, anthropologist living among them asking crazy questions about their daily lives. The chief had a square hut built for Barley in his own compound to distinguish it from their own round huts, and since white people are witchcraft proof or at least were considered so among the Dowayo, had a beer bottle perched ceremonially at the apex of the thatched roof rather than the traditional witch protection devices. One of the first things that Barley learnt in northern Cameroon was the importance of the beer bottle, since you could not buy a bottled beer without giving the bartender an empty, this was not an empty gesture.

Anyhow despite various adventures Barley never got to see the circumcision ritual of the Dowayo. The tribe have a rite of male circumcision to mark the transition between being a wet, smelly, and therefore female-like, boy into becoming a dry, differently smelly, adult man. Since the rite is held roughly once every six to seven years the candidates for circumcision cover a wide age range. All those circumcised on the same occasion are regarded as being brothers and are expected to help one another and are obliged to laugh and joke together. The women have an equivalent notion of menstruation sisters with the same social obligations for all those who began menstruating at the same time. Hearing that the Dowayo were about to hold their circumcision rite Barley returned to visit them and witness the event as an anthropological observer and since circumcision can be a sore subject, particularly for the squeamish, I will proceed in spoiler text to protect tender consciousnesses.

The Dowayo circumcision rite is to peel the entire length of the penis rather than simply to remove the foreskin. If the candidate is too young this can cause the penis to swell into a roughly spherical shape which may, in Barley’s opinion, contribute towards the low birth rate of the tribe. Since the procedure is carried out without antiseptics some of the circumcised die from infections as a result. This is euphemistically referred to as being killed by a leopard. French colonial authorities were concerned with how many young men were killed by leopards and somewhat mystified given how rare leopards were in the region. Modern civil authorities in the area are dominated by the Muslim Fulani who regard the removal of the foreskin as a civilising, modern practise and fund health workers to carry this out with sterile equipment and to liberally douse the cut penis afterwards with alcohol to avoid infection. And if this wasn’t enough for the unlucky young man this is viewed by the tribe as a completely inadequate practise requiring him to be circumcised properly on a later occasion. all of which reminds me of the ancient Greeks who exercised nearly naked. Although grown men would get misty eyed and weak at the knees seeing naked youths, their days would be completely spoiled by the sight of the glans of the penis poking out even a little from within the foreskin. So the practise was to tie up the tip of the penis with a neat little bow to prevent such unseemliness. As Greek culture spread into the middle-east there were numbers of circumcised men who although wanting very much to partake in exercise found themselves excluded due to their physical condition – fortunately for them the medicine of the age had an answer – an operation to cleverly cut the penis in such a way as to create a kind of ersatz foreskin which they could then tie up with a bow like all the other Greek men to protect the eyes of all the men from the frightful sight of the penis glans. The measures that people will undertake to belong socially are incredible

Anyhow the Dowayo don’t practise female circumcision, but they have heard about it. At one point a delegation of elders asks Barley to tell them about it, which to the accompaniment of diagrams, I tried to explain the basic possibilities to a fascinated but sceptical audience. They shook their heads and pointed to the marks in the dust, amazed at the perversity of other peoples. ‘But does it not hurt?’ they asked, as if unaware of the agonies inflicted on boys by their own practices (p53)

This leads Barley to recall other similar rites of passage such as boring holes through the penis, or cutting in such a way that it will open out like a flower when erect and wondering why so many cultures have taken a sharp edge to the penis rather than to say, remove the nipple, which since it is functionally useful for women would be more logical to remove if one wanted to signal the transition into manhood. By the by, because of the nature of their circumcision practise, young men occasionally died as a result, because the whole practise was not discussed openly such young men were described euphemistically as having been killed by leopards, the French colonial authorities however interpreted this literally and were much confused as the number of 'leopard' related deaths seemed to be out of all proportion to numbers of leopards. Anyway to get back to the story at which point he hears that men of the Ninga tribe do not have nipples and he sets off to investigate the results of this investigation are very amusing involving goats and a financially astute dwarf chief .

But all the forgoing is in any case not very relevant because of a plague of black, hairy, caterpillars

The book is a series of humorous anecdotes that on reflection reveal layers of anthropological investigation. If the behaviour of the Dowayo is strange – women weave baskets, but not cloth while men weave cloth, but not baskets – so is the behaviour of the other groups of people around them and by implication ultimately that of Barley himself who left, as he tells the Dowayo, his own village and millet fields to see how the Dowayo live. It is interesting to see how Barley fails to understand for some time the role of debt as a social glue in which paying off a debt in full is not the object of the exercise and how his own unconscious cultural assumption horrify his hosts – an attempt to say a toast and to christen a teapot are understood as the beginning of a curse and of implying that the person who gave him the teapot was planning some act of witchcraft respectively. The act of observing the way of life of others forces Barley to see his own culture from the outside and to admit that it is also a bit odd.

The missionaries, the Peace Corp, the government officials of the state of Cameroon, the UK research funding council all have their own rites and norms of behaviour none of which serve to make life easier but are self sustaining and apparently even meaningful for the people involved in them. For example a Peace Corp project to establish fish ponds as a source of cheap protein succeeds in increasing the incidence of waterborne diseases by 500%, while proposals to introduce piped water into the nearest town will strike at the cycle of infectious diseases but also at the traditional authority of the rain chief. A UN team show up at the Dowayo village to show a film about the dangers of malaria which serves to attract a cloud of mosquitoes to feed on the audience.

Still that sounds solemn, a wrong note in a book that I found very funny given Barley’s relationships with apes and monkeys – one of which escapes from a zoo, settles in his lap and refuses to be parted from him even when he goes to the cinema, or how an emergency repair was carried out on his broken (false) teeth involving epoxy resin, a hairdryer and an oven.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting a serious book on Anthropology, instead I got a fantastically funny book about an Anthropologist and his mis-adventures whilst living with the Dowayo tribe. He travels to Cameroon to witness the Dowayo circumcision ceremony, which is far more brutal than you could possibly imagine, I cringed big time whilst the procedure was explained. One thing after another the book ends with a mini adventure to finally see if the ceremony is going to go ahead or not.

Each chapter is a short bit on people Nigel meets and apes that he takes to the cinema (the highlight of the book for me). Nigel has great skill at narrating these little episodes and his internal dialogue as he deals with craziness from locals is guaranteed to give the reader a chuckle. At 140 pages I thought this was going to be a weak book but it is just the right length, any longer and it would feel that things were being dragged out.

Yet again Eland Publishing have sourced another great writer to publish.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018...

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having failed to see the circumcision ceremony which marks the men of the Dowayo tribe transition from child to adulthood when he was there previously, Barley hears that it is due shortly to take place. Hot-footing it out to Cameroon again, he heads back to the village to see if he can witness this first hand. Re-installed in his square hut, that has been carefully ‘guarded’ by Zuuldibo, he picks up life there once again. It was almost like he had never been away, the friendly familiar faces popped by hoping for him to be a generous as he was the first time he visited…

However, details on the wince-inducing process of circumcision, like where it was going to take place and when, are very elusive so whilst waiting for the nod that it was on, he finds other things to do to fill the time. One on the list to do was a visit to the neighbouring Ninga tribe. It was said that the men did not have any nipples, but he felt that he needed to see this for himself and to endeavour to elicit some of the reasons behind this practice. However, his assistant, Matthieu continued to advise against travelling to this other village, but he persisted and finally got to meet the chief. He understood Barley’s desire to learn the customs of the village, but payment would be required; perhaps a large sum of francs for a goat?

This mini-adventure along with taking a primate to the cinema, the possibilities of solar power, a novel repair to his teeth, seeing the response of the village when the UN showed a short film about the perils of malaria and the influx of insects that gave the book its title. It has the same sharp wit of the previous book where we were first introduced to the Dowayo, but with a few more funny anecdotes and is a Thoroughly enjoyable sequel to his first book Like with all societies, what seems barbarous and cruel to us, is a way of life to another people. In the same way, a lot of our routines and habits are equally strange and mysterious to them and the humour that lies in the cracks and fissures of misunderstanding.

[Maricruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta continuación de El antropólogo inocente es casi tan divertida como la primera, quizás porque la inexperiencia de Nigel Barley en su primera visita a los dowayo daba más juego. Lo que más me gusta de ambos libros es que no se quedan en el mero jijijaja, sino que aporta comentarios muy ácidos acerca de la compleja relación entre nuestro primer mundo y África. Las buenas voluntades son en ocasiones hipócritas y muy a menudo contraproducentes, parece querernos decir Barley.

[Fabian de Alwis Gunasekare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having caught a travel/anthropology bug, especially about mountains and other off-worldly places, after reading The Snow Leopard, I came across "A Plague of Caterpillars" by chance at my favorite second-hand bookshop, and immediately managed to secure it for a good price. The first book in the series was, obviously, unavailable.

The book describes the author's, an anthropologist's, adventures as he visits a West African tribe in Cameroon to document their infrequently-held circumcision ceremony. The content is not focused on the anthropological, but is rather an exposition of the Cameroonian society, penned in an extremely funny manner. The author has many adventures during his stay, ranging from evading African bureaucracy, interacting with other westerners, indulging in tribal activities, gluing one's broken front teeth using epoxy, vising a dying nipple-less tribe, cranky world women whose ghost haunts even after death, flirtatious young women, rain-chiefs and so on. It demonstrates, in my opinion, a rather interesting example of a society in crossroads with it's own native identity and the slow, but certain creep of western social tendencies, affecting even the most remote tribes. What was most interesting for me was how the author explained the lifestyle (a mental model?) of the tribal people being arranged according to the forces and eddies of nature that carry them throughout their life. These "models" provide great insight and appreciation into how different cultures were, at least originally, a gap that globalization and technology is rapidly closing down, and that the value system that one holds to be quite normal and rational may even be viewed as ludicrous and downright insulting. If anything, "A Plague of Caterpillars" is Anthropology 101, perhaps towards the lighter end of the academic spectrum.

Shortness of human memory, and of times long past:

"A rule of thumb seems to be that when the alien culture you are studying begins to look normal, it is time to go home."

"The fact that so many return to rather uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous parts of the world is eloquent testimony to both the shortness of the human memory and the weakness of common sense in the face of sheer curiosity."

[Ryan Murdock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nigel Barley returns to Cameroon in this hilarious follow up to The Innocent Anthropologist.

“Returns” is a bit of a misnomer. In truth, he’d only just left.

Barley spent 6 months in London upon completion of a year and a half of anthropological fieldwork among the Dowayo people, a group of mountain pagans. But he’d barely settled back into academic life when rumours reached him via the bush telegraph.

The Dowayo circumcision ceremony was going to take place. This ritual was the key to his research, and because it was only held at six or seven year intervals, missing this opportunity might be missing it forever.

And so the no longer innocent anthropologist plunged right back into the heat, frustration, bureaucracy and evasive circularity of African travel. But this time, with previous experience.

Apart from its crucial symbolic significance — as Barley revealed in the first volume of his trilogy, circumcision imagery seemed to form the heart of the Dowayo worldview — the ritual itself sounds completely excruciating. The penis was peeled for its entire length, resulting in predictably high rates of infection and mortality. But it is only through this rite of passage that male children become true men, able to swear oaths on their knives.

I’d be swearing on my knife, too, if someone took a dull blade to my…. Well, never mind. It’s best not to imagine these things too graphically.

Thankfully, you won’t have to picture penis peeling when you read this book.

On the contrary, you can expect the same calibre of hilarious encounters in A Plague of Caterpillars that had me laughing out loud with The Innocent Anthropologist.

You’ll join the hunt in the case of the missing male mastectomy. You’ll encounter a man who was lied to by his own foot. And you’ll brace yourself for a possible haunting by the ghost of the village shrew.

But my favourite story involved a close encounter of the simian kind. While discussing his peculiar attractiveness to mosquitoes, Barley confesses, “I have a yet stronger effect on monkeys. In England, this attraction remains latent. In Africa, it comes to the fore.”

After harassing guests at a hotel, this particular monkey, pursued by an enraged waiter, wraps its arms around Barley’s neck and refuses to let go. Any attempt to loosen its grip results in angry barks and bared fangs. Having already made firm plans for the evening, our narrator has no choice but to smuggle the creature into the cinema under his jacket, where it gets up to further monkeyshines.

Barley’s understated style is perfect for scenes like this, but he also strikes a serious note, and in this second volume he dispatches a few more of anthropology’s sacred cows.

The first is fieldwork. “[…] if an anthropologist does not like anything he encounters among an alien people, this is ethnocentrism,” he writes. “If he disapproves of anything, this is the result of bringing to bear the wrong standards.” The inverse is also true. And so ethnographic monographs in university libraries around the world depict the anthropologist “wallowing in unmitigated delight in the things he experiences.” The more unpleasant or alien, the better.

I can’t count the number of backpackers I’ve encountered on my travels who subscribe to very similar standards. You know the type. They go on and on about some village in the highlands where they were the only foreigner, where they couldn’t speak the dialect, and where they got ringworm and amoebic dysentery. They sit up all night arguing about who found the most “authentic” culture, and they think they’re terribly original. But everyone with a Lonely Planet is doing the same thing.

In another memorable scene, Barley encounters a black American anthropologist working in another remote village. Bob, as he’s called in the book, is the product of the next generation of social science.

“He had done something called “Black Studies” in an Eastern college,” Barley writes, and Bob “held the view that it was vital for coloured Americans to have an alternative cultural tradition that would assign them a higher place than did the white one.”

It wasn’t long before Cameroon shattered the illusions Bob had arrived with. “He never celebrated Christmas but an obscure festival of Swahili origin. He had been mortified to discover that Africans had never heard of it.”

Bob had also learned Swahili, which he imposed on his wife and children for one day each week. “Having never been informed otherwise and having assumed that Africa was in some sense a unity, he had been genuinely astonished that no one in Cameroon could speak it or had even heard of the language.”

Bob is eventually deserted by his wife and children, who return to the United States after one too many clashes over the asceticism he imposed on their lives. But what finally does Bob in is the markets. Fulani merchants rigged the local markets with such a tight monopoly and such excessive profits that his illusions had no choice but to confront reality.

“Having experienced all his life the hard school of deprivation under white domination, he found it difficult to cope with the notion that black Africans could oppress black Africans with equal fervour and complacency.” And so Bob breaks off his studies and returns to America, where he renews his dedication to Black Studies by setting up a programme on African literature.

Scenes like this are a reminder of why a book like A Plague of Caterpillars is still so relevant today.

As university campuses in the west are rocked by “social justice” inspired attacks on the Western canon and a traditional liberal education in favour of politically correct attempts to right historical wrongs, a hefty dose of fieldwork is sometimes all it takes to reconcile harsh reality with our overprotected Western lives.

[Remo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro es la continuación de El antropólogo inocente, y no recomiendo su lectura sin haber leído antes el primero. Ambos libros narran las aventuras y desventuras de un antropólogo social, Nigel Barley [NB], en su intento por estudiar a los Dowayo, una tribu casi desconocida en el oeste de Camerún.

El primer libro relata el choque cultural que sufren muchos viajeros al llegar a la llamada África negra. NB nos habla de la corrupción de los funcionarios, de los interminables papeleos, de los pequeños sobornos y grandes discusiones que tiene que sufrir hasta que, al fin, consigue llegar a la aldea de los dowayo. Una vez allí, comienza a estudiar a un pueblo que, sin saberlo le cambiará la vida. El libro es en realidad un gran anecdotario, pues los malos entendidos y la diferencia entre lo que dan por supuesto el antropólogo y los dowayo ante el mismo hecho llevan a un sinfín de situaciones hilarantes.

En este segundo libro, NB regresa a la tribu de los dowayo para presenciar la ceremonia comunitaria de circuncisión de los jóvenes de la aldea, que sólo tiene lugar cada varios años y sólo si se dan ciertas circunstancias. Hay más anécdotas y más diversión. Cuenta, por ejemplo, la reacción de los dowayo la primera vez que ven una película de cine, con efectos absolutamente diferentes a los que él esperaba, cuenta la visita al Hacedor de lluvia de la tribu, que siempre vive alejado en la montaña, cuenta cómo discurrió la última cacería de la temporada… Todas estas actividades terminan cómicamente, sin que el autor se lo proponga.

NB hace buen uso de lo que siempre se ha definido como fino humor inglés. Su estilo es claro, directo y conciso, y uno casi siempre se lo imagina con una media sonrisa torcida mientras le narra aventura tras aventura. Los libros sirven como buena introducción a la labor cotidiana de un antropólogo social, y para entender un poco más a África, sus devenires y pesares.

Como el autor dice cerca del final del libro, “cuando nada en la cultura que estudias te parece ya extraño, es el momento de dejarlo”. NB se fue de Camerún tras haber hecho muchos amigos, en dos viajes que le sirvieron para conocer a los dowayo y a sí mismo.

Como anécdota final, NB no hizo más estudios de campo tras sus visitas a los dowayo. Entró a trabajar en el Museo Británico, que publicó su primer libro como una curiosidad, casi para uso interno. Pero el éxito arrollador provocó su publicación por una editorial de las grandes, además de servir para que NB relatara la segunda parte de su viaje.

Mi nota: Imprescindibles

[Laura Melguizo · Rating 5 out of 5]

La continuación del "antropólogo inocente", de vuelta a los mismo lares que en el primer libro... más profesional y descriptivo, igual de divertido.

[Xuan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando en la asignatura de Antropología nos encomendaron la lectura de "El antropólogo inocente" imaginé que se trataría de un pesado, a la par que sencillo, manual iniciático en la materia, y no podía estar más equivocado. Devoré el libro, lo disfruté muchísimo, me reí y aprendí. De esto hace muchos años. No sé bien si, releyéndolo ahora, causaría el mismo efecto, pero me quedo con aquello.


Muchas veces los libros tienen la virtud de aparecer en el momento exacto en el que uno los necesita, y así me ha pasado con esta segunda parte de la visita a territorio dowayo. Lo he leído en un tris, en un momento en el que necesitaba reconciliarme con el humor y la ternura.

Y este libro está lleno de eso. 


No es un libro de 4 estrellas, pero se las doy porque me da la gana. Tkm Nigel Barley.

[Elisabeth (Bouquins & Books)]

Best enjoyed if you have read The Innocent Anthropologist first, in the not too distant past. I read The Innocent Anthropologist a dozen years ago. I remember it well enough, but many details have escaped my mind. Had I reread it first, I would have enjoyed the sequel better. That being said, I enjoyed A Plague of Caterpillars very much. Barley's account of his travels in Dowayoland are very funny. He is excellent at bringing out the funny side of cultural differences.

[Arnau Fernández Pasalodos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los libros de Barley empiezan a ganarse un lugar destacado en mi biblioteca. Dicen que segundas partes nunca fueron buenas, pero esta continuación de su famoso "El antropólogo inocente" es otra joya. Barley vuelve a ver a los Dowayo, y es capaz de escribir otro relato lleno de etnografía, risas, curiosidades y situaciones surrealistas. ¡Qué librazo!

[HansBlog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Etwas derber Humor etc. Ausführlicher dt. Besprechung hier: http://hansblog.de/kritik-sachbuch-ha...

[Paky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tenía que leer la continuación del Antropólogo inocente, más experiencias y anécdotas con los dowayo. De nuevo me ha parecido sido interesante, curioso y con gracia en muchos momentos, pero algo más flojo que el anterior. Lógicamente, ya menos sorprendente.

[scarlettraces · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the many, many moments of wryness, my favourite is probably the open-air cinema with its folklore punchline.

Anthropology is a pretty weird thing to do, though

[Kate]

By eland publishing which does out of date travel books
Published mark Shand

[Miguel Aranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

(6)

[Ángela García · Rating 3 out of 5]

No llega al nivel de El antropólogo inocente, pero aún así merece ser leído.

[Esme · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Warum machst du dann nicht Feldforschung?"

Und das tat Nigel Barley. Ein Jahr lang hielt er sich bei den Dowayos auf, einem in den Bergen im Norden Kameruns ansässiges und von ethonologischen Forschungen vernachlässigtes Volk. Da sich seine Erkenntnisse nicht in eine Monographie mit Stereotypen: "Die Dowayos glauben..." pressen ließen, schrieb er stattdessen ein Buch über seine Feldforschung. Ein erkenntnisreiches, selbstironisches Buch von einem der auszog, Ethnologie zu betreiben.
 
"Traumatische Tropen" wird von gestandenen Ethnologen belächelt. In der Methodenlehre sind handfeste Sach- und Lehrbücher das Rüstzeug, mit denen angehenden Wissenschaftlern die Grundzüge der empirischen Studien eingebläut werden. Da wird Nigel Barley bestenfalls als Nachttischlektüre erwähnt. Dabei ist dieses Buch mehr als eine unterhaltsame Lektüre, um die nötige Bettschwere zu erreichen.
 
Ein Ethnologe oder Student des Faches wird des öfteren von jemandem, der mit seiner Hände Arbeit sein Brot verdient, gefragt werden, was das soll, nach dem Sinn und Zweck des Ganzen. Nonkonformismus wird auch in einer individualistisch ausgeprägten Gesellschaft mit Skepsis gesehen. Vielleicht als liebevoll gepflegte Exzentrizität akzeptiert. Und eine Antwort wird in den seltensten Fällen zufriedenstellend sein. Das ist doch intellektuelle Onanie. Ganz recht.
 
So ist auch für Nigel Barley der Selbstzweck der Feldforschung offenbar. Sie hat weniger einen Sinn für die Gemeinschaft zu erfüllen, sondern dient vielmehr der persönlichen Entwicklung des Forschers.
 
Der Ethnologe muss sich, bevor er ins Feld aufbricht, in einen wahren Behördendschungel begeben, um die nötigen Papiere zu erhalten. Die Tücken der Bürokratie erträgt Barley zunächst mit stoischer britischer Zurückhaltung, eignet sich aber nach kurzer Zeit das schreiende und tobende westafrikanische Temperament an. Die bürokratische Korinthenkackerei wird mit einem Augenzwinkern beschrieben. Und so manch Beamter wirkt wie aus einem Monty-Python-Sketch entsprungen.
 
Viele Dinge, die in den offiziellen Monographien nur zwischen den Zeilen herauszulesen sind, nennt Nigel Barley ganz offen: Die Schwierigkeiten beim Erlernen der Sprache und die wichtige Rolle, die der Assistent innehat. Er demontiert auch die romantisierende Sichtweise auf die sogenannten "edlen Wilden". Der laxe afrikanische Umgang mit der Zeit ist für einen Europäer frustrierend und ärgerlich, denn es ist nahezu unmöglich, länger als zehn Minuten in die Zukunft hinein zu planen. Und ohne Scheu oder Selbstmitleid spricht er von Krankheiten, Einsamkeit und Isolation, dem Wunsch nach ein bißchen Privatsphäre. Die Strapazen der körperlichen und seelischen Belastungen enden auch schon mal in einem Heulkrampf. Und Feldforschung ist oft ganz schlicht und einfach langweilig.
 
Nigel Barley schreibt sehr genau darüber, wie er zu seinen Informationen gelangte, wie der Zufall so manches Mal seine Hand im Spiel hatte, um ein Puzzleteilchen an die richtige Stelle zu setzen. Und der Leser erlebt mit, wie sich aus Gesprächen, Beobachtungen von Ritualen, hartnäckigem Nachbohren nach und nach die kulturellen Symbole und Strukturen der Dowayos enthüllen.
 
Dies alles ist für einen angehenden Feldforscher sehr lehrreich und entfernt auch den rosaroten Schimmer von der Brille mit der Sicht auf die Feldforschung. Nach seiner Rückkehr ist Nigel Barley von einem Fremdheitsgefühl seiner eigenen Kultur gegenüber aber auch tiefer Dankbarkeit über die Annehmlichkeiten des Lebens in der westlichen Welt erfasst und fühlt gleichzeitig eine unermeßliche Erleichterung darüber, nicht mehr in Afrika zu sein. Doch dieses Gefühl ist nur von kurzer Dauer:
 

"Aha, da bist du also wieder."
"Ja."
"War es öde?"
"Ja."
"Warst du schwer krank?"
"Ja."
"Hast du Aufzeichnungen mit zurückgebracht, aus denen du nicht mehr klug wirst, und hast du alle wesentlichen Fragen zu stellen vergessen?"
"Ja."
"Wann gehst du zurück?"
Ich lachte gequält. Aber sechs Monate später war ich wieder bei den Dowayos.

[Natalie Petchnikow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il se l'était juré : cette fois, on ne l'y reprendrait plus. Son premier voyage chez les Dowayos l'avait lessivé (Un anthropologue en déroute, Payot, 1992). Transformé en banquier, en infirmier, en chauffeur, manipulé, vide, exploité jusqu'à l'os par une tribu hilare, il avait fini par comprendre que le sujet d'étude c'était lui pour tous ces braves montagnards.

Et pourtant... Lorsqu'il apprend que ces Dowayos vont reprendre une très ancienne cérémonie de circoncision, il ne tient plus, et repart. Préparé au pire cette fois, avec ses provisions de christmas pudding et de cheddar. Mais non !

Ce qui va lui arriver dépassera tout ce qu'il avait imaginé, d'où un nouveau livre d'une assez extraordinaire cocasserie. Mais peut-être est-ce cela, ce besoin maladif de se précipiter tête baissée dans un monde indéchiffrable, qui définit l'anthropologue, et non l'étude distanciée de l'autre. Sous la drôlerie du propos, Nigel Barley, mine de rien, conduit une réflexion singulièrement aiguë sur la compréhension entre les cultures.

[Sara Schraeder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both of these books are wonderful, such dry and understated British humor. But not available in America! Were they never published here? I am embarrassed for my country, however, not surprised. Gerald Durrell is practically unknown here, whereas in England he is a household word.
Chapter seven, " Of Simians and Cinemas," is so amazingly funny. I have read it over and over and it never grows stale.

[Fiomn Wrab · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are specting an anthropological research report, you are wrong. I like to imagine the author as an anthropologist friend telling me at the local café how his stay among the Dowayos was. It's funny and delicious, maybe the best option if you are a teacher and you are looking for a book to arouse the curiosity of your students on the subject.

[Juan Hidalgo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tan genial e hilarante como "El antropólogo inocente", aunque conociendo al autor y sus peripecias entre los nativos de una tribu perdida en Camerún, ya no sorprende tanto.

A partir de sus experiencias, Nigel Barley elaboró un docto trabajo de investigación antropológica y estos relatos personales que no tienen desperdicio.

[César Lasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó leerlo. Me encanta haber leído un par de libros de Nigel Barley. Pero éste ya tuvo el sabor de una continuación de «El antropólogo inocente», y no me impresionó tanto como el primero. Sigue teniendo momentos muy divertidos, desde luego.

[Ziggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lent to me by a friend or I would never have picked this up, I aM pleased to see he has written more than just this book! An interestingly written, funny description of the mishaps that can befall an ethnologist in the African bush!

[Kitty-Wu · Rating 3 out of 5]

La segunda visita a la tierra de los Dowayo, es casi tan surrealista y divertida como la primera. Pagaría por una foto de Barley haciendo de "árbol" :)))

[Sil · Rating 4 out of 5]

La saga continúa. Después de varios años de trabajar en Yaoundé, nuestro antropóogo vuelve... para ver la famosa ceremonia de la circuncisión... Mas escenas desopilantes.

[Keir Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11008439

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable read.

[Clivemichael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The edition I read is called Ceremony. Entertaining.

[MIL]

這本沒那麼好笑
不過還是很好看
不落痕跡地傳達了很多人類學的概念