Euphoria

by Lily King

She wondered why every white asked about cannibalism.

It was a joke the Mumbanyo had, that the missionaries had tasted like old pig.

Distance could feel like a terrible claustrophobia at times.

‘Sometimes you just find a culture that breaks your heart,’ she said finally.

It is the one thing each and every one of us is programmed for, directed to, and cannot swerve away from indefinitely.

Perhaps I would become part of their mythology, the unhappy white man who became a crocodile.

The stones are beautiful, they said, but dangerous. You can collect them, but leave them on land before you swim. And do not swim in clothes. This is also dangerous. And do not swim alone. Being alone you will only come to harm. They asked me if I knew the way back. They were stern and curt. Grown-ups who had no patience for an oversized child.

‘Wounded but not slain.’ She managed something close to a laugh. Lovely lips in a devastatingly tired face.

Anthropology at that time was in transition, moving from the study of men dead and gone to the study of living people, and slowly letting go of the rigid belief that the natural and inevitable culmination of every