American anthropologist Laura Bohannan spent years working with the Tiv people of Northern Nigeria. When she arrived to study the community, she was inundated with gifts by the very poor villagers – a common experience for guests in traditional societies. Not wanting to appear rude, she accepted them but was eventually taught the appropriate etiquette by the headman’s wife, who told her to ‘stop wandering aimlessly about the countryside and start calling to return the gifts’ she had received. Bohannon concluded:
Start calling to return the gifts
