SPELLBOUND BY THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC

Dear Family,

Well, it is nearly two years now I have been traveling on my grant for the study of the folkways of the Euro-American ethnics. This week, I am on the campus of UC Santa Barbara. By an ironic coincidence, they have here an exposition entitled “I Am Not Myself: The Art of the African Masquerade.” I intend to scrutinize this assembly of materials many times before it shuts up Feb. 10.

It makes me a trifle homesick and not a little nervous. There are 65 spirits here belonging to the Museum of Cultural History of my friends at UCLA. Everything is to be seen from a funny Goli that is danced by the boys of the Wan (and copied by the Picasso artist of the Iberian-French group) to a horned mask of the Bidjogo that can, of course, be most dangerous.

According to the ways of the whites, this exposition is most fine. It has television pictures and photographs to show students how the spirits dance. It is not one of those foolish expositions that merely hangs the faces of the spirits on the wall as if they were decorations. Here many heads are shown with their whole body so the students may learn that they are parts of a whole being. This is very enlightened education, even though one student mistook a Cameroon elephant spirit for a ski mask.

Such error is probably unavoidable. Even though Prof. Herbert M. Cole and his students have written their catalogue with egregious intelligence, there will be those who will insist upon seeing a ferocious horned We mask as part of a costume for one of their hit theatrical musicals like “Cats” or mistake a sublime Mossi spirit for one of their abstract sculptures. (“Abstract,” I gather, means that something means nothing. What can you expect from a people who go out of their way to make something mean nothing?)

I am now confirmed in my hypothesis that the white culture, although immensely clever, remains primitive in the ways of the soul. The main proof of this is the way they conduct their spirit rites. Since coming here, I have attended all the principal events: Halloween, Mardi Gras, so-called Beaux Artes balls and so forth. All the people masque as whatever spirits they like without having the slightest care for the forces they are unleashing. Their sensibilities are so blunted they only get very slight inklings of what they are doing. Some say, “Well it’s fun to dress up in costume. Makes you feel like you can do silly stuff when you are wearing a mask.”

When questioned as to what ancestor they are calling forth or whether the ritual is for initiation, making rain, causing fertility, curing disease or ensuring good harvest, they either do not know at all or they say, “Oh it is for a benefit.” I ask you what kind of answer is that? These people try to be nice but they drive me crazy. With such anarchy in evoking the spirits, no wonder they so often awaken next morning with headaches.

In one subculture here, there is a ritual called a “Drag Ball,” where men attend in elaborate female attire. This, of course, is entirely proper and in conformity with our own sensible practice. What is truly shocking among the Euro-American tribes is that women are permitted to don spirit garb in the same willy-nilly fashion as everyone else.

It is hard to tell if the whites are still at a rudimentary stage of development or in the decadence of a once-great tradition. Whichever, they apparently do not know that spirit masking was discovered by our women in the ancient days but men had to take the practice away after the females made a mistake too terrible to name. (Besides, their having control of the spirits along with the crops, children and household just made them too powerful.)

You would think that the whites would learn from our example and confine spirit masking to the men’s societies. Of course, we have our exceptions, as among the Mende, when women may dance the masks, but I have never believed any good could come of it. I approve of the enlightened views of the Baule people. They know that even male dancers must practice sexual abstinence before performing in a ritual and that even the sight of ritual accouterments can make a woman sterile.

It is difficult to see how the whites are going to solve their problems with air pollution and traffic accidents while they go about releasing spiritual forces in such a foolhardy manner. I even worry about the so-called “art collectors” who keep our spirit masks sitting around their houses as if they were harmless pets. Some have been exorcised, but many, as I say in serious joking, are radioactive.

Well, educational expositions such as “I Am Not Myself” give some hope that the whites may yet see the light. (The title, of course, refers to our knowledge of being inhabited by the spirit during rites.)

Just, however, as I was feeling cheered up at the art gallery, I noticed one of those minor Euro-American priests called an “art critic.” We chatted and he spoke the usual nonsense about the “beauty” of a Dan spirit, the “inventiveness” of a Mumuye horse and a Salampasu fiber mask and the “Oriental elegance” of a Chokwe Pwo spirit.

Just as I was tempted to tread on his toe he said, “They really are magic , aren’t they?” That gave me a little hope.

Sincerely Yours, Your Loving Son