The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut

By Nigel Barley

Nigel Barley was an anthropologist and as anthropologists like to do, he went off to study some primitive tribal people, in his case the Dowayo people of Cameroon in western Africa.
Of course, he was prepared for his adventure. But nothing can really prepare a person for the real experience, as he soon discovered. From officials who seemed to enjoy wasting his time demanding endless forms and fees to the bank that refused to give him the money he deposited, he experienced unexpected delays and difficulties before he ever even managed to reach his study location.
It didn't get any easier once he got out of the clutches of officialdom and on the road to the little back-country village where he would be living. The road alone was seemingly designed to kill unwary drivers. The Dowayo people were rather reticent and, while not unfriendly, had their doubts about the stranger who had suddenly appeared in their midst. Plus Barley didn't speak their language and had to hire a young man as interpreter. Not understanding their customs and traditions, Barley at times inadvertently offended and upset the people he was trying to study, including his young assistant.
Barley also had his brushes with illness and injury, contracting both hepatitis and malaria. He had to turn to the local missionaries for aid, loans, food, a hot shower and truly wouldn't have been able to continue his studies without their kind help.
But as his skill grew with the native tongue and as he became more adept at steering his way through their customs and culture, he got to know and in many ways admire the Dowayo's simple and basic lifestyle, free from the pressures of modern urban life.

I really enjoyed this book. Barley's struggles are told with lots of amusing anecdotes like the time he thought the lady next door suffered from terrible indigestion because he heard what he thought was flatulence and belching. But it wasn't her, it was her goats. Another time, Barley was yearning for eggs for breakfast. The Dowayos don't eat eggs, but they do keep chickens for their meat. They find the idea of eating eggs repulsive because eggs come from a chicken's behind, like poop. But Barley craved eggs, so he got himself a few skinny hens and started fattening them to the point where they were finally getting healthy enough to produce eggs. Soon after, he came home after being away for a few days to find his assistant had slaughtered the hens because they had started laying eggs and according to the assistant egg-laying would ruin the chickens for meat. So he killed them as a favor to Barley.
It was fascinating to read about a people whose view and knowledge of the world are so different from mine. It's hard to believe such isolated people still exist. They are so inexperienced of the world that they thought Barley was a Dowayo magician, who, if he wanted, could take off his white skin and reveal the true black man beneath. They believed his blond, straight hair was really black and frizzy, like theirs, and couldn't understand why he went to the bother of changing it, wondering if he did it to attract women. It's a vastly different world, and after reading about it, I'm just glad I live here and not there.