LIFE IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 30

LIFE IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS

A NEW REASON FOR CLOTHES THE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF BRER RABBIT Mr. D. N. Mac Diarmid, who has been doing pioneering work for the Sudan United Mission in the Nuba Mountains of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, is visiting England, and has some very interesting stories to tell of his experiences. He is a New Zealander, and began work in the Sudan in 1913.

“After the war,” he told a London “Observer” representative, “I went from Khartoum to Heiban in the Nuba Mountains to .start work among the quarter of a million raw pagans there. People imagine that the country is a sort of extension of the Sahara desert. On the contrary, when we first tried to make our way up to Heiban among the mountains which rise to 5000 feet, it was the mud that hindered us more than anything else, for here ten degrees north of the Equator there is a heavy rainfall.” The people are entirely primitive and wear no clothes. “It is sometimes asked why we teach the boys in the school we have started to wear clothes,” said Mr. Mac Diarmid. “It is not a question of morals particularly, but of convenience, for when it gets cold the Nubans rub themselves all over with oil, which, of course, catches all the dirt that is flying round. A dirty oily boy is hardly a scholar whom it is a pleasure to have in a form. Having taught them, therefore, to wash and keep clean, we have to introduce a certain amount of clothes to keep off the cold winds.” Eating Beetle. Nakedness without cleanliness is not the only bad habit. The girls like to catch handfuls of flying ants to eat alive as delicacies, while, says Mr. Mac Diarmid, “It is worse still to hear them crunching up alive mouthfuls of the loathsome beetles, known familiarly. on account of (heir dreadful odour, as ‘stink-beetles.’ ”

The boys have in the course of a few years rapidly taken up scout work. "They are also doing simple blacksmitiiery so that their parents may have at last iron tools instead oi the ten-fect-long ebony poles which hitherto have been practically the only agricultural instruments they possessed,” said Mr. Mac Diarmid. “We have also even been able to print some little readers in the language used around Heiban—the language changes about every twenty miles —and for this we have used local folklore tales. The boys were horrified at first that we should use these tales in the daytime in school. ‘Such tales should only be told at night!’ they explained.” Folklore Tales. These stories bear a strong family resemblance to those of Brer Rabbit, which of course were originally taken

from Africa to the United States by . the slaves. “We have no rabbits in J the Nuba mountains,” Mr. Mac Diarmid explained, “and Brer Rabbit’s part, is usually taken in the stories by the little local leopard, which does little harm, though I do not like to see the traces of its having been within a few i yards of my bed at night, as I have sometimes done. Since the people got | rifles, as they did during the Mahdi 1 troubles a generation ago, they have practically exterminated the lions and elephants locally, both for sport and )

for food. Our people are not warlike, and the Government would like to take away all rifles, but the women are the stumbling block. They would laugh so much at any man who dared to give u his rifle that he would not be able to hold up his head. So that in the Nuba mountains, at any rate, the women do not make for peace. We want to educate the girls as we are educating the boys, but the old folk will not hear of it.” Mr. Mac Diarmid and his wife have adopted several babies whose mothers

have died, and who otherwise would have been buried alive according to local custom. “The first one was named ‘JK’ (Jeke),” Mr. Mac Diarmid said, “and the second ‘LM’ (Elem), but then we thought it was time to stop, so the rest have got real Nuban names. The boys and girls have got as many games as white children, though they have readily added soccer and rounders to their list. There is a sort of native hockey iu which the goals are villages two or three miles apart 1”