SUDANESE INGENUITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18515, 28 March 1922, Page 2

SUDANESE INGENUITY

QUAINT USE FOR A SOLDIER ANT. White folks who live among the primitive untouched races of Africa come across many incidents that are exceedingly quaint and amusing to the heirs of a highly polished civilisation. One such incident concerning a Nuba man and a carefully planned floa hunt was recently related by Mr D. N. Mac Diarmid, of the Sudan United Mission, who is stationed at Hciban, in the Nuba Mountains Province: “Kuku.” writes Mr Mac Diarmid. “had a flea in his ear —at least if it wasn’t a flea it was a tick or it grass seed or something else that should not have been there. Ho wasn’t perfectly sure either whether it was in his ear or inside his neck; all he knew was that there was a tickling sensation and a buzzing noise somewhere inside his black head, and he diagnosed it simply as a flea iu his ear. Knowing him as 1 do I thought it was more than likely that ho was right “ Kuku determined to get rid of tho unwelcome visitor, and accordingly set about it in true native fashion. First he sent a little boy to catch a black ant of a rather ferocious kind, one whoso chief pastime is finding out and carrying off all other insects, largo or small, that it can find. Then he split open a grass stein and fitted the body of the ant into the fork thus formed. Ho tied the split grass stem together with thread leaving merely the head and logs and mouth of the ant protruding. By this time the ant was feeling greatly outraged and thoroughly angry, and was viciously opening and shutting its mouth in its endeavours to come to grips with its enemy. “The next process was to insert this animated forceps gently into tho patient’s ear, on the Shakespearean principle of sending another of the salf-same kind ’to find the other forth.’ For a minute or two all went well, and we could only imagine the frantic search that was going on in the dark recesses of Kuku’s ear. But suddenly Kuku emitted an agonised yell and jumped about two feet off his scat, and we fondly hoped that tho ant had seized its quarry, and that the tug-of-wnr had begun. But no such luck ! Tho diagnosis must have been at fault. Anyhow the soldier ant could apparently see no natural enemy and accordingly vented its ire on what it coulfl see—the delicate membrane of the inside of Kuku’s ear.”