Read Online A Reed Shaken by the Wind by Gavin Maxwell - Free Book Online
Authors: Gavin Maxwell
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start a blood-feud as does the killing of a human being.
The dogs effectively restrict a stranger’s movements in a village or about its immediate precincts, and because of them it is impossible even to relieve oneself without a guard standing by; indeed it is surprising that the marshmen manage somehow to steal from each other as much as they do.
At nightfall the wind was still gusty and tumultuous, but its force must have slackened a little, for an exhausted fishing party made its way into the village after three days marooned without food on a small island. They had been poisoning fish, the only mass method of fishing that the marshmen allow themselves. For some forgotten reason fishing with nets is taboo, and the people who make their living in this way, the Berbera, are looked down upon as oflow caste, so that the marsh tribesmen themselves are confined either to the grotesquely inefficient methods of spearing or of strewing the water with poisoned bait; digitalis concealed in shrimps. The poisoned fish float to the surface, and their poaching by passing boats gives rise to frequent squabbles.
Night came down upon the marshes in utter desolation; there was no sunset nor hint of colour, the light just faded out of that roaring grey sky until the silhouettes of the tossing palm plumes became dim and indistinct and merged into the darkness of a starless sky. The house began to fill with guests as before, and when we had eaten and become once more part of a huddled throng who faced inward to the rearing flames of the reed fire, our host turned to a young man near him and asked him to sing. “Ma’agdar, Ma’agdar, I can’t, I can’t,” he replied with the preliminary and quite meaningless modesty that I found to be customary, but after a few moments of protestation in diminuendo he composed himself and began. It was a quartet; he sang the melody, while three companions held an even chord like the drones of a bagpipe; like bagpipe music, too, it was at first difficult for an uneducated ear to discover any defined melody. The voice was tenor, and as with many other primitive peoples it was produced nasally and with a constant tremolo, whose range seemed at times greater than that of the melody itself. At first I found it too curious and unfamiliar to be acceptable, but as song succeeded song I became engulfed by it and permeated with it and its poignancy began to move me; even the absorption and strain with which the strangely unvocal notes were produced enhanced rather than detracted from the total effect. Most of the marshmen are quite unable to sing and know it, but the knowledge in no way deters them from trying; day-long, for example, Hassan as he paddled our canoe would from his position a yard astern of me pour forth his profuse and noticeably unpremeditated strains, a cracked andexcruciating nasal shout whose impact on the ear drum was not unlike that of a crackling telephone. The approved method of voice production makes enormous demands upon the singer, and when he has failed to master it the result is no less than disastrous. In almost every village, however, there are a few whose voices, perhaps because of their purity in childhood, have had continuous enough practice to become accomplished; their singing can be both beautiful and evocative, and they are in great demand for the entertaining of guests or for any other occasion of feasting.
When the singing was over our host called to a young negro slave with a humorous and sympathique face and asked him to dance. “Ma’agdar, Ma’agdar,” he protested, as the singer had, but soon he was on his feet, and the squatting crowd shuffled a foot or two back from the fire, leaving him a space perhaps five feet by five.
I realised in the first few seconds that though the marshmen’s singing required a co-operative effort from the listener a little akin to that demanded of a hypnotic subject, the impact of the dancing was full and complete and to me
The dogs effectively restrict a stranger’s movements in a village or about its immediate precincts, and because of them it is impossible even to relieve oneself without a guard standing by; indeed it is surprising that the marshmen manage somehow to steal from each other as much as they do.
At nightfall the wind was still gusty and tumultuous, but its force must have slackened a little, for an exhausted fishing party made its way into the village after three days marooned without food on a small island. They had been poisoning fish, the only mass method of fishing that the marshmen allow themselves. For some forgotten reason fishing with nets is taboo, and the people who make their living in this way, the Berbera, are looked down upon as oflow caste, so that the marsh tribesmen themselves are confined either to the grotesquely inefficient methods of spearing or of strewing the water with poisoned bait; digitalis concealed in shrimps. The poisoned fish float to the surface, and their poaching by passing boats gives rise to frequent squabbles.
Night came down upon the marshes in utter desolation; there was no sunset nor hint of colour, the light just faded out of that roaring grey sky until the silhouettes of the tossing palm plumes became dim and indistinct and merged into the darkness of a starless sky. The house began to fill with guests as before, and when we had eaten and become once more part of a huddled throng who faced inward to the rearing flames of the reed fire, our host turned to a young man near him and asked him to sing. “Ma’agdar, Ma’agdar, I can’t, I can’t,” he replied with the preliminary and quite meaningless modesty that I found to be customary, but after a few moments of protestation in diminuendo he composed himself and began. It was a quartet; he sang the melody, while three companions held an even chord like the drones of a bagpipe; like bagpipe music, too, it was at first difficult for an uneducated ear to discover any defined melody. The voice was tenor, and as with many other primitive peoples it was produced nasally and with a constant tremolo, whose range seemed at times greater than that of the melody itself. At first I found it too curious and unfamiliar to be acceptable, but as song succeeded song I became engulfed by it and permeated with it and its poignancy began to move me; even the absorption and strain with which the strangely unvocal notes were produced enhanced rather than detracted from the total effect. Most of the marshmen are quite unable to sing and know it, but the knowledge in no way deters them from trying; day-long, for example, Hassan as he paddled our canoe would from his position a yard astern of me pour forth his profuse and noticeably unpremeditated strains, a cracked andexcruciating nasal shout whose impact on the ear drum was not unlike that of a crackling telephone. The approved method of voice production makes enormous demands upon the singer, and when he has failed to master it the result is no less than disastrous. In almost every village, however, there are a few whose voices, perhaps because of their purity in childhood, have had continuous enough practice to become accomplished; their singing can be both beautiful and evocative, and they are in great demand for the entertaining of guests or for any other occasion of feasting.
When the singing was over our host called to a young negro slave with a humorous and sympathique face and asked him to dance. “Ma’agdar, Ma’agdar,” he protested, as the singer had, but soon he was on his feet, and the squatting crowd shuffled a foot or two back from the fire, leaving him a space perhaps five feet by five.
I realised in the first few seconds that though the marshmen’s singing required a co-operative effort from the listener a little akin to that demanded of a hypnotic subject, the impact of the dancing was full and complete and to me
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