The Masque of Africa_ Glimpses of African Belief - By V. S. Naipaul Page 0,82

The small people of the forest, gradually worn down by the bigger people. “They are the true masters of the forest. They know and distil every kind of poison in addition to the eboga, and they passed this knowledge on to the other tribes. Strange, to think of it. They were the true masters and now an American has a patent and is making millions from it.”

Every day, the professor said, there was an initiation in Gabon, and people went to the “tradition houses” to eat eboga and enter the other world. There, in the other world, people saw what was wrong with themselves. In their trance-like state they met their ancestors and told of their problems. The ancestors would tell them how to break the charms that have befallen them, and they would return “free.” Many foreigners, especially from the former Yugoslav territory of Slovenia, came to “traditional houses” to be initiated.

The professor said, “They, or we, are very superstitious as a race.”

And though the professor went to the ceremony with his friends, mainly in order to be with them, and though he had regard for the ceremony, he wanted to be free of it. He said, “I prefer being in the domain of chemistry.” He was an elderly man with a round, humorous face.

SOONER THAN I expected, I was taken to an initiation, or that part of it which was not secret. It was in Libreville, in that district which was known as PK 12, Kilometre 12—the kilometres being measured, I imagine, from some point on the Libreville coast.

I went with Nicole, a captain in the army. She had been appointed my bodyguard. In an extraordinary act of generosity the Defence Minister, who was also the president’s son, had made me his guest in Gabon; and during all my time in the country I had this important protection. Nicole was well educated, had travelled, and was well connected.

After the Ivory Coast, Libreville, with its ocean drive and new official buildings, presented a smiling face; it was easy to believe that there had been an oil boom. But the road to PK 12, an outer area, undid that early impression. The lights were dim; in one place the narrow road was flooded, because of a burst water main; and traffic was difficult, especially at crossroads. Someone who was to meet us somewhere couldn’t come, and though Nicole had reconnoitred the route in daylight, in the darkness houses and shops with their feeble, almost ghostly, fluorescent tubes looked alike, and we overshot the initiation house by a good kilometre. Habib, the driver (also in the army, and with a gun), began very slowly to take the big car back. We came upon two “cruisers” full of white people. They went through a big gate in a high compound wall. They were clearly like us, people going to the initiation; and we followed them.

The compound wall concealed an initiation “village.” It was the creation of a big, handsome Frenchman who had a Gabonese wife. The drumming was ceaseless; it was mingled with some kind of rough chanting and very deep shrieks, quite impressive. The Frenchman appeared to be asking Nicole too many questions. I thought he was checking on us; but later, at the end of the evening, when she was paying him money, I thought he had been letting Nicole know at the outset that there was to be a hefty payment for our party. Nicole knew the ways of Gabon in these near-spiritual matters and had come supplied with cash, which was more than I had done.

The “village” and the “initiation dance” were both productions for tourists or townspeople, to give them a taste of the eboga experience. So it wasn’t the real thing. This was disappointing; but a moment’s thought showed that it was wrong to be disappointed. What else could be expected in the capital? To see the real thing, assuming it existed, and was accessible to strangers, you would have to go far in the interior; and there you would be an intruder, which would have been disagreeable. And the drumming here—ceaseless—was real; the painted dancers were real: glimpses of them all the time in the thatched huts in the lower part of the yard: red, white and black the arresting colours of paint on bodies already beaded with perspiration.

Later, when he showed us into the initiation hut, before the dance, the Frenchman referred to his drummers and dancers as artistes; and that probably said it