102 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

The Masked Blacksmith

It was the blacksmith of Mosambolahun then who
now swayed forward between the huts in a head-dress
oŁ feathers, a heavy blanket robe, and long raffia mane
and raffia skirts. The big drum beat, the heels
stamped and the gourds rattled, and the devil sank
to the ground, his long faded yellow hair billowing
in the dust. His two eyes were two painted rings and
he had a flat black wooden snout a yard long fringed
with fur; when it opened one saw great red wooden
tusks. His black wooden nose stuck up at right angles
between his eyes which were almost flat on his snout.
His mouth opened and closed like a clapper and he
spoke in a low monotonous sing-song. He was like a
portmanteau word; an animal, a bird and a man had
all run together to form his image. All the women,
except the musicians, had gone to their huts and
watched Landow from a distance. His interpreter
squatted beside him carrying a brush with which,
when the devil moved, he kept his skirts carefully
smoothed down lest a foot or arm should show.

The devils need an interpreter because they do not
speak a language the native can understand. Lan-
dow's mutterings were fluent and quite unintelligible.
Anthropologists, so far as I can gather, have not made
up their minds whether it is a real language the devil
speaks or whether the interpreter simply invents a
meaning. Mark's explanation has the virtue of
simplicity, that the Bande devil speaks Pessi, that
the Pessi devil speaks Buzie; the Buzie devil, on the
Qther hand, he continued with a convincing lack of