Word: fakirs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Alioune Mamadou Kane came to Paris from his native Senegal in the early '30s. A spear-tall (6 ft. 8 in.), mission-trained blackamoor, he made a living by driving a taxi and hawking West African gewgaws. Then, at the 1937 Paris International Exposition, he performed as a fakir. It became a habit...
When Mexico's thin, redheaded El Fakir was unnailed from the simulated cross on which he had spent 488 hours, 45 minutes (TIME, Sept. 27) and taken to the Sanatorio Mexicano, Catholic nuns refused to minister to him. He rested four days; then, against doctor's orders, rose and walked to his hotel. That evening he strolled abroad with his three dogs. Half an hour later he was dead...
...more devout said that God had struck El Fakir down for imitating Christ. Doctors, viewing the body, found an embolism (obstruction in the blood stream), said that El Fakir had paid the price of getting out of bed too soon...
...something over 70,000 people paid one peso each to view El Fakir. They included 25 doctors (a vacationing U.S. doctor tried to wiggle El Fakir's toes, caused him much pain), five bull fighters, 65 Mexican cinema actors, one ex-President (Portes Gil), two boxers, two wrestlers, and a lady editor from the erstwhile antagonist Novedades, who wrote: "After knowing him I have been enchanted." A radio station broadcast reports of El Fakir's condition and a movie theater combined a newsreel of El Fakir with Disney's Bambi...
Finally, at 1:30 a.m. Independence Day Sept. 16, El Fakir's doctor ordered,him unnailed lest he be permanently injured. From his bed in the Sanatorio Mexicano El Fakir declared: "I am strong enough to be nailed up again next week...