Word: sotouboua
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...night before, by local belief, demons of death stalked the village of Sotouboua (pop. 500) in northern Togo. Streets were deserted, and only the throb of a tom-tom broke the still ness. Next day the men of the village sallied forth to perform the ritual that is supposed to frighten demons away. Some wore fluttery feather headdresses and grotesque carved masks; others chewed the bark of a native bush until the drool stained their chins a deep orange color. Several of them gripped snakes and rats between their teeth...
Other Peace Corps workers helped organize a makeshift ambulance service that shuttled moaning survivors 40 miles south to the nearest hospital at Sokode, where a French doctor and Togolese nurses worked all night setting fractures, amputating shattered limbs and stitching wounds. In Sotouboua, stunned villagers buried their dead and feared for the future; nearly all the village's men had been killed or severely hurt...
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