Word: tribesman
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...inducement improperly influencing the performance of a public function meant to be gratuitously exercised." Fair enough, but what is an inducement? What is improper? At the very dawn of human society, Noonan argues, the offering of gifts for reciprocal services was a commonplace sign of good intentions. A roving tribesman might offer some bright stone to a stranger simply to show that he meant no violence. The most important strangers to be courted with such gifts were the divine forces that brought rain or wind, hence the tradition of sacrifices left hopefully on an altar. The results of such efforts...
...stopped and built a bridge. Other Papua New Guineans braved mountain passes 11,000 ft. above sea level to make their long journey. Why had so many thousands trekked so far to stand in ankle-deep mud on a rain-soaked field in the town of Mount Hagen? One tribesman, in a three-cornered hat made from human hair, had a compellingly simple answer: "He brings the Good Spirit...
...squad of armed customs agents bursts from a nearby hut. The driver guns the engine and slams through the barricade. The agents open fire. The truck swerves to a stop. Four men leap out and escape into the gathering dusk. The agents, led by a 39-year-old Pathan tribesman named Jehangir Khan, are only perfunctory in their pursuit. They are more interested in the truck's cargo: 421 kilos of heroin, worth $250 million uncut and up to $1 billion on the streets of Western Europe...
Africa warmed the Nordic strains of Karen's life and art. She began to tell stories to her tribal servants. The feudal relationship took on the characteristics of a folk tale. When she read poetry, a tribesman begged her to "talk like rain some more." As she invented stories, her listeners came to regard her as a kind of Scheherazade, a role, Thurman points out, in which "the challenge of seduction was heightened by the perils of failure...
...logged twelve years and 500,000 miles tracing his roots back to Kunta Kinte, the Mandinka tribesman taken into slavery two centuries ago in West Africa. But Alex Haley, 60, had never met most of his living relatives. So plans began early this year for a mammoth July reunion. Some 300 people from 32 states and all branches of the family tree descended on Haley's sleepy home town of Henning, Tenn. There were teachers, farmers, service workers, ministers, musicians, many excitedly meeting for the first time. Some stopped off to visit family sites like the grave of Haley...