Word: witching
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Dijkstra's thesis is a familiar feminist argument: that the 19th century man wanted women to remain passive, dependent, domestic and obedient, and that any female who ventured to differ was regarded as at best a shrew and at worst a witch or even a vampire. He buttresses this argument with evidence from both high culture and high camp. He decries Henry James' Verena Tarrant (in The Bostonians) and Tennyson's Lady of Shalott for their dim-witted self- sacrifice, and he manages to get angry about even such endearing targets as Dracula and Trilby...
Davis was at his prayers next evening at dusk when the witch doctor came to speak to the visitor. The witch doctor, Ole Loompirai, sat in a dark, dung- walled hut and drank beer with the visitor and explained the work that he did. The laibon, or witch doctor, spoke in a low, murmurous voice in Maa, sucking frequently on an oversize bottle of Tusker, a faintly smoky Kenya beer brought up in the Land Cruiser from Narok. Moses impassively translated...
...witch doctor talked about charms and animal sacrifices, Davis' rich, deep Latin poured through the small window of the hut: "Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum . . ." The laibon explained the uses of animals in his work. He employed the warthog, for example, to cast a spell to keep the government out of Masai business. Good choice, the visitor thought. The warthog is a strutty little beast, a short-legged peasant with a thin tail that stands straight up like a flagpole when it runs. It backs into its hole and pulls dirt on top of itself...
...laibon has been chased by lions many times. The worst attack came one evening when he was walking to another enk'ang to see his girlfriend. (The visitor savored the idea of a witch doctor going to pick up his girlfriend for a date.) The lion stalked and menaced him for a long distance, the laibon jabbing with his spear, the lion never quite attacking...
...that animals come to them in dreams. His five-year-old son in New York City has nightmares about animals he has never seen. He dreams, for instance, of lions. What does an African boy dream about? The visitor collected dreams from Masai and Kikuyu schoolchildren, from schoolteachers, from witch doctors, from Masai warriors and safari guides, from white ranchers and game catchers and naturalists and from himself. It was a way of seeing the animals...