Word: yam
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Prideful Advertisements. It had not always been so. When the British arrived in Nigeria, the Ibos were among the most primitive people they encountered, scratching out their lives on yam patches and occasionally supplementing their low-protein diet with human flesh. But within their backward tribal culture lay unique seeds for Western-style self-improvement. Unlike many other tribes, they had no autocratic village chiefs. Instead, they were ruled by open councils of what sociologists call high achievers?successful yam farmers...
...order it. Anthropologist George Devereux has catalogued dozens of ancient methods-magical incantations, jumping from high places, applying hot coals to the abdomen. Hawaiian women fashioned stilettos representing Kupo, god of abortions, then thrust them into the uterus. Even now, Ceylonese girls brew an abortifacient by boiling a poisonous yam in cow urine or liquid dung, and then swallow the stuff for seven days...
...Upper Volta, President Maurice Yaméogo filled his Cabinet with his cousins, lavished money on high living, mansions and travel abroad. When the money ran low, he cut the salaries of his 11,000 government employees-one-third of the nation's wage earners. The result was four days of rioting two months ago, which ended only when Lieut. Colonel Sangoule Lamizane deposed Yaméogo and rescinded the pay cuts. "France gives us money, and all we do is waste it," he said...
...logical, cohesive force to assume leadership. Demonstrators in Upper Volta actually carried signs asking the army to take over. As products of austere French military traditions, the army commanders abhorred frivolity and waste. "France gives us money, and all we do is waste it," said Colonel Lamizane after ousting Yaméogo. In the Central African Republic, Colonel Bokassa used almost exactly the same words as he instituted a "moral cleanup" campaign for government officials: no bars, dance halls, riding in taxis. Also forbidden: tom-tom playing during working hours...
Little Losses. By any standard, the transitions to military rule were mild enough. In the C.A.R., it was cousin ousting cousin and putting up the ousted kin in his own house. In Upper Volta, former President Yaméogo praised the coup. "Contrary to what people may think," said he in a broadcast speech, "my ministers and I are the first to rejoice in the way things have been settled." In Dahomey, not a shot was fired, nor were more than a handful of politicians placed under arrest. The only deaths in the three military takeovers came in the C.A.R...