kaleidoscope of cataracted eyes, suppurating boil-craters, patches of angry rash on brown skins, wounds, and swollen genitals.
For nearly three hours Thesiger worked indefatigably in the midst of this bedlam; his hypodermic stabbed with piston-like regularity at brown bottoms; oceans of ointment were spread on leagues of lint; he stitched away like a tailor at dog bites and pig-gores, and counted out hundreds of white pills into hundreds of horny brown hands; while all space and light were effectively closed off by waiting patients and relations.
Last of all came the circumcisions. During Thesiger’s first year among these people he had been in much demand to repair the often spectacular damage inflicted by wandering professional circumcisers, who, in return for a fee of five shillings, would perform a protracted and agonisingmutilation whose aftermath of sepsis and slow convalescence lasted often for many months. The near-universality of sepsis and complication had at first puzzled Thesiger, for by the very nature of their lives the marshmen have built up some small immunity, and it was not for some time that he discovered the almost incredible cause. The wandering circumcisers, to give full measure for their five-shilling fee, were in the habit of dressing the wound with a magic powder of which they carried considerable quantities; and this powder, it turned out, was composed entirely of dried and powdered foreskins. Thesiger’s despairing attempt to explain the rudimentary principles of anti-sepsis had brought furious scowls from the purveyors of the powder, and pleas from the suffering people that he would perform the operation himself. His first attempts had proved so rapid, painless, and free from after-effect that his competitors had felt inspired to put about a rumour that he rendered his patients sterile. Thesiger was so constantly on the move that they could not be aware of the weakness in this otherwise intelligent gambit, for they did not know how many grown boys and young men had been among his patients. By the following year a large number of them had fathered healthy babies, and the wandering circumcisers found themselves discredited as liars as well as butchers. Thesiger had taken the terror from the operation, and now few would consent to have it performed by anyone else. Would-be patients who had heard of our vicinity would sometimes follow us for many days, and would come in from neighbouring villages to wherever we were known to be staying.
Circumcision, which is normally performed in an arbitrarily chosen year somewhere between the ages of ten and nineteen, is something of an occasion, though the extreme informality of the proceedings is in contrast with that of many other peoples who perform ritual mutilations. The boys assemble, anything from one or two to fifty or more, and lie upon the ground in rows while the operatormoves round them as a doctor might move from bed to bed in a hospital ward. The greater part of the whole village forms a solid wall of spectators; women and girls of all ages form an appreciable part of the audience; and often a boy’s mother or sister will sit beside him, encouraging him before the operation and keeping the flies off him after it. Only occasionally a boy professes embarrassment at the presence of the women, and asks to be operated upon in surreptitious privacy; the true marshmen are so often naked in the presence of women that no element of shame attaches to it. Little sympathy, and often much mockery, is shown to a boy who is frightened or who cries out, but very few do, and I have heard one who was asked what Thesiger’s operation felt like reply “it felt as if a flea bit me”. As the operation is completed the boy’s mother gives vent to the weird cry of rejoicing that is described in technical literature as “ululating” (an onomatopœic word, for the sound is simply “ululululululululu” repeated in a high and rapid wail until breath gives out), and
For nearly three hours Thesiger worked indefatigably in the midst of this bedlam; his hypodermic stabbed with piston-like regularity at brown bottoms; oceans of ointment were spread on leagues of lint; he stitched away like a tailor at dog bites and pig-gores, and counted out hundreds of white pills into hundreds of horny brown hands; while all space and light were effectively closed off by waiting patients and relations.
Last of all came the circumcisions. During Thesiger’s first year among these people he had been in much demand to repair the often spectacular damage inflicted by wandering professional circumcisers, who, in return for a fee of five shillings, would perform a protracted and agonisingmutilation whose aftermath of sepsis and slow convalescence lasted often for many months. The near-universality of sepsis and complication had at first puzzled Thesiger, for by the very nature of their lives the marshmen have built up some small immunity, and it was not for some time that he discovered the almost incredible cause. The wandering circumcisers, to give full measure for their five-shilling fee, were in the habit of dressing the wound with a magic powder of which they carried considerable quantities; and this powder, it turned out, was composed entirely of dried and powdered foreskins. Thesiger’s despairing attempt to explain the rudimentary principles of anti-sepsis had brought furious scowls from the purveyors of the powder, and pleas from the suffering people that he would perform the operation himself. His first attempts had proved so rapid, painless, and free from after-effect that his competitors had felt inspired to put about a rumour that he rendered his patients sterile. Thesiger was so constantly on the move that they could not be aware of the weakness in this otherwise intelligent gambit, for they did not know how many grown boys and young men had been among his patients. By the following year a large number of them had fathered healthy babies, and the wandering circumcisers found themselves discredited as liars as well as butchers. Thesiger had taken the terror from the operation, and now few would consent to have it performed by anyone else. Would-be patients who had heard of our vicinity would sometimes follow us for many days, and would come in from neighbouring villages to wherever we were known to be staying.
Circumcision, which is normally performed in an arbitrarily chosen year somewhere between the ages of ten and nineteen, is something of an occasion, though the extreme informality of the proceedings is in contrast with that of many other peoples who perform ritual mutilations. The boys assemble, anything from one or two to fifty or more, and lie upon the ground in rows while the operatormoves round them as a doctor might move from bed to bed in a hospital ward. The greater part of the whole village forms a solid wall of spectators; women and girls of all ages form an appreciable part of the audience; and often a boy’s mother or sister will sit beside him, encouraging him before the operation and keeping the flies off him after it. Only occasionally a boy professes embarrassment at the presence of the women, and asks to be operated upon in surreptitious privacy; the true marshmen are so often naked in the presence of women that no element of shame attaches to it. Little sympathy, and often much mockery, is shown to a boy who is frightened or who cries out, but very few do, and I have heard one who was asked what Thesiger’s operation felt like reply “it felt as if a flea bit me”. As the operation is completed the boy’s mother gives vent to the weird cry of rejoicing that is described in technical literature as “ululating” (an onomatopœic word, for the sound is simply “ululululululululu” repeated in a high and rapid wail until breath gives out), and
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