Brother Mambo: Finding Africa in the Amazon
By J.D Lenoir with Phil Ceder, KutuKutu
Published by Black Rose Press, Castroville, Texas: 179 pp. 2022
Reviewed by Serena Nanda
Like early 20th century cultural anthropologists John Lenoir set out in the 1970s to spend some adventurous years doing fieldwork in an idyllic tropical paradise isolated from Western culture. But John never imagined how adventurous it would be. The readers of this fascinating and deeply moving memoir will experience the same surprises. John chose to work in the newly independent nation of Guyana in the Amazon basin of South America. His aim was to explore the effect of African culture on a slave plantation society only recently freed from European colonialism.
But from the moment John exited the plane at Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, nothing turned out as he expected. Viewing him as another Western colonialist, the Guyanese government refused to allow him to carry out his research. Despite his deep disappointment, John was determined to pursue his research, temporarily remaining in Guyana to mull over his options. Here he experienced some very strange encounters including one with a hummingbird which eventually led him to an isolated jungle community of freed slaves in the neighboring nation of Suriname.
Traveling to Suriname by a ferry on the Maroni River, sharing a space meant for 50 passengers with over 400, after several days John disembarked at Paramaribo the Surinamese capital. He stayed there for a while in a local inn trying to figure out what was next in this totally foreign environment. Some friendly locals who spoke a little English taught him some “bush” language called Pamakan, and he explained to them what he was hoping to do.
These conversations ultimately led him to the village of Langatabiki, one of several isolated river communities of formerly enslaved Africans who had escaped European plantations. Surviving the bounty hunters who tried to recapture them, these former slaves had settled in hidden villages like Langatabiki, in the Amazon rain forests, reachable only by dugout canoe. When John disembarked from the canoe, villagers gathered round to stare at this strange visitor trying to figure out why he was there. Speaking his few words of Pamakan, John was able to explain his purpose of staying in the village in order to learn about their society, which the village Paramount Chief allowed him to do.
Before anything else, John needed to know was where he could use a bathroom and get some water to drink. The boys surrounding him laughed nervously and pointed to the river and John realized how profoundly different life would be here from that of New York. He was also really hungry and as he didn’t see any places to eat, couldn’t imagine how he would get food. Then he remembered a central anthropological theory which emphasized the importance of reciprocity, or gift giving, in small non-Western societies. John reached into his backpack, his only luggage, and took out some snack bars he had bought in Paramaibo. He unwrapped the bars and offered them to the boys surrounding him who eagerly devoured them. The boys then led him to the nearby hut where he would live, which contained only a hammock for sleeping. Leaving his backpack in the hut, John sat outside on a log and anxiously reflected on his chances of surviving in this village. But as evening advanced, a young boy came by with a covered package. It was dinner — rice topped with stewed fish and gravy, one of the best meals John had ever eaten. The anthropological theory about reciprocity had paid off.
After a few weeks in the village, John’s wife came down, as they had planned, bringing their pet cat. His happiness didn’t last long: only a few days later she left, deciding she could never live in a dark, oppressively hot hut, with no light, a dirt floor, sleeping in a hammock, no privacy, only a river for a bathroom and a bath and a one-burner propane stove for cooking. John was devastated by loneliness when she departed, but decided to stick it out. He was adapting to the culture and environment, had worked out trading arrangements with neighbors for food and got used to the howling jungle monkeys at night.
As he became friendly with the villagers John learned more of their language, partly in exchange for teaching them English. It became clear that he would be living here for a long time and some village women decided he needed a “bush” name. They chose the name Mambo, and since Pamakans, like many other non-Western cultures, added a kinship term when greeting people, John henceforth became Brother or BaMambo.
John’s understanding of Pamakan language and culture progressed largely with the help of KutuKutu, the young boy who had brought him his first meal (and the co-author of this memoir). KutuKutu’s help was especially useful in tense situations arising from John’s incomplete understanding of trading arrangements. Early in his participant observation research, which is basic to ethnography, John began documenting village kinship relations on a map, naming the locations of people living in different huts. This frightened some of villagers who thought John would use their names to practice witchcraft on them.
