I’m currently re-reading one of my favorite books, Dancing on the Grave by Nigel Barley. First, late me just say what a great name Nigel Barley is for an anthropologist who does research into death beliefs and funeral practices. (Nigel means “dark night” and Barley is, well, barley) I’ve forgotten many of the factoids and passages, like this account:

The fates of men after death can be quantified to produce a map of human wickedness. In 1993, the Birmingham News of Birmingham, Alabama, published a map of the damned, according to which 46.1 percent of the people are headed for Hell. The map was produced by the Southern Baptist Convention to help its pastors search out concentrations of the greatest sinners. The unsaved were calculated by subtracting from each county’s population the number of registered church members and applying a secret formula that predicts how many of each sect will go to Heaven. The formula allows a greater or lesser proportion to attain salvation according to their relative closeness to Baptist doctrine. More Methodists will be saved than Catholics. Jews, Buddhists and Hindus will all be damned.

(Kip and I have tried to search for an online reference of this map of the damned, but so far no luck.)

But one the stories I do remember from Dancing on the Grave is from one of the times Nigel was in Africa doing research on, well, death. On his way to a funeral, he is waylaid by torrential rains, along with several native men. Nigel decides to make the most of his time and ask those present about stories they know about the origin of death. The only one who didn’t look at him as if he were mad was a school teacher–who also happened to be a Christian missionary.

Much to Nigel’s initial dismay he was all too eager to share and launched into a telling of Genesis. It started fairly straightforward with only a few substitutions: chameleon for snake, tarko tree for an apple or fig tree. But it got somewhat more interesting with the local version of the story of Adam and Eve’s first two sons:

“Then they had two sons Cain and Abel and Cain was a good man who grew millet and Abel kept goats. Abel’s children became the Fulani.”

“Ah,” the men nodded. So that was it. The Fulani who drifted with their livestock over the Dowayo fields in the dry season.

“And Cain had sons who became us and others blacksmiths and hunters. But Abel’s animals ravaged all the crops Cain had planted in the rocks and the thorns and the weeds and when he complained Abel just laughed. He just laughed,” he repeated and shook his head at the wonder of it. “So Cain killed him Thud! So now we live with blacksmiths and others but always fight with the Fulani because of that old grudge.”

Enthusiastic applause, slapping of hands on thighs. This was far too good not to dig further.

“And Europeans?” I asked. “White men like myself. Where did they come from?”

He appraised me coolly. “I have studied the Bible in great depth, monsieur. As far as I can recall, there are no white men in it.”