The story of the author and his wife's two-month safari in East Africa in the 1950s. Ruark's philosophies are intertwined in the hunting stories to make unforgettable reading.
From its medieval origins to the present, Mandé culture in West Africa is known for its highly intriguing art and tradition of hunting; undeniably one of its most conspicuous distinctive features. Totally entrenched in myth, legend and history; firmly grounded in the supernatural, the divine and the abstruse, hunting is altogether a cult, a ritual gesture, a token of allegiance to divine forces. Considered to be a dauntless intrusion of man into the realm of metaphysics and the “unknown”, the hunting vocation transcends by far the confines of human and tangible spheres. This study examines various articulations of the hunting art and tradition as they are conveyed in numerous African literary and cinematographic works. It elucidates the mythical and supernatural magnitude of the hunting activity by showing how it is presided over by immutable deities and tutelary figures. Held to be endowed with infrangible supernatural and esoteric proportions, hunting is deemed to be a reflection of Mandé people’s worldview, a vibrant expression of how they perceive and articulate their existence as part of, and in relation to the world. From all perspectives, traditional hunting in Mandé society is viewed as a noble, dignified and revered activity; sustained by a vehement sense of brotherhood, esprit de corps, faithful loyalty, compassion, munificence. It encompasses a set of principles and values enjoined by transcendent forces, in illo tempore, and meant to serve as timeless paradigmatic ideals to be preserved and handed down along generations. By persistently echoing the magnificence of the hunting art and tradition, African artists place the vocation at the heart of contemporary Africans’ yearning quest for origins, identity and plenitude.
Is Africa calling you?! We teachers think about a lot of things in February, mostly Spring Break. But for me it's the time of year that I think about getting married. Only there's a small problem: I don't have a fiancee. And so for the past ten years I have spent February planning my summer trip overseas. . . to look for a wife. When school ends in May I'm off to some exotic corner of the planet returning the day before school starts in the fall. My hitchhiking treks have taken me around the world, sleeping under bridges, in train stations, and on park benches! But go I must, for the thought of spending a summer in Phoenix. . . alone. . . is totally unacceptable. And rather than wait for Ms. Right to find me, and go nuts in the meantime, I go out into the world to find her. This year's wife hunting safari will actually take me to the homeland of all safaris. . . Africa! Perfect plan, now I just need to find that cheap ticket.
This book recovers the multiplicity of meanings embedded in colonial hunting and the power it symbolized by examining both the incorporation and representation of British women hunters in the sport and how African people leveraged British hunters' dependence on their labor and knowledge to direct the impact and experience of hunting.