Beneath the Sweltering Heat of the Summer Night Sky, Around the Circle of Dancing Flames, by Stanford W. Carpenter – My EthnoSurreal Life | @MDWorld

January 13, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 0 Comments

Suriname. Beneath the sweltering heat of the summer night sky around the circle of dancing flames drinking a mixture of coffee, condensed milk, and 180-proof rum telling stories of adventure, dreams, joy, and sadness.

Storytelling long after the day had come to an end. A day of archaeological work—digging, illustrating, mapping, surveying—all in the hopes of tracing settlement patterns of maroons, escaped slaves who had fled the port cities and plantations for land so inhospitable their former captives would not follow. Storytelling to pass the time … stories begun years ago when we were digging in Jamaica, stories that continued as we shifted locales, stories of man.

 

He was a friendly man. Wherever he went he would smile, stop, waive, and yell to family, friends, and complete strangers. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing, he did so without care or regard. People would bump into him, cars would screech to halt, as he smiled, stopped, waived, and yelled while crossing the street. But nothing anyone said deterred him. As he got on the bus, the driver begged him to sit still, keep his head and hands in the vehicle. The man responded affably but once he got to his seat by the window, once the bus started moving, he would not be deterred. He leaned out the window, smiled, waived, and yelled to people on the street. The driver and the other passengers pleaded with him to stop. But he would not be deterred. That was until the moment when he leaned out the window and failed to notice the oncoming truck in the opposing lane of traffic. There was a loud thud.

“My head! My head! Where is my head!” he yelled as blood spurted from his neck and he tried to wipe the blood from his face …

“Hold on a second,” one of the archaeological crewmen said to Kofi. “How could he be wiping the blood from his face if his head was missing?”

“Stop interrupting,” Kofi replied. “The story isn’t over.”

Kofi continued to describe the now Headless Man feeling his way down the aisle, off the bus, across the street, to the side of the road while wiping the blood from his non-existent-without-explanation-face. He described the horror of the bystanders as the Headless Man felt his way to within inches of his head. He described how just as the Headless Man was about to grab his head, a dog ran past him, grabbed his head by the ear, and disappeared into the tall grass.

“Wait,” said the crewman. Three or four others joined him in demanding to know: “How could he be wiping the blood from his face if his head was missing?”

“Stop interrupting,” Kofi replied. “The story isn’t over.”

Kofi went on to describe the Headless Man disappearing into the tall grass in search of his head. He explained that the Headless Man was still out there, wandering around in search of his head, and that if he stumbled upon any of us we shouldn’t be afraid because, after all, he was a friendly man just trying to find his head.

In Jamaica, our crew was mostly Black and Brown, hailing from Ghana, Jamaica, Nigeria, the U.S. The Africans burst out in laughter, the Jamaicans looked perplexed, and the African Americans (myself included) were left in a state of dread.

Then Kofi stood up and doused the flames, an indication that it was time for us to turn in. As we gathered our things to head to our tents, Kofi said one last thing.

“The story isn’t over.”

It took me a while to fall asleep. It didn’t help that I had been reading Surrealist poetry and prose, some of which referred to being headless. Still, what had my mind racing the most were the different reactions among the Black and Brown crew. I remembered reading West African Folktales about bodiless heads and headless men. I remembered the theme being revisited in Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard. Maybe that explained the laughter. At the same time I couldn’t help but feel overtaken by stories of dismemberment and lynching as people looked on. Maybe that explained my and other African American’s sense of dread.

Still, the story wasn’t over.

The next day we unearthed a section of a tree that, once propped up, cast a shadow that looked eerily like a man with no head.

As the dig worked its way from Jamaica to Suriname, the story of the Headless Man took on a life of its own. Members of the crew would whisper stories about encountering the Headless Man on the edge of camp. My favorite was the one where a crewmember invited the Headless Man to sit down for a drink while the rest of us were sleeping. The crewmember went on to describe how the Headless Man poured the drink down his neck as he continued to spurt blood from where his head had been sheared off. Just after the Headless Man thanked the crewmember and disappeared into the night, the crewmember noticed that the Headless Man had been sitting on his head!

The Ghanain (that being Kofi) laughed, the Surinamese looked perplexed, and the African American (that being me) was filled with dread. I went back to my tent. It had been years since Kofi first told the story of the Headless Man. By now reading Surrealism and scribbling in my journal before going to bed had become the norm while on archaeological digs.

The scribbles based on the Headless Man in my journals were every bit as Surreal as the texts I was reading … almost as Surreal as witnessing different emotional responses from Black and Brown people interpreting the same stories through different cultural lenses.

Many years later I would create a series of 24 x 36 inch hand painted animation cells based on the Headless Man scribbles in my journals. Later I would create digital cartoon versions. More recently, the Headless Man’s story became a part of Brother-Story’s story … someone who you will get to know long before I get to the monkey.

And today, as I think back on these experiences I am reminded of the enduring power of stories and the beginning of my formulation of the term EthnoSurreal.