As the notorious Topless Procession case demonstrated, the Menai ethnic nation manifests an insular clannishness and resistance to modernity. Is this a symptom of an underlying psychiatric condition afflicting the entire ethnic nation? Are those traits likely to spread to Nigeria’s three-hundred-odd ethnic nations? Do they threaten Nigerian nationalism? Is this condition treatable, and if so, by what means?
The Subject:
The Menai is a minor ethnic nation whose global population at the date of this interim report is about one thousand. Ninety-five percent of all Menai live in Kreektown, an impoverished village on Agui Creek in Sontik State. Although there is only one known instance of public nudity among them, they are pathologically incapable of adapting to city life. They are victims of a group indoctrination that prevents them from emigrating from Kreektown. This made them particularly vulnerable to the defective Trevi inoculations during the 1980 Lassa fever outbreak. They address themselves as Menai, call their language Menai, and (although apparently of average intelligence) stubbornly speak Menai to the exclusion of the official Nigerian language in their village square.
Extract from the Glossary:
It is a feeble language, as I have mentioned elsewhere. There is actually no word for ‘suicide,’ which is understandable, I suppose: before this trauma of their imminent extinction, they had no cultural memory of Menai taking their own lives. Their word for ‘death’ is a portmanteau word that opens up into the English equivalent, sleepcatastrophe. Quaint, that. Sums up their entire world view.
Chief (Dr.) Ehi A. Fowaka
M.B.B.S.–F.R.C.Psych.–W.A.C.S.–F.M.C. (Psych)–F.W.A.C.P.–J.P.
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Log One
SLEEPCATASTROPHES
Kreektown | March/April, 1990
Felimpe Geya
Sussie Bomadi
Filed Bomadi
Bolu Maame
Dubri Masingo
Sonnie Abah
Adje Makande
Ena Praye
Halia Gorie
Nala Nomsok
Solo Atume (aka “Chemist”)
Births
Nil
Extant Menai population: 1,160
(National Population Commission [NPC] estimates)
CHIEF (DR.) EHI A. FOWAKA
Ubesia | 19th January, 1994
I was having dinner that evening at the Big Time Hotel in Ubesia, when Jonszer arrived. Apart from the bills for my daughters’ school fees at Loyola Jesuit College, nothing brings tears to my eyes like a steamed catfish trembling in a hot bowl of egusi. I had one such before me, and I was eating it with many prayers of thanksgiving to the munificent God that watches over Ehi Fowaka. Then Jonszer arrived. My chief regret for taking this assignment is my new familiarity with souls like Jonszer. He was halfway across the restaurant, black-clad, wild-eyed, and pungent, when I saw him. Fortunately the headwaiter was there. He is a diligent fellow from my town; I knew his godmother. He would have done well if he had gotten his four GCEs. He was just serving my stout, and I spoke to him with my eyes—really sharp fellow, that headwaiter—and he intercepted Jonszer two yards from me and took him outside. I then, regretfully, made short work of my pounded yam.
Then I went out to meet Jonszer. This is what I am wearing today: a white linen outfit, one of the dozen I ordered at the start of Mr. President’s assignment. It is light but dignified, perfect for getting around in these wretched parts where efficient air conditioners are few and far between. Jonszer was quaffing a beer. That headwaiter! He knows how to engage characters like this! When Jonszer saw me he put his bottle to his mouth and gobbled efficiently, putting it down when it was empty. ‘You come, now,’ he said, rising.
He did not mean to be rude, or imperious. His English was rudimentary, very much a second language spoken only when the other person couldn’t be forced to speak Menai.
There were several good reasons not to follow the amiable drunk. Yet Kreektown’s only hotel was a major apology. Working with people like Jonszer allowed me to stay in the relative comfort of Big Time Hotel, while doing excellent fieldwork in Kreektown. That appalling name alone was enough to drive my business elsewhere, but my regular hotels were full. I wanted to ask more questions of Jonszer, but we were attracting attention. This is not the sort of riffraff you want to be socially associated with. I summoned my driver, and we set off. Jonszer sat up front. I took the owner’s corner. Beside me was Akeem, my PA, cameraman, interpreter, and general dogsbody.
‘So tell me about this place you’re taking us to.’
‘Is a funeral. A Menai funeral.’
‘A funeral?’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
I sighed. This assignment was moving me closer to anthropology than pop psychiatry. I had no interests in funerals where I knew neither the corpse nor its relatives. Yet it was better that I be called out to too many things than too few; besides, it would be an opportunity for me to meet people, for the Menai were notoriously quiet, sit-at-home types. And frankly, I’d rather be doing this than be stuck at my desk at Yaba Psychiatric Hospital contesting seniority with the likes of Dr. Maleek.
‘So who died?’ I asked.
‘Nobody,’ replied Jonszer. ‘Is a funeral, not a burial. Is for Sheesti Kroma, Ruma’s daughter.’
Akeem caught my eyes, and we indulged some exasperated headshakings. Nobody died! Yet we were going to a funeral! This was the sort of thing that happened when you were forced to recruit a drunk as your local fixer. It was like that old joke, It was a very fatal accident, but, thank God, nobody died. Yet Kreektown was just twenty kilometres away, and frankly, my car was more comfortable than my hotel room. No surprise there, since the car was more expensive than the entire hotel. Which was the crazy thing about Ubesia: though the capital of an oil-producing state and cultural heart of the Sontik people, it had a local economy more stunted than the national average and has never quite moved from township into city status.
So I let my driver continue.
Kreektown was locked down when we arrived. There was a funeral under way, all right. The businesses were shut. The pool shop and beer parlours had their doors padlocked and their chairs stacked up under their awnings. The villagers had turned out in black robes like Jonszer’s. Never seen that many Menai out at the same time before. They gathered at the village square. It was dark and depressing. There were none of those high-wattage bulbs that organizers of funeral parties would have thought to provide in any civilized village. It was like stumbling into the really Dark Ages, complete with traditional architecture: there were people but it wasn’t a party; there was music—and it is really stretching it, to call that menacing witchery ‘music,’ but I am being scientific here—but no dancing. All they did was weep in song. People stood there like tree trunks and wept and sang these haunting Menai songs, songs that made you feel wretched, like the world was ending tonight, and they sang them one after the other. You don’t want to be in this square for a real funeral. The most sinister thing was the children, some of them as small as five and six, standing and chanting like the adults. These were kids who, in normal funerals, would have been running around at play. It was clear that a severe order of group psychosis was at work here. I don’t mind admitting to a most unscientific