settled into a good position, from which I managed to float the bait out to a good
spot: sixty yards away and just off the diagonal line of turbulence. To think of rivers as unidirectional is common, but in the big picture there are always these pockets where something else is
happening. Usually the surface gives a clue to underwater forces combining and cancelling. Here a shifting furl of spiky waves was bordered, along its downstream edge, by areas of smooth upwelling.
I was fishing a two-pound machoiron with one treble hook nicked through the back and another two suspended from cable ties, one under the belly and the other under the tail, like a lure.
At around midday, simultaneously the float vanished and the ratchet screamed. I pushed the drag lever to the strike position and lurched forward as the rod folded over, but there was no
reduction in the fish’s velocity. I pushed the lever nearly to its limit, and as my back doubled over and my legs tensed against the gunwales, the rod was almost torn from my grip. At least
there was no way the hooks could fail to set, given this amount of force. So when the line suddenly went slack, I assumed the fish was running towards me, and wound frantically to regain contact.
But after a few seconds I knew. All I brought back was half a bait, torn and punctured. The score was two-nil, to the fish.
Over the following days, as nothing else took, my mood plummeted. How could it be true that this fish attacked people when it wouldn’t go for a free offering? At this rate, we
wouldn’t have a film. What a crazy idea we had had to bring a crew and all their kit here, to a place where my first catch had taken six years.
But fishermen told us that people had been bitten recently. And we heard there had been a fatality near here, upriver at Kwamouth. A young girl had almost been bitten in half. Apparently
she’d been wearing a cord around her waist, from which dangled a number of shiny bottle tops, and these flashing in the sunlight probably lured the fish in. Ironically, this cord had been
given to her as a lucky charm to ward off evil spirits.
For some here, the mbenga is a spirit. This is a culture in which nothing is seen as an accident. It’s like looking for someone to sue after a twisted ankle on a footpath, except that in
this case the culprit is not the city council but a sorcerer. Thus, if a goliath attacks you, it happened because a sorcerer, paid by your enemy, has taken possession of it. But there is also good
magic, and the practitioners of this are féticheurs . There was one at the next village, and a fisherman took me to see him.
A boy with a soot-blackened face and a man wearing a dress emerged from his hut door. From inside came sounds like cries of surprise. A small man came out and spread some skins on the ground.
Sitting cross-legged, he took pinches of fibrous matter from inside leaf wraps and started kneading them.
‘Do you want snake protection too?’ whispered Hector our boat mechanic, pointing to a small scar on his upper wrist. He explained that this was a two-for-one offer: I’d have a
substance that would protect me from snake bites rubbed into a cut. ‘Or do you want just the fish?’
I decided on the latter option and, acting on Hector’s instruction, put some CFA francs under the skins and then took the ends of two thin leaves that the féticheur was
proffering. On a mimed signal I pulled these leaves and dropped the broken ends behind me. The man then gave me a small pouch made from folded, floral-pattern rag, as Hector translated: ‘You
must take this with you when you go fishing, and sleep with it under your pillow. It will protect you from the mbenga, and it will help you to catch him.’
I’d not been expecting this. And I didn’t know what to do with my gift. Although I’m sure that some superstitions work through the placebo effect, I also know that if you
recognise them as such, they lose their power. In the end, I
spot: sixty yards away and just off the diagonal line of turbulence. To think of rivers as unidirectional is common, but in the big picture there are always these pockets where something else is
happening. Usually the surface gives a clue to underwater forces combining and cancelling. Here a shifting furl of spiky waves was bordered, along its downstream edge, by areas of smooth upwelling.
I was fishing a two-pound machoiron with one treble hook nicked through the back and another two suspended from cable ties, one under the belly and the other under the tail, like a lure.
At around midday, simultaneously the float vanished and the ratchet screamed. I pushed the drag lever to the strike position and lurched forward as the rod folded over, but there was no
reduction in the fish’s velocity. I pushed the lever nearly to its limit, and as my back doubled over and my legs tensed against the gunwales, the rod was almost torn from my grip. At least
there was no way the hooks could fail to set, given this amount of force. So when the line suddenly went slack, I assumed the fish was running towards me, and wound frantically to regain contact.
But after a few seconds I knew. All I brought back was half a bait, torn and punctured. The score was two-nil, to the fish.
Over the following days, as nothing else took, my mood plummeted. How could it be true that this fish attacked people when it wouldn’t go for a free offering? At this rate, we
wouldn’t have a film. What a crazy idea we had had to bring a crew and all their kit here, to a place where my first catch had taken six years.
But fishermen told us that people had been bitten recently. And we heard there had been a fatality near here, upriver at Kwamouth. A young girl had almost been bitten in half. Apparently
she’d been wearing a cord around her waist, from which dangled a number of shiny bottle tops, and these flashing in the sunlight probably lured the fish in. Ironically, this cord had been
given to her as a lucky charm to ward off evil spirits.
For some here, the mbenga is a spirit. This is a culture in which nothing is seen as an accident. It’s like looking for someone to sue after a twisted ankle on a footpath, except that in
this case the culprit is not the city council but a sorcerer. Thus, if a goliath attacks you, it happened because a sorcerer, paid by your enemy, has taken possession of it. But there is also good
magic, and the practitioners of this are féticheurs . There was one at the next village, and a fisherman took me to see him.
A boy with a soot-blackened face and a man wearing a dress emerged from his hut door. From inside came sounds like cries of surprise. A small man came out and spread some skins on the ground.
Sitting cross-legged, he took pinches of fibrous matter from inside leaf wraps and started kneading them.
‘Do you want snake protection too?’ whispered Hector our boat mechanic, pointing to a small scar on his upper wrist. He explained that this was a two-for-one offer: I’d have a
substance that would protect me from snake bites rubbed into a cut. ‘Or do you want just the fish?’
I decided on the latter option and, acting on Hector’s instruction, put some CFA francs under the skins and then took the ends of two thin leaves that the féticheur was
proffering. On a mimed signal I pulled these leaves and dropped the broken ends behind me. The man then gave me a small pouch made from folded, floral-pattern rag, as Hector translated: ‘You
must take this with you when you go fishing, and sleep with it under your pillow. It will protect you from the mbenga, and it will help you to catch him.’
I’d not been expecting this. And I didn’t know what to do with my gift. Although I’m sure that some superstitions work through the placebo effect, I also know that if you
recognise them as such, they lose their power. In the end, I
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