Bundu Secret Society

            On Sunday morning I memorized lines 13 to 20 of “L'homme à la tête de chou" (The Man with the Head of Cabbage) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I worked on writing about Saturday's Food Bank Adventure.

            A little after noon I pulled down all of the wood from the left corner of the upper storage area in my bedroom. I cleaned the shelf in that area and also cleaned some of the wood, which still had hair on it from when I still had cats, and then I put everything back in better order than before.

            I had a piece of toast with peanut butter and cheese for lunch.

            I didn’t do my exercises in the afternoon because I wanted to finish my Food Bank Adventure and get caught up on my journal.

            I had a fried egg and warmed naan for dinner with a beer while watching the last half of David Attenborough’s “Zoo Quest to West Africa". Since no one in the first village they stayed at recognized the photo of the white-necked picathartes. David, Jack and the rest of the expedition decided to move on into the interior. There are very few large animals in the West African forest and the only one they observed as they travelled was the rare black and white colobus monkey. Its diet is far too specialized for it to survive in a zoo and so they did not try to capture one. They had to cross a hammock bridge to get to the village. They were told while halfway across that these types of bridges only last a year and that this one could go at any moment. The chief of the next village gave them a full ceremonial reception and they were entertained by the dancing of girls who had just been initiated into the rites of the Bundu Secret Society. The Bundu Society is for females only and it doesn’t mention here that one of the initiation rituals involves female circumcision. Some of the drums were those used in ceremonies of the Mjai Society, which they were told they were not allowed to see. The high priestess of the Mjai society, an old woman smeared with clay, also came out to dance along with the masked Mjai Devil. David asked if he could examine the mask but she told him that would only be possible if he went through the initiation and became a member of the society. It also doesn’t mention that it was probably that priestess who performed the surgery on the young women.

David recorded the ceremony and played the music back for the singers. They were delighted because they’d never heard themselves on tape. Jack kept showing the picture of the white-necked picathartes to the villagers and finally a man who was living there as an agricultural instructor recognized it. He had seen them in the bush in the hills behind the village. But it would be hard to helpers to carry their equipment up there because they believe the birds are the servants of a one-legged, one-eyed devil, bigger than a man, that lives inside the rock on which they build their nests. But he said that if they offered enough money they could get people to take the risk. They arrived at the location and found a nest containing two warm eggs. What they wanted was to capture a young bird that would adjust better to being tamed and so they decided to come back in four days. Meanwhile they went looking for the mudskipper fish that the London Zoo wanted from the mangrove swamps on the coast. They also captured a small crocodile, a small python, a mongoose, several baby birds and a baby spotted squirrel that David carried in his shirt pocket to keep it warm. The expedition’s pet chimpanzee Jane wanted to play with every animal they caught. They went back to the picathartes nests and built a screen of foliage so they could observe the birds from behind them for several days as they took care of their young. Finally they caught a fledgling but at first it would not feed and got weaker and weaker until Jack offered it a small frog. It devoured it and wanted more. It required at least sixty frogs a day for the next week until they were able to wean it onto an easier to obtain mixture of chopped meat and mealworms. It became the first picathartes to be brought to Europe alive and it thrived at the London zoo.

            I think that this episode of Zoo Quest took place before the other ones I watched because. Jack Lester was supposed to have been the host of the show until he took sick.

            I had a piece of apple pie with strawberry yogourt for dessert with coffee while an episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene. Although the torrent file for this series was supposed to have fully downloaded the video for some of these shows is glitchy as if they were incomplete. The audio is fine but the video freezes sometimes, especially in the beginning. Also, even though this is supposed to be the first season and the show I watched should have been the second episode, it had Patricia Driscoll as Marion, which means it was a fourth season episode.

            In this story Lord Giles the head tax collector is in Nottingham. He enters the market to see if the peasants are paying their taxes. One merchant is offering a chicken very cheap and, not knowing he is speaking to Lord Giles, he tells him that he raises his own chickens in the forest and avoids paying taxes on them. Giles has the merchant arrested but then lets him go with a warning. Meanwhile an eccentric but kind hearted nobleman named Lord Eilmer visits the market. He is a scientist and does little experiments as he walks along but to the peasants he is a sorcerer and the merchants find him to be bad for business. Lord Giles observes this and is angry that business is not being done. He complains to the sheriff. The sheriff tells Lord Giles that Lord Eilmer is very rich and has no heirs. As Lord Giles is one of Eilmer’s peers, if he were to officially renounce Eilmer as a sorcerer his estate would automatically be forfeited to Prince John. Giles argues that Eilmer would appeal to the ecclesiastical court and if he were to be found innocent then his accuser would be put on trial. But the sheriff says that Lord Eilmer would not make it to trial because the peasants hate and fear him and they might throw him over a cliff. Marian, having overheard Giles complain about Eilmer goes to Robin. Robin says that Eilmer is one of the few lords who treats his serfs like human beings. Marian goes to Eilmer to urge him to stay in his castle for a while but while she is there soldiers come and arrest him. Marian rides to tell Robin and he and Harold go to rescue Eilmer. The sheriff’s plan is to take Eilmer to jail via the cliffside road and to have two of his soldiers, disguised as serfs abduct and then throw him from the cliff. Robin and his man rescue Eilmer from the murder but then they are surrounded by the sheriff’s men and backed up against the cliff. Eilmer makes a kite and uses it to transport a string to the other side of the canyon and then the string is used to pull a rope across which Harold, Robin and Eilmer cross, hand over hand. Eilmer then wills his estate to the church so Prince John can't touch it.