Temne Space Author(s): J. Little John Source: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 1963), pp.

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TEMNE SPACE

J. LITTLEJOHN
University of Edinburgh The Temne number over half a million and inhabit some 10,500 square miles of the northern province of Sierra Leone in the wet Tropics of W. Africa, between latitudes 70 and 100 North and longitudes100 30' and 13015' West. The land Temne inhabit is mainly low lying, and vegetation is mainly secondary forestand farm bush. As a resultof high rainfallthe whole territory is exceedinglywell watered,with numerousriversand tributaries and many swampsand marshesin the valley bottoms. The vast majorityof Temne are farmersliving at subsistencelevel by cultivating rice, mostly dry. The method is to cut down and bum an area of bush and, having lifted one crop, to leave it to regeneratethrough regrowthof bush. The fallow period in any particular place varies with population pressure,basic level of fertilityof soil, labour available,etc., and overallvaries from 3-8 years. At any given time the greaterpart of the land consistsof bush of varying age interspersed with swamps,riversand groves of primaryand secondaryforest. Isolated homesteadsare rare; villagesvary greatlyin size. A few towns of from 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitantshave grown up in the last two generations,mainly as and commerce. centres of administration That is the sort of way in which we are accustomedto describe the habitat of a people. Such a descriptionstarts from a standpoint very differentfrom the Temne one. The firstsentenceespecially is based on a conceptionof space and techniquesfor partitioning and measuringit which they do not have; for example a conception of space as "the container of all material objects" (Einstein 1960: XIV) in which the earth is suspended as one (spherical) body in a solar system, traversedby latitudes and
longitudes which though purely ideal in essence enable us to measure and guide movement over its surface. The Temne however consider the earth to be a flat circular object resting on the head of a giant, placed there by Kuru (God); trees and plants

are the hair of his head and living creaturesare the lice on it. The sun moves across the sky and "brings us day," the moon
1

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regulatesfertility. Such ideas are incompatiblewith the concept of space quoted. In this paper I attempt to describespace as the Temne appropriateit; not, perhaps,their concept of space, for since they have no word for space in general it is unlikely that they have a concept of it. In this descriptionI shall refer to our of space. It may be geometrical and physical characterisation that such references objected imply comparison,that it is inadmissibleto comparethe conceptsof a highly sophisticated science with the Temne activities,institutionsand ideas from which their manner of appropriating space can be inferred,and that the correct comparisonshouldbe with our everydayexperienceof space. I cannot fully meet this objectionhere, but should like to remark that our everyday experience of space is very much ruled by to thesein this article geometricalconceptions,and that references are intended to guide the descriptionof Temne space, not to set the terms for a full-lengthcomparison. Max Jammer (1960: 5) writes,"Modem physicson the whole

-if we neglect certainrelativistic space as theories--qualifies insofar or as it is finite infinite, continuous, homogenous, isotropic not a pure systemof relations."The space Temne inhabitis or isotropic.So far from beinghomogeneitherhomogeneous These withsomediffering intoregions neousit is divided qualities. andRokrifi. Roshiron are Noru,Rospcki, regions
Noru No is an adverb for "here,"e.g., one says "der no," "come here." Ru is the verb "to plait," eitherhair or a garland. Noru is the world "m'mu se nankyen""as we all generally see." It is the "here" Temne normallywalk about and live in, the everydayhabitat in which people and things are open to human perception. The name seems to indicate that the giant's hair has been combed and wrought. The notion of this world as a finely wrought thing was familiar to our ancestorsof antiquity, as instanced by the common root of cosmos and cosmetics,or mundus and munditia. Ro is the adverb "there" and the preposition"to," "from,""at" and occasionally"in" or "into." It is a frequent prefix in place names, indicating a "place of," as in Rosint ("place of sand") or Rogbane

Rospcki

TEMNE SPACE

("meeting place"), etc. Spcki is from the verb spk meaning "to dawn," both of daylightand the understanding. As an adjective applied to persons spcki qualifies a person as one with a special understanding, as against one who is not spcki. A member of the Poro societyfor example is spckias regardsPoro affairsas over against a non-member. However as a chief explained, "A society is a thing made by man so if you are spckifor a societyyou are only a secondclassspcki." A first-class spckiis one who can see into Rospcki; this is rather a marvellousthing to be able to do, for what marks off this region from Noru is that it and whateveris in it is generallyinvisible. To be able to see into Rospckia personmust have four eyes, which the following categoriesalways have-witches, each of a pair of twins, and the child born after twins. Rospckiis inhabitedby demons. Roshiron Oshir means "the witch," accordingly this is the place of witches, "a sort of village witches start out from" as one informantput it. As with Rospckiit is not penetrableby ordinaryhuman perception. Rokrifi This is where the ancestorslive; like the two preceding regions its inhabitantsand the events it contains are ordinarilyinvisible. The main difference among these regions is between the first which is open to human perception and the other three which are not. As indicatedthose regionsof space correspondto different modes of existence,to that of ordinaryhumans,to demons,to witches (who are ordinary humans most of the time), and to ancestors (i.e. humans who have died). We are familiar with the use of spatial adjectivesto denote modes of existence as for but for us these are example "worldly" and "other-worldly," metaphoric or allegoric usages. Worldly and other-worldlypersons inhabit the same space, differencesin their modes of existence would be ascribed to their own subjectivity, their ideas, psychological constitution and so forth. The Temne regions describedare on the other hand for them actual, objectivelypresent in their world. A person can move from one to another re-

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gion, suffering metamorphosis as he goes. I shall deal with metamorphosis below, first I want to show a) that ordinary space noru is not ordered through arithmetical systems of measurement and geometrical analysis, b) but through the confluence of these other regions in noru and physiognomic features of landscape. Ordinary Temne space is neither arithmetically measured nor geometrically analysed. The main unit for denoting medium-long distances is anfgwula, which means both "the interval between any two villages" and "waste-land." As villages are not evenly spaced this is not so much a measure applied to space as a meaning proferred by the physiognomy of Temne landscape as they have appropriated it. For larger distances estimates are used like "a day's journey" and for shorter distances the earshot. Approaching a village one places one's distance from it by the noises one hears, particularly that of rice being thumped, then that of human voices. For short lengths the main unit is anfatim, which is the outstretched arms of any adult man. It was Pa Nes the spider who taught men how to measure in this way. The pace, the foot, the span and lengths between knuckles in the forefingers can also be used. These units do not in any way form a system, none being determined as a proportion of another. For the most part where equal lengths have to be found for the construction of a large object (e.g. a house) a stick of the wanted length is cut and the others produced against it as model. As for geometrical figures, they distinguish straight lines from "bent," foh-conah serves for square, rectangle and cube, and kil-kil is the term for circle. In no case is the law which constitutes these figures known. It follows from this and the preceding that areas can never be measured. The size of a farm for example is arrived at by estimating the number of bags of rice it ought to produce. (If it does not produce them the farmer imputes this to the malice of demons or witches.) When men hire themselves out to hoe for a farmer, the farmer and the labourer agree on an area which the labourer should complete in a day's work. The day's work however consists of completing the area. We have become so accustomed to organizing our space through geometrical analysis and arithmetical measurement that it has come to seem the natural thing to do. Temne space is ordered otherwise, and particularly through the interpenetration of these three other regions with noru.

TEMNE SPACE

When asked about demons Temne firstreply with a classification of them into bush demons, town demons and river demons, each type inhabitingand "owning"the area from which it gets its type name. These correspondto the main features of Temne landscape-bush, river and town (i.e. village). The bush demons the (mainly) "waste" land between villages. inhabit anhgwula Like the bush they are wild and not easily controlled; unless placated they will destroywhat fertility produces,in farms and in women. They are most feared for causingmiscarriages by cowith All to women. them. As pulating miscarriagesare due shown below the landscape is dotted with reminders of their presence. The town demons are as Temne say "more tractable" than the bush ones. They are "owned"mostly by women, inhabiting pebbles which the owners keep hidden in cigarette-tinsor boxes. to granddaughter, Though most are inheritedfrom grandmother to ena town demon can be acquiredby paying a diviner-doctor tice one of them into one's service. What it is most often askedto do is help its mistressget babies,which it does by copulatingwith her. Part of the initial compact between mistressand demon is that should the mistresssuccessfullydeliver a baby, the demon will be offered a chicken. Should she neglectto keep her promise the demon takes his revengeby making the baby ill--one of the commonest causes of sickness in babies. However the town demon only does this if the compact is broken, unlike the bush demon it is not wilfully destructive. Town is the area in which law and reciprocityhold sway, unlike the bush where crop failures, accidentsand harm from beastsare to be expected. Temne villageshave to be situatedbesidesomesourceof water, normallya streamor river. The riverjoins bush with town. The river demon occupies a place midway between the other two, as powerfulas the one but like the otherbestowingriches;the riches in this case are mineral-money, preciousmetals and diamonds. The term for diamond is literally "water demon's stone." Merchants and diamond diggersare often thought to have formed a liaison with a water demon. Like the town demon it will turn against and harm a defaulter. Demons are responsiblefor a great many natural phenomena (as we call them), lightning, sudden gusts of wind, lights on marshesat night, and as indicated above many illnessesand crop

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failures. One interestingrange of illnessesdue to them are skin diseases, caused by the wind of a demon as it rushespast you. Illness and accident are also caused by witches. Animal attacks on humans are the work of witches. A favouritetrick of theirs is to spread a blanket underneaththe farmer as he sows his grain and to carry it away. Illness in which the patient slowly wastes away is also due to them, they gather at night and eat away the sick man's vital organs. Nature in some of its phases is intentionally oriented against the Temne, and it is clear that they could hardly bear to live noru without taking preventativemeasures. This they do by closing off selected areas against demons and witches. The room Temne inhabit is accordinglydivided into two sorts of space, closed and not closed. This constitutesone of the most important features of Temne space. The verb to close is kanta, the instrumentused to close off space in this way is ankanta,and the same noun is used for the area so closed off. Space not so closed off is never in ordinaryspeech designatedthe opposite,i.e. "open" (kanti), (though Temne assuredme it would not sound foolishto them to do so) ; closureis effectedagainsta background of the rest of space. Three sorts of space regularlyclosed off are those occupied by farms,housesand the human body. Here is an example of closure of a farm, done immediatelybefore burning the chopped down and now dry bush. Firston the verandahof his house the farmeroffereda sacrifice to his ancestors. Sacrificeis done facing rokrifiwhere the ancestors are (see below). The gear consistedof a three-leggediron pot containing water, cowrie shells and kola nuts; strips of red and blue and white cloth coveredit, two matchetswere laid crosswise on it and his sandals placed besideit, and on a plate beside it was a heap of rice flour. With his householdsquattinground he handed over (lankeli) the farm to his ancestors,imploring them to let no evil thing preventa successful burning,and so that their descendantshould not be disgraced,to protectthe seeds and crop. Two torchesof dried blades of ebankrbound with stripsof coloured cloth were dipped briefly in the water and laid in the sun to dry. Shortly after with several male relativeshe walked down to his farm carryinga kanta which had been preparedbeforehand. It had two components,the first consistingof scrap-

TEMNE SPACE

ings of the roots and bark of ebankrwashed in water and mixed with rice grain, both wrappedin red cloth. The second consisted of a sheet of Arabic writing, numerals and numbered squares wrapped in a leathercontainer. The virtue of the firstwas thisif witches and destructivebush demonscame near the farmwould seem to be ablaze and they would retreat. The second contained exorcising sentences from the Koran and a coding formula by which the farmer'sname was changed into a set of numbersand then into another name. Evil creatureswould be deceived as to the ownershipof the farm and go away. The completekantawas buried in a small hole within the boundaryof the farm beforethe bush was set alight. There are numerousankanta. Another6ne I saw set on a farm consistedof a hornstuffedwith such ingredients as sand, rice flour, a of with a bird of prey prodead and the claws leaves, spider The was bound from the horn in red cloth. If a truding top. would came near claws Another consistedof a the it. demon fight kola nut wrapped in leaf and bound round with thread. Two needles were stuck throughthe thread and four cowrieshells tied on by means of it. Kola nut juice had been spat on it, so that it was rustry orange in colour ("red" according to Temne classification of colours). The instrumentwas spcki,the cowriesbeing its four eyes to spy witches and demons with; the needles were projectilesto be sent shooting after them by the force of the kola nut in a "sortof explosion"as the farmersaid. It is difficult to convey the importanceof this operation and those devicesfor the Temne. Most farms are closed and certainly all houses. In some houseseach room is separatelytreatedin this way, the kanta being hung above the doorway. Sometimeshowever the object hung above the doorwayis said to be only a sacrifice to the ancestorsand not strictly speakingankanta. Even in in their these cases howeverthe intentionis the same; presumably own houses ancestorsare strong enough by themselvesto repel the attacksof evil invaders. There are other areaswhich are normally closed, the meeting places of the "secretsocieties"for example which abound among the Temne. These are closed in two senses, first in that non-membersare forbidden to enter them. When Temne speak of them as kanta in this sense they are referring merely to their laws of trespass,and distinguishthis from the second sense, namely in which the meeting places are closed

ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

against evil creatures. Especiallyat initiation time when youths have to be purifiedwith lustrationsand medicinesit is important to keep out all destructiveevil influences,hence ankanta are set up againstthem. A girl who dies while undergoinginitiationinto the Bundu society (which includes cliterodectomy) is thus revealed as a witch. A somewhatspecial type of enclosureis that a chief-electlives in between electionand coronation. The closinginstruments here are extremely powerful, though I was unable to discoverwhat they are. Writing in 1912 Esu Biyl (1912:190-199) remarked that the chief stays in kanta for six days prior to coronation. Chiefs nowadaysstay in for much longer, up to a year even, for (as a chief's son remarked), "They feel that if they stay in kanta not even the governmentcan touch them. They have very powerful medicine in kanta." A people's conception of space in one way or another enters into their idea of the human body. Our conception of space as the empty form in which things are located relatively to each other in mathematicallydeterminedrelationsdominatesour idea of function"is of the body, in the study of which the "localisation a leading concept. So with the Temne the body is closed off like farms and houses; all space being penetrableby evil, that occupied by the body is no different from any other. As indicated above witches and demons can penetrate the body. A type of kanta for closingthe body which is popularamongwomen is this: appropriateexorcisingsentencesfrom the Koran are written on a writing board and washed off into a bucket of water, used for lustration. A sheet of paper bearing the device describedabove for name-changing (or a similar one) is sewn inside a pouch along with prepared leaves. The pouch is attached to one or several thongs which are worn around the waist. These ones are specifically intended to prevent bush demons copulating with their wearers; doctorssay that all women wear them. Children on the other hand being "lessstrongin the head" than adultsare more vulnerableto witch attacks,to wasting disease. There are many sorts of kanta for children,a speciallypowerfulone which must be rather rare nowadays consistsof stones taken from an elephant'sstomach and wrapped in a piece of its intestine. From time to time some area not normallykanta will be made so--a village suffering continuousattacks from witches or dem-

TEMNE SPACE

ons, for example. The attackstake two main forms,epidemicsor plaguesof animalssuch as snakesor chimpanzees.For both demons and witches can change their forms. Before turning to the however, I want to completethis formsubject of metamorphosis al analysisof Temne space by showing its anisotropiccharacter. For us the cardinalpoints are co-ordinates for establishing location. The Temne never use them in this way, though should the necessity arise they will use one of them to indicate the general direction in which a place lies. Their cardinal points contain meaningswhich qualifyactivitiesand eventsin variousways.This is indicatedin their accountof the creationof the world by Kuru. After the world was put on his head the giant turnedEast. When the giant turns West there follow earthquakesand destruction. East and West are not only oppositedirectionsin an operationof the intellectbut existentialcontrarieswith East the life-sustaining direction,West the destructiveone. East is singled out above the other directions,literally. "We think of East as rising up like a hill, of everythinggoing up to the East,"Temne say. The adverb for "up" (rokom) is often used in place of the word for East the word for West (ropil) is fre(rotoron), and correspondingly quently used for "down,"both in the senseof down a slope and in the social sense as in "downtown." Among the reasonsthey give for the preeminenceof East is that the ancestorscame from there and still are there. Hence all sacrificesand prayersto them have to be done facing East "otherwiseyour prayer won't be answered." If the sacrificeis an animal or bird its throatmust point East so that blood flows towardsthere, blood being the ancestors' share of the offeringon which they live. Converselyit is through the ancestorsthat the Temne live in the mode in which they do. "We owe everythingto the ancestors,land, blood, houses." Each of a grandfather, not in the sense living Temne is a re-incarnation of the completeperson of a grandfatherbut of a re-instatement in that conception occurs only by the instigationof one, whose name the individualbears and whose body he reproduces. Each Temne has "come from" the East. It is accordinglyno mere metaphorto say that for the Temne East is the life-sustainingdirection. The movement of life from the East to the "here"where one is becomes incorporatedinto medicineas an active componentof it. As a doctorexplained,"In

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the East, there life started and came over, so East-West medicine should start in the East and come over to the West." East-West medicine is bark taken first from the East then the West sides of the trunk of the same tree and boiled together. It is by no means the whole content of Temne pharmacology, but is nevertheless an important item in several specifics, for example those used to cure stomach ache caused by poisoning, blisters all over the body, yaws and leprosy. Other institutions besides sacrifice and medicine embody the principle that life comes from the East, Poro society' initiations for example. The Poro was founded through the marriage of a woman to a demon, but at length the men of the village "took the demon out of town as they feared his sweet voice would lead others of their women to stray and to forsake them.... They took him out by the West road; there they made a house for him in the bush, that they might go and hear him sing... ." The procedure is followed to this day: the Poro bush where young men are initiated is at the Western side of the town. The youths die at initiation, being swallowed by the demon, and are re-born. Hence when they return to town they re-enter by the East road. Since East is "where you take direction from" the word for North is that for "left" and the word for South is that for "right." North and South as directions do not seem to qualify existence in any marked way, though most Temne believe that peoples in the North have the strongest destructive and protective medicines. Left and right however are existential contraries, left ominous and right propitious. If on setting out on a journey you stub the toes of the left foot it is best to turn back, stubbing the right indicates the journey will be fruitful. If the muscles round the left eye start twitching you are being gossipped about in a malicious way, if those round the right eye, in a reputation-enhancing way. This quality of "left" as a region of space is quite distinct from the utilisation of the maladroitness of the left hand and arm of the normal person to form metaphors; e.g. anyone singing out of tune may be called "left-handed" but there is no implication here that his behaviour is ominous for anyone. The ominous quality of left can be incorporated into medicine, not as metaphor, but as
1 For an account of this society among the neighbouring Mende people see K. L. Little, The Mende of Sierra Leona, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1951, CH. XII.

TEMNE SPACE

11

a constituentof the power one is setting to work. The Temne constructobjects called anwanka2for inflictingillness on thieves who steal vegetables. Most of these objects containleaves, which must be plucked with the left hand. Some of them are laid on the ground in the middle of the vegetableplot, and if so must be laid with the left hand. Just as if you were to pray to the West "your prayer would not be answered,"so if you omit "left" in these actions there will be no virtue in the object. The right hand on the contrary is the one you must use to touch the thing sacrificedwhen sacrificing. One does not sacrifice with the aim of having someone harmed, but in order to secure blessingsand good fortune for oneself. It is the right hand that is used to withdrawanwankafromthe vegetablegardenat the end of the season. The qualitativeoppositionof right-leftappearsin numerous details in daily life. In general one must not receive anything in one's left hand. An educated Temne once complained to me that one of the minor annoyancesof returningto the village after attendingcollegewas that "If you use a knife and fork people don't like it. They think it's dirty. But they don't mind if you just use the fork in your right hand." It is implicit in the data presentedabove that movement between various regions of Temne space is possible, for example there would be no need to close off areas noru if demons and witches remained sealed within their own domains; while one movement is inevitable for all Temne, that from noru to rokrifi (place of the dead). Such movement is accomplished by a change of form, metamorphosis,first of all in a broad sense in that it is a change from one mode of existenceto another,but also in a more specific sense in that it involves a change in bodily shape, for example from human to animal. The Temne verb to is lufte, e.g. oshir olufte owoto-"the denote this metamorphosis witch has turned into a chimpanzee." The verb is also used in everyday contexts to mean "to turn round," for example one shouts "lufte" at someone'sback if one wants him to face one, to proffer a different appearance. The clearest illustration is from witchcraft. Almost every animal which attacks a human being is held to be a witch who has taken that form preciselyin order to attack. A witch is a
2 For further details regarding these devices see J. Littlejohn, "The Temne House," Sierra Leone Studies, December 1960.

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person who ordinarily exists noru as an ordinary person and lufte(s) at the moment of turning into a witch; the turning is a movement from noru into roshironand at the same time an assumption of animal form. The sentence above, "the witch has turned into a chimpanzee"was spoken to me by a chief shortly after a dramaticseries of events in one of the larger towns. For some time women travelling out of town on a particularbush path had reportedbeing attackedby a chimp. One day an old man was dragged into town who had been "found sleeping in the bush." He was unusuallyhairyfor a Temne and had a beard, which Temne rarely wear; he was also suffering from a skin disease whereby he had patches of mottled white skin, and from his movements seemed to be ill or senile. Immediately word spread through the town that a witch had been apprehendedin the processof turning into a chimp, and in a few minutes a mob of thousandswas strugglingand screaminground the town courthouse trying to see the old man squattingunder guard of several policemen. Though during my stay in this town there were several public events duringwhich feeling ran high, a strikeof mineworkersfor example, this was the only occasion on which mob hysteria broke out. sometimesappearDemons are also capable of metamorphosis, in the form of in and sometimes the form of animals noru ing with of people, crowds are fond of very mingling people. They of an excitement. and where is noise there atmosphere specially They can be recognizedby a peculiar way they have of talking through the nose. "Often," I was told, "at dances in the village at night we suddenly notice strangersin the crowd. We chase them away, we know they are demons." A form of metamorphosisall Temnes suffer occurs at death. There are three main constituentsof the person, nesim (breath, life,) oder (body) and angina. At death breathdeparts,the body is as the Temne put it, "hidden"(i.e. buried), and anginagoes to rokrifito join the ancestors. Sometimesthe Temne talk as if the body went there too, though in some altered condition. At any the ancestorcontinuesto see and hear his descendrate, as anfgina ants, though usuallyinvisibleto them. Occasionallya Temne sees an ancestor noru in the form of a fleeting shadow (m'umpl), while some among the vultures which appear from nowhere at

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13

an animal sacrificeare sure to be ancestorsof the people present. Experienceof the presenceof ancestorsalso providesan illustration of the propositionthat a people's conception of space enters into their conception of the body. For some changes in body tonality indicate to Temne that ancestorsare present. One verb indicating this is ninsne, "to apprehendthe presenceof ancestors,"for which there is no Englishequivalent. To come to or wake up from a dream is nisne, to feel someone touching one without being able to see the personis tilne; ninsneis somewhere in between. Asked to describeninsne Temne say, "You just feel it in your body." An analysisof Temne space would be incompletewithout reference to dreaming, to which I turn now. While demons and witches may appear noru in various shapes to people who are awake, most encountersbetween people and these two sorts of "evil creatures"occur while people are asleep, dreaming. The Temne verb "to dream" is wirp, used as in the phrase "i wirp oshir"-"I dream a witch." Any dream in which large animals crocodiles,leopardsand bush-cows appear,speciallychimpanzees, means that witches are attacking the dreamer. In the Temne view the dreameris not dreamingof being attacked,he is being attacked. Similarly it is mostly in dreams that demons are encountered. As described above they copulate with women at night, when the women are asleep; they can alwaysbe identified as bush demonsbecausethey appearto the dreamingwoman disguised as her brother, occasionallyas her father; as we would say, a dream of incest. Doctors often in dreamsget advice from demons, and some claim to be able to dream demons at will. A female doctor remarkedto me ". . . I can lie down at any time and dreamwhat I have to do next. I sleep and dreamthe demons and talk with them, they tell me. Sometimesa woman comes to me who can't get pregnant. I dream and the demons tell memaybe they say the woman's a witch. I tell her to confess and give her medicine." I do not want to treat the subjectof dreamsfully in this paper, but would like to remark that not all dreams are of this sort, though it is this type--encounter with the creaturesof rospcki and roshiron-which impress Temne most. Nothing illustrates better the differencebetweenTemne space and our own than this

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assimilation of dream space to that of wakeful life.3 For them happenings in the one are as real as happenings in the other. With us a sharp distinction is drawn between the two, the space of wakeful life is objective, that of dreaming subjective; what happens in dreams is therefore not real in the sense in which happenings in objective space are, but are mere symbols of the unconscious tensions, repressions and psychological conflicts of the subject. "Assimilation" is perhaps the wrong word to use here, for it is not that Temne first distinguish the space of wakeful life from that of dreaming then subsequently equate them. The point is that the two are not separated to begin with. To understand this we must place ourselves firmly in Temne space, i.e. return to the points made earlier in this paper that ordinary Temne space is not the featureless container of things it is for us, analysed through ideal forms and bearing systems of numerical measurement; instead it falls round them in meanings read off from the physiognomy of landscape and the human body, combined with images embodying notions of good and evil. Not only are the main features of the landscape linked with demons of different quality, but signs and reminders of their presence are everywhere. Bush demons inhabit ant-hills, caves, huge trees which remain from the primary forest; a clump of bush definitely known to belong to one has the special name of e-kin^a, and is avoided. Demons are always in couples; two large hills near the town I lived in were a demon husband and wife. The rule concerning contacts between people and demons is that a person must contract only with a demon of opposite sex. Hence sexuality figured in demons pervades the landscape; most known river-demons for example are female, most town-demons are male. Since a crossroads is a favourite meeting place of demons and witches people prefer to avoid being on them, specially after about five o'clock (our time) when they start to become more active. The bush, haunt of destructive demons, impresses its nefarious character on activity there; plots, murders, meetings of witches are all supposed to be held in the bush. In the concrete room Temne have appropriated for themselves
3Though he did not offer the explanation put forward here, Taylor undoubtedly apprehended this assimilation when he spoke of the life of primitive man as resembling "a long dream." See E. B. Taylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind, 1878, p. 137.

TEMNE SPACE

15

space alters its total quality with unvaryingregularityfrom night to day. On dark nights it is impenetrableto human perception and is to that extent like rospckiand roshiron. It is not surprising that demons and witches are most active then, and that night is marked with the index "evil" and day that of "good." People who move about at night are suspectedof evil intentions,even of being witches. Temne are early risers,most are up at dawn to experiencelight issuingagain from where the ancestorsare, those whosehelp is invokedin closingoff protectedemgreat protectors placements against evil. Stepping on to the verandah of the house at first light, a Temne walks upon a sort of altar, for the verandah is the ancestors'part of the house, and many sacrifices to them are performedon it. And finally, whereverhe goes, the person carries in his body the distinction between left and right, the nefasteous and the fortunate. Colours to some extent fall under the meanings which space offers. White, colour of day, is good; hence sacrifices should contain white material-a white chicken, a white cloth, etc. Black, colour of night, is bad, and is often used as an active component of harmful medicines. Red, however, is felt to be more powerfulthan black, and all attackingmedicinescontain red. This sort of space is identical with dream space. Dream space is poorly organizedas far as mathematicsand geometryare concerned, but in it are presentedcompellingimages meaningfulin termsof the majorconcernsof existence;good and evil, good and bad fortune, sexuality,light and darkness(in all senses). Directions and regions in dreams proffer, though perhaps in a more ambiguousway, significationsakin to those of Temne space. The nature of ordinaryTemne space providesan understanding of a phenomenonrecentlynoted, namely a high frequencyof 2-D perception of pictorial matter among Africans. This was in a recentarticleby W. Hudson (1960:183-208). demonstrated In a series of experimentsdrawings were presentedto Africans were stressed, in which the cues by which we simulateperspective such as convergenceof parallel lines with distance, overlap and diminishingsize with increasingdistance. From subjects'replies to questionsafterwardsit was clear that they had not used these cues in interpretingthe contents of the drawings. Among the

16

ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

Africangroupstested were some who had receiveda certain

amount of European-typeeducation.4 Hudson concluded "The processof pictorialdepth perceptionis not beyondthe capacityof the black man, but it is a skill in which he has a good deal of leeway to make up. Both cultural and genetic factors play their role in the process,but the elucidationof their relative contribu-

to tion is beyondthe scopeof this paper." I am in no position sumfactors" in Hudson's of about the argue assumption "genetic of definite proofof mingup, but I cannotseewhyin the absence A assumed all. theirexistence should be at they peopleinhabiting for the Temne (and thereis the sortof spaceI have described that Africanpeoplesother plentyof evidencein the literature are than the Temneinhabitthe same sort of space) obviously to modefromthat normal in a different accustomed to perceive have been namedby The two modesof perception Europeans. and "geometrical-techniH. Werner(1948) "physiognomic"5 he remarks thatin it whatis seized the former cal." Concerning as is in as upon significant objectsperceived not theirproperties value. A revealedby geometricanalysis,but their expressive in ordinary to thistypeof perception peoplewho are accustomed to when it comes to alter it life arehardly viewingpictures, likely themforthatmatter.Temnewallpaintor painting or drawing in intention. ings are all in 2-D even when "representational" no diminished in is of theircontents The expressiveness by way this,but oftenenhanced. I am not arguinghere that Africansordinarily perceivethe actualworldin 2-D. It would be foolishto suggestso. They analwhichgeometrical mustinhabitthe same"objective space" a notis for them to but has revealed us; "objective space" ysis are in which to the they space background apprehended explicitly above. of living,a spacesuchas I havedescribed conscious
4Research on this topic recently conducted among the Temne by my colleague Mr. J. Dawson yields somewhat different results from Hudson's experiments, e.g., decreasing frequency of 2-D perception with increased exposure to European education. Dawson's results will be published in due course. 5Though Hudson does not analyse how his African subjects in fact perceived the pictures, apart from the dimension of 2-D and 3-D perception, it seems from some information he provides that they interpreted them in the mode of physiognomicperception.

TEMNE SPACE
REFERENCES CITED

17

BrYL,Esu. 1912-13--The Temne people and how they make their kings. Journal of the African Society 12:190-199.
EINSTEIN, A.

HUDSON, W.

1960--Foreword. In Concepts of Space, by Max Jammer, Harper Torchbooks,New York. 1960---Pictorial depth perception in sub-cultural groups in Africa. Journal of Social Psychology52:183-208.

MAX JAMMER,
WERNER,

1960--Concepts of space. Harper Torchbooks,New York.

1948--Comparative psychology of mental development. Revised edition. Follett Publishing Company.

H.