CHAPTER 



13 



TABU 



THE black man is a different being from the white. It 

 may be true that they are both sons of God but the brain 

 of one is made in a certain way and the brain of the other 

 quite differently. The black man manages to understand the 

 white, but the white man does not understand the black and 

 feels that he is always far away on the other side of a screen. 

 The black man is just as intelligent perhaps, but while the 

 white is more logical the black is more fatalistic. White 

 logic is very often purely theoretical and not reflected by 

 practice. The black follows his instinct. He obeys the human 

 and divine laws neither from fear nor tradition, but from 

 instinct. For instance, the white man does not believe in 

 spirits; theoretically he has no tabu. The black, on the 

 other hand, treads a twisting path through a veritable jungle 

 of tabu. The white man feels free and zig-zags through life. 

 The black man proceeds with scrupulous care and never 

 makes mistakes. The logical white man is always a heretic, 

 but the black man, believing at the same time in Christ and 

 tabu or Allah and tabu, alone possesses a certain and pro- 

 found faith about life and death. 



It is a disturbing adventure to enter, or to try to enter, 

 the world of a black man born and bred in a tucal. If this 

 man likes you, trusts and esteems you he can reveal a spiritual 



