Dr. Mann Tells of Black Magic 
~~~ . > l 
Encountered on Zoo Safari 
Black magic and Hollywood hit 
t tunes deep in the African bush 
'country is the weird mixture re- 
I ported by the Smithsonian-Fire- 
' stone Expedition on a safari into 
Liberia for animals for the Na¬ 
tional Zoo. 
Dr. William M. Mann, director 
of the Zoo and leader of the ex¬ 
pedition, has written the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution of his encounter 
with voodooism. 
As the caravan approached a 
jungle village at dusk. Dr. Mann 
reported, the natives warned the 
«r v 
* travelers they would have to hide 
in huts and remain secluded for* 
the night. The “devil” was to pass 
through the night, and not even 
a member of the “devil’s” own 
secret society could look upon him 
without the most terrible conse¬ 
quences. 
\W, y * 
‘Devil’ Runs Wild 
Native boys in the caravan scat¬ 
tered to the huts'in terror. None 
of the party ventured out into the 
darkness. But the next day a sub-j 
stitute devil performed the devil's 
dance for the party. 
“He was clad in what looked like 
miles and miles of raffia,” Dr. 
Mann wrote, “and he resembled a 
moving haystack with a tremen¬ 
dous mask on his head. He did 
an acrobatic dance, changing his 
height two or three times from | 
about three to eight feet by sud-i 
aenly springing up and elevating 
his mask. All of these dances were 
accompanied by a most harmoni¬ 
ous chanting 
» 
Porters Sing ‘Heigh-Ho’ 
When Dr. Mann’s caravan isn’t 
being interrupted by devil dancing 
it swings along through the jungles 
and plains to the strains of the 
“Heigh-Ho” chorus from Walt 
Disney’s movie, “Snow White and 
the Seven Dwarfs.”. 
Dr. Mann taught the native por¬ 
ters the tune and they mix it in 
with the chants which they sing 
from morning to night while on 
the march. 
Although the natives appar¬ 
ently go for Hollywood tunes, they 
can’t understand why live animals 
are wanted for the Zoo. They say, 
reports Dr. Mann, that animals 
are good only to be killed and 
eaten. 
