The Innocent Anthropologist : Notes from a Mud Hut

Studying a little-known tribe in the Cameroons was the author's first experience in fieldwork - and very nearly his last. Nigel Barley set up home in a mud hut in order to study the customs and beliefs of the Dowayo people. He knew how fieldwork should be conducted, but, as he rapidly discovered, the theory did not take into account the elusive nature of the Dowayo society, which refused to conform to the rules. In this honest, funny and compulsive account of his first year in Africa, Dr. Barley - who survived boredom, disaster, illness and hostility - gives a wonderfully irreverent introduction to the life of a social anthropologist which nevertheless makes inspiring reading.