Our Grandmothers' Drums: A Portrait of Rural African Life & Culture (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hudson, a young Englishman, spent 14 months in a village in Gambia. He originally intended only to observe the community, but as time passed, he became an active participant in the rituals of a people who inhabit termite-infested huts, live near dangerous bush and are entirely reliant on an annual rainy season for survival. PW called this a "perceptive first book."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co (P) (April 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805016201
• ISBN-13: 978-0805016208
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #846,135 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #4 in	Books > History > Africa > Gambia
  #11 in	Books > Travel > Africa > Gambia & Senegal

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating and funny, February 13, 2004

By	kaioatey (Awatovi, AZ) - See all my reviews

If you ever go to Gambia, this is the book to get, together of course with the ubiquitous Lonely Planet. Hudson, a young adventurer, spent 14 months in a Mandingko village, observing and commenting on the daily life. Amazingly, he was allowed to join one of the women's societies... so he followed them around, participated in their dances, field work and intrigues and documented this stuff in OGD. Hudson shows that African women are, although destined to a life of hard work, circumcission & mostly unhappy arranged marriages, far from helpless creatures. They are economically independent, they are free to choose their lovers, they sing and they dance:

"It was in the early hours of the morning before the dancing began in earnest, the figures of the women glowing as though golden in the light of the hurricane-lamp, as they came running towards the drummers, spinning around only at the last moment to dance. This was what they liked more than anything elese - the extremity of this total bodily exertion, this fervent, almost ecstatic unleashment of energy, in which every muscle, every last atom of their energy would be used. It was as though the rhythms of the drums..[...]... were touching something actually inside the women themselves, to which their frenetic shaking was an involuntary, though wholly pleasurable response. They called it dia - sweetness."

"Hear the sound of these drums!
Our own drums!
Here the sound of these drums!
Our grandmothers' drums!"

Hudson shows that African life can be strange beyond our imagining. The pragmatic and relaxed attitudes towards the body and sexual activity; the separatedness of women and men, who get together pretty much just for sex; the ancient initiation formulas and rites, the pragmatic interpretation of the Muslim religion mixed with animism and, above all, the aliveness of these people get through in this book really well. These Mandingko use their bodies for pleasure in a way which makes Westerners look like hollow emaciated specters lost in our greedy little calculating minds. There is much fun in African lives and much sadness - sadness that we have forgotten about.

We need to learn from Africans about how to inhabit our bodies and about how to live in the present moment and this book gives us first hand information on these topics. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars OUR GRANDMOTHERS' DRUMS, September 9, 2003

By	allan m. (Yorkshire , England) - See all my reviews

This travel book does not move from the village of Dulaba in the Gambia but it uncovers a truly fascinating web of social life,customs,intrigue,obligation, initiation, sex and much more - it takes you to the heart of Africa . A MUST for anyone heading for the 'dark continent'.