introduction 27highlighting the fact that the human desire to mediate cultural difference
through mimesis is certainly not limited to people in Africa or to forms of
popular culture. And aren’t there many of us anthropologists who, under
certain circumstances, feel an urge or even the compulsion to dress, talk,
or act like a typical member of the communities among whom we conduct
our research? A photograph of my younger self, taken in Kano in 1993 and a
bit embarrassing today, shows me clad in the ritual dress of a bori spirit—a
female, pagan spirit, for that matter (see figure I.1). Photographs of Franz
Boas dressed as an Inuit and of Frank Hamilton Cushing in Hopi regalia
are better-known examples of our mimetic inclinations. The desire to ex-
perience other possible lives, at least temporarily, by dressing as they do,
is no less an expression of the human mimetic faculty than that displayed
by Nigerian spirit mediums who host the spirits of colonial Europeans,
Hausa actors who mime Indians, South African James Bond imperson-
ators, and Tanzanian video film stars who act “Nolly woodish.”
figure i.1
Author in costume of female bori spirit, Bagwariya, together with two
friends, Kano 1993.