Edmund Searlesask her to join me, at least for half the year. We lived together in Iqa-
luit for seven months. We attended the local Roman Catholic church,
then under the direction of Father Dufours, who celebrated Mass in
three languages, French, English, and Inuktitut. A native of France,
Father Dufours had been a priest in the Arctic for more than thirty
years, and his knowledge of Inuit language and culture was encyclo-
pedic. My wife was reluctant to attend St. Jude’s Cathedral, Iqaluit’s
scenic Anglican Church, in part because of the rumors she had heard
about Protestant denominations. It made her uncomfortable to think
that Protestants had rejected much of what Roman Catholics hold
dear, the veneration of saints and an elaborate and extensive devo-
tion to sacraments. I did not argue with her, nor did I try to convince
her to attend St. Jude’s. I found myself more interested in attending
the Roman Catholic church anyway, if only because it seemed so dif-
ferent to me, even exotic.
She started graduate school later that year, and in 1996 , she was
awarded a twelve-month pre-dissertation fellowship to study initia-
tion rites among the Mandinga of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, a for-
mer colony of Portugal. Having had many unusual experiences in the
Arctic, we entered the field with a healthier appreciation for the un-
known and the uncontrollable. Although Michelle had specific re-
search topics in mind, that is, Mandinga initiation rites, we realized
we would not make any progress if we did not speak Kriolu, the na-
tional language, and Mandinga, the language of the Mandinga. The
Mandinga are the third-largest ethnic group in Guinea-Bissau, and
their language is one of the several dozen Mande languages spoken
throughout West Africa. Little has been written about the Mandinga
of Guinea-Bissau, however, and nothing had been published on their
initiation rites since the 1940 s.
After several months of intensive language study in a Mandinga-
dominated neighborhood in Bissau, the nation’s capital, we indicated
to our Mandinga friends that we wanted to move to a village in the
Oio region, one of twelve administrative units in Guinea-Bissau. Oio
is considered by many to be the crucible of Mandinga history and cul-
ture in Guinea-Bissau, which is no larger than Connecticut and which
boasts a population that recently surpassed 1. 2 million. Our language