ever amounted to anything. There isnendless bickering about what size pigsnare to be killed and who is to get whichnparts of them, and whether the butcheringnshould take place before the worknis done or afterwards. There isn’t anynmoney, and the barter system doesn’tnwork very well because the villagersnspend most of their time wrangling,nmaking long and absurd speeches innwhich “atta atta” is a frequent phrase,nand the translations of which are impossiblenfor any satirist to rival. “Younhave displayed your wealth in feathers,”none “bigman” sneers. And anothernproclaims, “We Bosida are mennof station: we seem lazy, but that is notntrue!” Well, of course it isn’t the wholentruth. “Deceitful and contemptible”nalso need to be added. And “stupid.”nThe preparations for the party areninterrupted by a sudden rainstorm, andnthere is much debate over who causednthe rain and whose magic might makenthe rain go away.nAs in the Kurosawa film, there is angeneral ecological concern with thenpreservation of the rain forest. The bignhunter—whose name, I swear, is Kipling—nboasts that he has killed 637nDispatches jnmr the SoutlinWHISTLING DIXIEnDispatches fromnthe SouthnJohn Shelton ReednForeword bynEugene Genovesen”In this humorous, perceptive collection, Reed . . .ngathers his essays whicii have appeared in Southern publications.n. . . The pieces, most of them on pop culture,nwith side ventures into politics and religion, reveal thenauthor to be an unreconstructeci, if enlightened Rebel, anpolitical conservative but not an ideoloeiue, ideologue, and ancheerleader for the ciuaiities he finds admirable innSouthern life today, such as politeness, self-reliance andnthe desire to eradicate racial injustice.”n—Publishers Weeklyn264 pages, $19.95nwild pigs and thirty-odd cassowaries innhis lifetime. He is obviously worriednabout the intrusion of the loggingncompanies. If there are to be depradations,nthe natives want them to be theirnown. One of the chiefs actually says,n”If we want development, we shouldndevelop ourselves.” The grammaticalnambiguity of this suggestion is probablynnot intentional, but the remark isnnonetheless hilarious—because theyncan’t even organize a pig killing or thenlogistics of a small parade. John Waikoncomes walking down the street in hisndoctoral robes surrounded by savagesnin beads and feathers, and there is annincident. Someone jostles someonenelse to get a better view. But becausenit’s a party, they’re all carrying spearsnthat are mostiy ceremonial but that cannnevertheless cause wounds. So a fightnerupts, which produces another seriesnof daffy debates and harangues, thenclimax of which is Dr. Waiko’s havingnto make a kind of peace, drawing a linendown the middle of the street, andnmaking the groups keep to their respectivensides. The uppity Ph.D. hasnbeen reduced to the idiotic level of thenvillage to which he has returned, andnthe order of disorder has been restored.nJoanne Head’s The Women WhonSmile was the other triumph of thenfestival. A study of three women of thenHamar, who live, as the nasal if notnactually snooty narratrix tells us, “innremote communities scattered acrossnthe dry bushlands of Ethiopia.” In angreat rush, all those social-studies filmsnof junior high school come back, andnwe are expecting to be mildly upliftednand, not quite incidentally, taught rathernmore than we may ever need tonknow about the imports and exportsnand the charming customs of the region.nBut The Women Who Smile,nwhile conforming mostiy to the requirementsnof that high-minded genre,nhas its novelties. For one thing, it isnclearly a feminist document. There is ansisterly solidarity among the subjects ofnthe film, the female voice that lecturesnand explains their lives to us, and thenfemale filmmaker. Before the mainntitie, when we get the Hamar explanationnabout the making of life, we arenput on notice about what to expect:n”The man’s milk and the woman’snrain — her blood — come together” tonmake the new baby, and “if the babynORDER FORMnI’lease send me copies of Whistling Dixie: Dispatchesnfrom the South at the list price of $19.95.nNamenAddressnCitynStatenZipnDaytime Phone #_nMethod of Paymentnn MasterCard D Visa D check or money order enclosednAccount numbernSignaturenExpiration DatenSubtotal S_n6.475% sales tax (MO residents) $_nHandling Fee S_nTOTAL $_nFor faster service, credit card customers can call the tollfreennumber 1-800-828-1894. Handling fee: $2.00 fornthe first book; $.50 for each addtional book ordered. Sendnorders and payment to:nUniversity of Missouri Pressn2910 LcMone Boulevard • Columbia, MO 65201nnnJANUARY 1991/55n