Man Without A Country

LoBAGOLA, AN AFRICAN SAVAGE'S OWN

STORY--Bata Kindai Amgoza Ibn Lo-Bagola--Knopf ($3.00).

Author Bata Kindai Amgoza Ibn Lo-Bagola has had a hard, queer time. A black man but a Jew, he is a native of the Ondo bush, hinterland of Dahomey, in western Africa. His people, according to legend, left Palestine after Roman Titus' sack of Jerusalem (A. D. 70), fled to Morocco, to Timbuktu and farther. There, swallowed up by African natives, they still remained a Jewish sect, continued Jewish rites. Says LoBagola: they carry out the ceremony of circumcision to the letter, "although not in the same way as in Palestine today. Our rabbis permit us to use only our teeth and fingernails for the observance." LoBagola's people speak "a dialect of Arabic, mixed a great deal with Hausa, Yoruba, and Benga vernacu-lars." They wear no clothes. Most of them have never seen a white man.

When Author LoBagola was seven, he and 13 other boys (the oldest n) wan- dered too far from the village, got lost, after 45 days came to the sea. There they saw a steamship, went out to it in a canoe, clambered aboard. LoBagola wandered down to the engine room. When the warning siren blew, it so terrified the little black boys on deck that they jumped over the rail, were all drowned or killed by sharks. LoBagola, locked in a cabin, was carried to Scotland, a savage little animal who' would not wear clothes, bit people who tried to dress him. At Glasgow he ran down the gangplank, still stark naked, drew a crowd, was rescued and taken home by a kindly Scotsman. In this man's family LoBagola stayed four years, gradually learned how not to behave; memorized a' few words of English. Says he: "Before I knew fifty words in the English language, I was given a good beating for telling the truth. . . ."

When Traveler LoBagola, n, returned home, he was received but with suspicion. For transgressing a taboo (insolence to his elder brother) he was beaten on the soles of his feet by seven people, considered himself lucky to escape so lightly. Then after 14 months' preparation he was married to six girls at once. But Gooma, his favorite bride, broke a terrible taboo at' the wedding: embraced him in public. She was unsexed, had her left breast cut off, was sent to the King's bodyguard of Amazons. By his other wives LoBagola became the father of 14 boys. Says he: "My children I love, but I never did love my wives. Who could love six?"

Three times LoBagola returned to his Scotch family. His native village became more and more foreign .to him: finally he left it altogether, came to the U. S. With no sense of the value of money, he wa usually broke, in England was once jaile< for theft. He worked in an automobil factory, in vaudeville, as a bootblack. During the War he served in the British army in Palestine, Egypt.

The Author. Short, stocky, gleaming-eyed, with black mustache, frizzy white hair, Bata Kindai Amgoza Ibn LoBagola looks like a stout little Jew in blackface.

-He wears civilized clothes (on occasions, and for effect, a fez, a flowing gown), uses the right fork, is bursting with humor,

-ooise, good manners. Says he: "I never nave considered black' people in America my kind. . . . The only thing that we have in common is color." He has been converted from Judaism, is now a Roman Catholic; lives in Manhattan, is 42. For a living he lectures, hopes his book will sell.

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