Noble savage
Elspeth Huxley
The Last of The Nuba Leni Riefenstahl (Collins £10.00)
Nobody as sophisticated as Leni Riefen- stahl could really believe that in a province of Sudan there lies a corner of the Garden of Eden left over from the Fall; but she has been sorely tempted. Her chance encounter with a photograph of two wrestlers of the Nuba tribe, she writes, changed her life, and filled her with an obsession to live among and herself photograph this handsome, kindly, self-reliant, naked people who, in their remote stronghold in southern Kordo- fan, have so far managed—just—to escape the attentions of the outside world.
And what a magnificent record she has compiled. The Nuba must be one of the most photogenic peoples on earth. On a diet inadequate to sustain an alley-cat, according to our scientific reckoning, they build bodies like those of Greek athletes, only more substantial. While women carry with ease hundred pound loads of grain up stony hillsides, singing as they go, the men concentrate from boyhood on the art of wrestling.
Here, indeed, is temptation—the Noble Savage walks again. The love affair between intellectuals of our own jaded society and primitive, innocent man is an old, old story. Leni Riefenstahl writes of 'my' Nuba; in colonial days, the young district officer had 'his' tribe; the Masai were always favourites and it was said that when their current commissioner started to shake all over at moments of crisis, as Masai warriors did when (as it were) revving up for a cattle- raid, it was time he was moved. There has got to be a Garden of Eden, a haven of har- mony, a time of man's innocence, some- where-tucked away in African hillsides, American jungles, Pacific islands; a thing to love. Intellectuals survive by an enviable ability, alike among people and ideas, to overlook flaws.
So, if there are flaws among the Nuba, we don't, thankfully, see them here. We see a society at peace with itself and, for the moment, with the world. What we can look forward to seeing is the film Leni Riefen- stahl is making about them—hoping that this very contact with our powerful alien society won't accelerate the process of dis- integration. Former Masai warriors, possi- bly now tractor-drivers, have a regular tar- iff for getting back into red ochre and spears and posing for tourist photographers.
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