New life

Doomed by Darwin

Zenga Longmore

0 malara's favourite new word is 'bit', a word she uses in a judicious tone of voice which sounds most odd in a two-year-old.

'That's a bit funny,' she remarked the other day after Olumba had entertained her for an hour with shadow pictures.

'I'm a bit sleepy,' she announced today, before rolling into the back of the divan and falling asleep. Her nap was a bit dis- turbed by a knock at the door. Clawham- mer Jones Bingo had arrived on a bush tea delivery round. Declining a cup of his own tea, he moved to leave, then stopped, frozen in the doorway. I followed his horri- fied gaze and beheld a mass of eggshell, feather and goo on the landing just outside my front door. Quickly, Clawhammer slammed the door and muttered a prayer.

'That wasn't there when I came in,' he croaked. `Zenga, man, you got an enemy for true. Someone is trying to put some- thing on you.'

I knew what he meant. In many parts of the West Indies, eggshell, feathers and other ingredients are placed by do-badders on the ground for unwary feet to step in. However, on this occasion, Clawhammer had no need to fret. A Byronic torn on my landing was in the habit of raiding pigeons' nests on the Harold Lloyd ledges of my tower block. What Clawhammer had seen was merely the left-overs of the stray's din- ner.

'Step carefully,' I said, and opened the door again.

Clawhammer uttered a low groan. For now the enormous black cat with twitching whiskers sat on the proverbial mat. Having dined on the main course, he now looked up enquiringly as if hoping for dessert.

'Where did that cat come from?' wailed the Claw.

'The cat, man?' replied a hippie-next- door, leaning from his window. 'It evolved.' Younger and brighter than the average next-door hippie, he smirked with the pre- tentious air of a sixth-former on the brink of passing an A level.

'How do you mean?' barked Clawham- mer.

'Looked at, y'know, in the light of Dar- win's theory, the cat has arrived by way of evolution from the Neanderthal cat.'

'Darwin! Tchar said Clawhammer, and burst into rap:

Man came from monkey, some people say, But the good book tells it in a different way.

If you believe that monkey tale, as some peo- ple do, I'd rather be a monkey, brother, than you.

'Slow your rolls, man,' murmured the discomfited hippie.

I applauded Clawhammer. Evolution has never seemed a very nice idea to me. Dar- winian speculations about ape-men and the missing link acted like a drug on the English, who deserted church and returned to their ancestral practice of head-hunting. Skulls of 'natives', acquired all too easily in the 'struggle for survival', were collected in vast numbers, catalogued and compared with monkey skulls.

Of the two beliefs, Obeah and Darwin- ism, the European one has done more harm by far, clouding minds and giving white settlers an excuse for murder. 'Dar- win shows that blacks are a doomed race,' was the cry of those who went on to doom them.

'What palava you talk-o?' Olumba asked, having arrived at that moment.

'Science,' I said, and the cat got up and slowly walked away.