Dunhill: Difference between revisions

For the everyday smoke what more is there to say than this, that it is, in its essence the Pipe of Peace ? This idea we find embodied in the folklore of simple peoples one example of which is the story taken down by Mr. Torday, the eminent anthropologist, from the lips of Bilumbu, an old Bushongo savage in the remote Congo village of Misumba, and quoted in “The Pipe Book” Of Alfred Dunhill.  

“You are,” Lusana Lumunbala rebuked him, “like an infant who chokes at the first mouthful of solid food his mother gives him, and yet, as he grows accustomed to it, becomes a brave companion at the trencher. You we‘re too greedy. Little by little one filleth the basket, as the proverb says. You ought to have tried a little; if you do this you will soon enjoy the magic effect of the smoke as much as I do. For this weed, called Makaya (tobacco), is man’s greatest joy. I have learned its use in the land of Pende, whose inhabitants, the Tupende, have learned it from a strange people coming from beyond the salt water. O Makaya, Makaya, what Wonders you can Work!” And Lusana Lumunbala shut his eyes in ecstasy. “As the fire will soften iron, so Makaya will soften the heart. If one day your brother has wronged you, and the blood rushes to your head in anger, and you reach out for your bow and arrows to slay him - take your pipe and smoke. Your ire will tly leore its fragrance. You will say, ‘Surely I must not slay the son of my mother, him who is of my own blood. I will beat him with a big stick to teach him a lesson.’ But as you rise to fetch your cudgel, take your pipe and drink its smoke. And half-ways you will stop, and smile and say, ‘No, I cannot beat my brother, the companion of my youth. It is more bccmning that I should scold him - lash him with bitter words instead of smiting him with a stick.’ And as you go to do so, smoke, smoke. And with every whiff your heart will become more charitable and forgiving, and as you come up to the trembling culprit you will throw your arms round his neck and say: ‘Brother, brother, let bygones be bygones; come to my hut, and let us drink and eat together and be merry, and love each other.’ ”