Shakespeare in the Bush-Bohannan

First of all, Bohannan went to West Africa because she was an anthropologist. She lived with an African tribe and was asked to be told the story of Hamlet. While telling the story, she was stopped constantly because the tribesmen did not understand certain things. They did not believe in ghosts and said it must have been an omen or zombie. Another thing they didn't understand was why the mother of Hamlet took two years to remarry. In their culture you had to have a husband to hoe the farms. "Two years is too long," "Who will hoe your farms for you while you have no husband?" If you were chief, or the head of everything, in the African tribe's culture, the chief had more than one wife, so they did not understand why Hamlet nor his brother had more than one wife. At the end of the article, the old man of the tribe told her that she had told the end of Hamlet wrong which was very funny to me since they did not know the story and weren't the one's telling it. He told her how the end of the story went and put his own beliefs and values behind it. All these misunderstandings to me is because we all use our own opinions and beliefs to understand things. Bohannan did get a little upset and annoyed that she was being interrupted, but she did understand that where they came from, things were done and looked upon differently than in America. There are universal truths, but many are not exactly the same. One universal truth is respecting your elders. Although in some cultures it is more valued and respected than in other cultures, I think all cultures have some sort of this. In America, respecting our elders is told by many, but we do not respect them as much as other cultures like India's or African's do.