On Negrohood: Psychology of the African Negro

Extract

How surprised the psychologists of the French army were when they discovered that Senegalese conscripts were more sensitive to the vicissitudes of the climate, and even to extreme heat, than the soldiers of “metropolitan” France; that they reacted to the least changes in the weather, and even to such barely discernible events as minute inflections of the voice. These warriors who had passed for brutes—these heroes—turned out to have the sensitivity of women. It is often said, and not without reason, that the Negro is a man of Nature. The African negro, whether peasant, fisherman, hunter or herdsman, lives outdoors, both off the earth and with it, on intimate terms with trees and animals and all the elements, and to the rhythm of seasons and days. He keeps his senses open, ready to receive any impulse, and even the very waves of nature, without a screen (which is not to say without relays or transformers) between subject and object. He does, of course, reflect; but what comes first is form and color, sound and rhythm, smell and touch.

Hail to the royal Kaicedrat! Hail to those who have invented nothing, To those who have explored nothing, To those who have subdued nothing, But abandoned themselves to the grip of the essence of every thing, Ignorant of the surface, but gripped by the movement of every thing, Not caring to subdue, but to play the game of the world.