This was in theory a much smaller affair, but the same ritual had to be gone through. When we arrived the front door was shut. Momoh knocked and talked to a lady who appeared through a crack in the door. She asked him to wait and reappeared a few moments later with an elderly gentleman. This was the current acting paramount chief. Fintonia is a special place in Bombali District. It is the centre for the chiefdom of Tambakha, which covers most of the area north of the Little Scarcies River. Most villages will have a headman who is in charge of the administration there, but then groups of them are looked after by a chief. The whole chiefdom is ruled by a paramount chief. I say ruled; his word is law, but the relationship is often more paternalistic and the individual chiefs have some fair sway in the way things go. But they are still pretty powerful people and have influence with the administrative governments at district, province and national levels.
The method to communicate that a meeting has been called is very simple. No mobile phone networks here, no letters sent round, not even runners to reach out to the village elders. The village secretary beats a drum with a stick. It hangs in the corner of the open room from a rope and it resonated throughout the village. I am sure there must be other drums in Fintonia but the timbre of this one must be so familiar to the villagers that it immediately attracted attention. Some plastic chairs had been placed out in the open room and we sat there for about twenty minutes while we waited for the elders to arrive. They drifted into the room in their ones and twos, each greeted the chief and introduced themselves to us. The drum also attracted many other people. A lot of kids who had skipped school that day hung around the periphery, some women stopped their chores to come and look, and some of the older men, or the lazier ones who were not out in the fields, came drifting into the area. Many, too , greeted us, and then started up side conversations with neighbours as we waited to get things started.
Calling people to the meeting
Eventually the secretary did a head count and reported that most of the elders he knew were around had attended. The Paramount Chief, resplendent in a bleach white robe and white cap, motioned for the secretary to approach, and asked for prayers to be said. The local imam was present and gave some words from the Muslim side, and Momoh, as a preacher himself, gave a Christian Prayer, then followed this up with a lengthy introduction to us. It was not quite accurate but was probably the best way to introduce the issues. I had to hand it to Momoh. What we were providing was something that could prove quite controversial and cause a lot of disturbance. We wanted to map the property in the village; marking out the boundaries between different people’s plots and gathering information about the types of relationship. We had some software on which to plot the GPS points. And we wanted to present the final map to the people and in particular the chief for their future planning and arbitration. We were aware of how complicated the relationships in land were but we were to discover that we had not even started to understand. But we stated from the outset that we were not here to resolve any disputes over land. We could find ways of mapping all points of view and present them on the map, but then allow the villagers and the elders themselves to resolve it.
When I Went To 