Hypnotizing The Chicken

Me n' Bill Carey

Once upon a time in the long-long-ago, dearly beloved, there occurred the Great Chicken Hypnotizing Experiment.

It wasn’t my idea.

I confess I went along with it quite willingly, but I can legitimately blame that lapse on boredom. Not that I wouldn’t have tried it anyway, but I am perfectly happy to blame it on Bill Carey. (Bill Carey was called by both names in order to distinguish him from his father, who was merely “Bill”)

Bill Carey was my friend and chief playmate in those long-ago days on the Ogbomoso Baptist Mission station. He was about a year older than I, but we were often the only kids of our age group around, so we were stuck with each other. He was also smarter than I, and he read about things that were far beyond my level of interest. He often tried – usually to little avail – to explain those things to me. (I remember the time, for example, when he tried to explain the binary system of numbers to me. With ten perfectly good fingers, I saw no use for counting with 0 and 1.)

So it happened, on a hot, dusty, dry-season late-morning, as we wandered past the Low/Wasson house in our typical condition of youthful boredom, that Bill Carey told me of something he had read – something about hypnotizing chickens by holding their beaks down on a chalk line on a sidewalk. That bit of information might well have fallen, unused and unnoticed, into some distant crevice of my memory, had not one particularly unfortunate chicken happened right then to wander in front of us. Instantly, we were inspired to be scientists, intent on proving out a hypothesis.

Nigerian chickens are not like the fat, ungainly fowls common in the United States. They are slim, tough, agile sprinters with an amazing will to live. They grow up dodging hawks, dogs and hungry cooks. Though unlucky, that particular bird was certainly not going to allow himself to be caught easily by mere boys.

The chicken seemed to know instinctively, as we changed course toward him, that our intentions were not to his advantage. He turned with a cackle, and the chase was on. Around and around the house – the water cistern – the mango tree – the flower pots – we raced, with the chicken keeping barely out of reach. Just as it seemed one of us would grab him, he would dodge, and our hands came up holding air. For at least ten or fifteen minutes, we ran the poor bird and ourselves ragged, before we finally trapped him by the cistern.

As Bill Carey and I took a moment to catch our breaths, the chicken managed to wriggle free, and the chase was on again. This time, the bird was tired, and we had become smarter, so the contest was much shorter. And this time, we held on tighter.

On with the experiment! To the chalk line on the sidewalk!

Suddenly, we realized we had no chalk.

Then, it occurred to us that we also had no sidewalk.

But surely, a good experiment need not be interrupted by such minor details? In best African fashion, we would substitute with available resources.

Bill Carey and I discussed the matter, and we decided that, if chalk and concrete would work, then a line scratched in the dirt would certainly do just as well. It was the work of a moment to create such a line in the bare ground under the mango tree.

Carefully, carefully … the now-firmly-held chicken was placed on the ground, with his beak on the scribed line. A moment to hold him there … then, a gentle release.…

The now-somewhat-rested chicken raced away with a raucous squawk. The two frustrated behavioral scientists were right behind. We had, by this time, refined our chicken-catching techniques, so the chase was not prolonged. We soon were again tightly clutching the subject of our study.

In fine scientific manner, we thought through and analyzed our experimental process to pinpoint the cause of its failure. Perhaps we needed to smooth the ground more? Perhaps our line was not straight enough? We prepared fresh ground for our second attempt. Since Bill Carey had held and placed the chicken on the line in the first try, I would place him on the second.

I slowly and gently placed the chicken on the smoothed and inscribed dirt. I thought he seemed more relaxed, but that may simply have been that I was holding him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. With remarkable care and deliberation, I delicately bisected the line with the chicken’s beak, lay the bird on the dirt, and held him motionless. After a few seconds, I slowly withdrew my hands.

The chicken required only an instant to realize that his restraint was removed. This time, when he ran, he did so with both a remarkable athleticism and a previously unseen inspiration.

We just watched him go.

Bill Carey and I agreed that this particular chicken must surely be too dumb to be a good subject for a scientific study such as ours.

Nigeria, We Hail Thee!

The celebrations in Abuja, the national capitol, were marred today by coordinated explosions that killed at least eight people as Nigeria celebrated fifty years of independence from Great Britain.

I remember “The Day” in 1960 when the Union Jack was lowered from flagpoles all over Nigeria, and the green-white-green Nigerian flag was first hoisted. I remember that there were speeches and partying, and everything was joyfully peaceful. All over the land, on metal masts and bamboo poles, the new flag waved so proudly.

I remember also the pride and expectancy I sensed from the missionaries all around – the kind of pride and expectancy one might find at a high school graduation – as we watched the people of our adopted country step forward to grasp the reins of power for themselves. There was an exciting anticipation of greatness and hope as we watched the Nigeria we loved so much take its place for the first time in the role call of independent nations.

We were so happy! We had such lofty expectations for Nigeria – for that country carved out of the African continent more by the topography of European power politics and self-interest than by any natural geography or cultural affinities within West Africa itself. Still, the tremendous natural wealth, backed by an apparently high education level and seemingly adequate infrastructure, gave us all the cause we needed to hold out high hopes for Nigeria’s future. Nigeria, with its western-patterned constitution and growing middle class must surely become the brightest of lights on the African Continent!

On that joyful day in 1960 we saw no hint of the profound underlying problems that would lead to a series of military power-grabs, as well as a civil war and cycles of ever-increasing criminal violence typified by the kidnapping this week of fifteen school children. We could not see then the patterns of unrestrained corruption that would affect every area of Nigerian life, would squander that nation’s resources and would siphon off its wealth into profligate lifestyles and European bank accounts – while the common condition of ordinary Nigerians has, in so many ways, become worse and worse.

Now, led by a president named Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria celebrates her first fifty years of independence. In spite of her many troubles, Nigeria has much to celebrate. For one thing, she celebrates survival, even in the face of all her difficulties, and she celebrates the many achievements of her people as they have grown past their colonial inheritance and have created, for good or ill, their own institutions and history.

As we listen to the often-sad news from Nigeria, we who love her perhaps now pray more wisely than we used to, but we still pray for her, that she may yet fulfill her potential for greatness. May Nigeria yet become that bright light we have so long desired to see!

In the words of the original Nigerian National Anthem, "Nigeria, We Hail Thee!"