Praise Song for Bill Farrell

Until the mzungu and his henchmen come from Maseru, it’s been just another ordinary day in this village of Kepala in the Maloti Mountains of Lesotho, a small mountain kingdom entirely within the borders of South Africa.

Now, with their arrival, the daily rhythm of village life has ceased, the women no longer hanging clothes out to dry on the thorny bushes that enclose the village, the men no longer sitting in the sun, playing cards. The children, instead of chasing chickens or each other, have been taken by their mothers inside stone huts. Ma thateng kholo tla, big trouble dropping in, everyone nods in agreement.

The white man is Bill Farrell, also known as monna e moholo Farrell—great man Farrell—to those who listen to the government radio. He’s an American photographer and fingerprint analyst, brought over to help the police bureau of the Lesotho Ministry of Home Affairs with a spate of ritual murders and letter bombs. The two crimes are said to be possibly connected now that apartheid has just ended in neighboring South Africa, bringing many white South Africans across the border to escape reprisals. However, in this case, the dead male body is not white, and, given its state when discovered in a nearby maize field two days ago, ritual murder is suspected. The village policeman, who shares a small, cinder block building with the village post office, has kept the body in the one lock-up cell, covered with burlap sacks usually used for picking maize. Now, with the help of the white man and his assistants, it’s been brought outside, on view to all the villagers.

This act, spreading out the body on a canvas sheet for all to see, has particularly upset the village men, and they encircle the corpse and the white man, who’s now moving around it as he takes photos. The village men wear the ceremonial Basotho clan–patterned wool blankets over their shoulders; on their heads are the mokorotlo, the conical-shaped straw hats that signify these are men past puberty, men to be reckoned with. The way many of them bob and gesticulate, shake fists, and smack their hands together as if killing flies, indicates anger. Only the chief, who has distinguished himself from the others by wearing a black homburg hat, remains calm, marking his words emphatically by the use of his right index finger.

Farrell, as he shifts his tripod around the dead man—head half severed, but genitals intact—has, at times, his back to those encircling him. This is a sign of disrespect, but if Farrell’s aware of this, he makes no sign, offers no word of apology. Even as the chief talks, Farrell says nothing, just nods his head jerkily now and then to the men as he pauses to line up a shot, behaving not at all like the great man the airwaves claim he is. He squats down as if to urinate—another insult—but is only taking a close-up, camera in both hands. He bends over the body as if to extract its soul from the butchered mouth.

It is this exposure of the body to the villagers that has angered them the most. The long, vertical slash down the chest indicates the possible removal of the heart and other organs that were not dragged out of its mouth. Although the penis and testes are still attached, some bled-out cuts around them suggest that these were to have been removed before some event happened that led to the body being abandoned in the maize field.

The name of the dead man has not been established. The village men, like most village men, hate to give away anything, especially to such people as these, coming from the country’s capital. The village chief, Chief Moleko—his right finger still up to quiet the men’s mutterings—states that it has been said that the dead man might belong to the village of Leshote, a village directly across from Kepala on the opposing mountain flank. It is so transparently clear on...