The word that comes to mind for me is presence. If the object has a presence that's appealing,
in other words, you want to be in its presence. You want to touch it, you want to stand back
and examine it, perhaps admire it, perhaps not. So, that's the kind of the overarching
approach, I guess, that I must have taken. Not consciously, but you know. He did several
things that not every missionary felt necessary to learn. He was a blacksmith, he, I guess,
hadn't he studied anthropology as well as medicine and divinity? He retired from his,
I believe, 34 years. I believe he went out in 1925 or thereabouts. And when I finished
my two years and a half there in the spring of 1960, he was preparing to leave at almost
the same time. I was coming home for a transfer, he was coming home to retire. So, I stayed
in close touch with him back here, and I actually invited him myself and accompanied him to
do lectures to the budding Peace Corps. And we went to two universities, one in Pittsburgh,
the other one may have been Penn State. - Penn State, not bad. - Yeah. On one of the occasions
that he'd brought things for me to see and possibly buy, we came up with the idea that
we would travel to a number of countries, in fact, almost 15 of them. One of my really
more satisfying relationships was with the director of the national museums. And I made
a habit in virtually every one of the missions. Very soon after arrival, I would try to get
in touch with the museum systems and discover what are your rules, how do we conform with
what you want to happen here, and in particular, what should we do if we plan to take objects
away from your country? The Belgian government had named as, at the behest of the Zairian
government, they had chosen a truly outstanding Africanist who had worked with the Tavira
museum and who had become a specialist in the study of the Kuba people. His name was
Joseph Cornet, and he used the title Brother, Frère Cornet. He was the director of the
National Museums of Zaire. And they said, "No, but do you have anything else at home?"
And I said, "Well yes, a few things." And they said, "Can we go home with you?" So,
they went home with us and we got to be on kind of a pattern of being frequently in touch.
And Margaret attended my wedding and she was godmother to one of the kids. I would like
to put Léopold Senghor as influencing me also, because I love the way he wrote and
tried to read as much of his poetry as I could find. And also, he worked really, really seriously
at, well, there was the very elaborate international kind of conference and exhibit that he sponsored
there at the.