was set for words to lose their magic powers and 
     vulnerabilities. Why so?
          I developed the theme in an earlier article with 
     reference to Africa, that the nonliterate rural population 
     lives largely in a world of sound, in contrast to western 
     Europeans who live largely in a world of vision. Sounds are 
     in a sense dynamic things, or at least are always 
     indicators of dynamic things—of movements, events, 
     activities, for which man, when largely unprotected from 
     the hazards of life in the bush or the veldt, must be ever 
     on the alert. . . . Sounds lose much of this significance in 
     western Europe, where man often develops, and must 
     develop, a remarkable ability to disregard them. Whereas 
     for Europeans, in general, “seeing is believing,” for rural 
     Africans reality seems to reside far more in what is heard 
     and what is said. . . . Indeed, one is constrained to believe