“Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed”
Byron
On a recent trip to North Africa, David Schoffman found himself severely dehydrated and dangerously low on gasoline near the small village of Ksar Kibbeh. Known for its ancient granaries and its warm, hospitable inhabitants, it was the perfect place to avert a catastrophe.
Sipping mint tea and nibbling on spiced chard at the local café, David made the fortunate acquaintance of the famous ethnomusicologist, Na’im Bouteille, who happened to be in town attending a wedding of one of his nephews.
It was from Bouteille that David first learned of the Vavzayin.
Uncommonly secretive even within the clandestinely hermetic world of the sub rosa, the Vavzayin is a loosely federated faction of animistic nomads whose coded beliefs are articulated exclusively in painting. Their densely detailed cosmology is so impenetrable that scholars and anthropologists alike have quietly agreed to ignore them.
Much to his disgrace, Schoffman lifted a small astrological icon off the wall of a desert outhouse and smuggled it out of the country. It now hangs ignominiously in his kitchen.
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