Dead Men Do Tell Tales

the long version

Count Byron Kuhn de Prorok was a popular archeologist active from the mid-1920's through the early 1940's. In Dead Men Do Tell Tales he describes his 1933 African expedition into Abyssinia -- the old name for Ethiopia. This is not an academic dissertation. Prorok tells about raiding tombs, flirting with native women, outrunning murderous warlords, spying on magical cults, and getting hip deep in political intrigue in one of the most remote back alleys of the world. Prorok falls into one adventure after another.For the most part, Prorok's cultural and political observations are sound. His detail in Dead Men Do Tell Tales is good, and while the language is polite, he doesn't often shrink from the grisly truth, such as when he describes the details of orgiastic dances, human sacrifices, female circumcision, and slavery.Some of his stories stretch the imagination, such as when he tells us how he watched members of the Buda cult mate with jackals while in a trance state.In any event, this is awfully fun reading, even if all of it isn't suitable for National Geographic. Take a look at all of Prorok's four books, available from The Narrative Press: Digging for Lost African Gods (1926), Mysterious Sahara (1929), In Quest of Lost Worlds (1935), and finally, Dead Men Do Tell Tales (1942). All of them are gems.