TRAIL OF OTA BENGA LEADS TO BOOK FOR CAPTOR'S GRANDSON

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 7, 1993                   TAG: 9302040215
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TRAIL OF OTA BENGA LEADS TO BOOK FOR CAPTOR'S GRANDSON
Phillips Verner Bradford had heard stories about his grandfather and namesake, Samuel Phillips Verner, all his life.
When Bradford was old enough to read, he began sifting through his grandfather's book, "Pioneering in Central Africa," and his later articles in the Brevard (N.C.) Daily News.
One thing stood out: the story of Ota Benga, the Pygmy who came to America with Verner just after the turn of the century and ended up being put on display at the Bronx Zoo.
A few years ago, Bradford told the story to a friend. The response was disbelief: "Oh, come on. You must be kidding."
Bradford decided that it was time to document the strange tale.
After years of research, he presented a manuscript to an agent. She told him he wrote like an engineer - which he was - and put him in touch with Harvey Blume, a Cambridge, Mass., writer.
Together, Blume and Bradford reworked and polished the manuscript. The result: "Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo," a book that has won national acclaim.
Bradford, who now lives in Denver, got plenty of help from his family in tracing Verner's tangled history. The book tries to put Verner's actions into the context of the times in which he lived, but it does not go easy on him for abandoning Ota Benga at the Bronx Zoo.
In the end, though, the book is Ota Benga's story, and the authors' struggle to piece together his life from a muddled historical record.
Newspaper accounts at the time were full of inaccuracies and the prejudices of white reporters.
As for Verner's writing, "It was hard to tell when he was telling the truth, and when he was telling a tall tale," Bradford said in a telephone interview.
Bradford and Blume began thinking of themselves as hunters following Ota Benga through the forest. They had to rely on their own educated guesses about the evidence they uncovered, much as jungle trackers draw conclusions from a recently doused campfire.
In the end, they wrote, "It only seemed as if we were hunting him. In fact he was serving all along as our guide."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB