Laura Bohannon's Work in West Africa Among the Tiv Led

Laura Bohannon's work in West Africa among the Tiv led her to try and explain Shakespeare's Hamlet to members of a small village.The text tells us that her attempts were met with significant challenges due simply to the different meanings carried by words.The concept of the dead among the Tiv,for example,made no sense to them because they do not have any concept of a ghost.They interpreted this part of the play as Hamlet being beset by witchcraft.Consider that in the play,Hamlet first sees the ghost of his dead father,who relates the details of his death at the hands of Hamlet's father-in-law.Hamlet then feigns mental illness in his quest for revenge,something that might easily be considered being "beset by witchcraft." If language does shape our reality,explain how Bohannon's discovery,despite the similarity in meaning in these ways,is so confounding to the village elders.How does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis relate to Bohannon's work in this context? Can you offer other examples of how the way people think may or may not be affected by their native languages?