The commentary and notes which have been included
on the text of Koumen are only a tiny fraction of the explanations which would
be given to future initiates and which require years of study.
For initiation is knowledge:[1] knowledge of God and of
the rules which he has established; knowledge of oneself also by which knowledge
becomes an ethos; knowledge equally of all that is not human, “since it was
given to man to know what is not of man”. And this science stretches out to the
whole universe, each of its elements and aspects forming part of a whole; the Fulɓe say: “Not everything is known. All that one knows is a
part of everything” (kala 'andatako. ko
'anda kala, yo yoga kala).[2]
Currently,
even among Fulɓe families in Jolof in the valley of Senegal, there are no
longer any true silatigi. But they
still exist among the Fulɓe educated in their traditions such as Ardo Dembo,
Semba Mboderi, Aliw Essa, individuals conscious of the science and power of
which they are living custodians, knowledge which they conceal as they say, “in
the folds of the rags in which they are disguised.” They are not afraid to
“point the finger”, that is to say to challenge the wisdom of anyone in the
field of knowledge, even an educated marabout. Or else, if they judge their
interlocutor inept, that is to say not in a physical, moral, intellectual or
social state to receive, understand and assimilate the knowledge, it is not beyond
them to “wear out the profane”, to “put the unworthy in the straw”, “while
winking their left eye” and telling them a tall story that does not contain a single
grain of valid initiatic truth.
Knowledge
of the Fulɓe tradition requires the collection of texts and commentaries. It is hoped that the work undertaken here
is developed and followed up with extensive and systematic surveys while there
is still time, in Senegal and in Gambia, and that this research is extended to
the Futa-Jalon
in Sudan, in the Upper Volta (present day Burkina Faso),[3] Niger, northern Nigeria,
northern Cameroon
and Chad. We must collect the legends and tales,
both humorous and fantastical, whose deep symbolism conceals traditional
teaching.[4] We must conduct an in-depth survey of the pastoral life in
the few remaining nomadic groups, particularly among the Bororo.
Finally, we must study the initiations specific to different
artisans and castes, which differ from the initiation of pastors. Woodworkers, leatherworkers, weavers and blacksmiths, like
the pastors, receive special instructions for the exercise of their art.
Such research will probably further contribute to the
literature by shedding light on the origin and migrations of the Fulɓe.
 |
Plate A1: Various representations of the Caanaba snake
|
 |
| Plate A2:Goats and sheep emerging from the sacred cow (Jabaren, 183). (Plates by Henri Lhote) |
Indeed,
knowledge of the Koumen text allows one to definitively attribute to the Fulɓe
the frescoes of the bovine age collected by H. Lhote and his team at Tassili.[5] The various scenes that they depict,
constructed around and responding to a specific object, show all the
characteristics of representations linked to traditional initiatory concepts.
These include the variety of colours of cow-hides, in seasonal
migration or on the home turf,[6] the instruments and altars of the pastorate (the kaggu, shepherd staffs, calf ropes etc.), the milking, the sacrifice
of cattle, and so on. The headgear in the images
is identical to those worn traditionally by pastors. Caanaba appears in complex figures, in the form of a serpent
accompanying a stylized cow, an image of the hermaphrodite bovine (Plates A1
& 2): from its chest emerge the heads of domesticated animals which
emanated from him according to the myth. There also
appear two superimposed cattle which represent, according to tradition, the
twins Caanaba and Ilo. Finally, we find in the
“clearing” of initiation, represented by a large circle, with the sun at its
centre and around its perimeter the heads of cattle and different phases of the
moon (Plate B2). The dating of these frescos would
constitute a landmark of Fulɓe history within the African continent.
Analysis of the text of Koumen and its philological study will probably make it possible to discern the relations between the Fulɓe and other peoples in the Mediterranean and the East, or to clarify the mutual influences between peoples of classical antiquity, as witnessed for example by the allusions to Solomon. On the other hand, although the Fulɓe initiation is centered on fundamentally different concerns from those of other West African peoples, such as farmers or fishermen, it nevertheless reveals strong structural analogies with them.[7] We have raised some of these parallels in the notes which precede or follow the text; many others could have been established, but would have required too great a digression to fit into the framework of this study. But these many similarities also raise the question of the influences undergone by the Fulɓe from their contact with the peoples they encountered when they arrived in this region. We hope that these studies will be carried out, along with those on the Saharan frescoes, by specialists and by Fulɓe instructed in their initiatory traditions and the rules of the pastorat
 |
| Plate B1. Various kinds of cowhide and the material of the pastorate (stakes, calf ropes, shepherd staffs) (Sefar, 497) |
 |
| Plate B2. The sun in the centre of a "clearing" from which emerge cattle heads; The phases of the moon (Tisoukai). (Plates by Henri Lhote) |
[1] Knowledge is meant in the sense of wisdom, or what
the Bambara call “profound knowledge” (see G. Dieterlen, Essai sur la religion Bambara, p.
xvii, n. 1) and what the Dogon call “clear speech” (see M. Griaule, Le savoir des Dogon, p. 27).
[2] The same is true of initiations in other Sudanese
populations, including the Dogon, Malinke, Bambara and Bozo. Initiation
involves not only thorough knowledge of anatomy, physiology, psychology (both individual
and collective) and moral character (both individual conscience and social
morality), but also extensive knowledge of natural sciences such as botany,
zoology, mineralogy, geography and so on. Recent studies have also revealed the
importance of astronomy (and calendars) and specific numerical concepts.
[3] Amadou Hampaté Ba attended Yé
(a Tugan circle) in 1929 at the funeral of the oldest bull of the herd. After the burial, the ceremony continued for several days;
it ended with a vigil during which a text
unintelligible to him was recited in Fulfulde, the language of the Fulɓe.
[4] G. Calame-Griaule conducted an inquiry into the
esoteric meaning of the tales among the Dogon, Bambara and Bozo: this study
revealed identical themes between these tales, which often involved animals,
and stories of initiation (See G. Calam-Griaule, Esotericism and Fiction in
Sudan).
[5] H. Lhote had hypothesized this
attribution of bovine age frescoes in his unpublished thesis: Les
peintures rupestres préhistoriques du Sahara, in a chapter entitled “Le
problème ethnographique peul: identité des pasteurs à bovidés préhistoriques et
des Fulɓe soudanais actuels”. See also “Les Peuls” by
the same author.
[6] The frescoes have cattle without humps, whereas now
the herds of Senegal and Sudan are humpbacked. This is not within our remit,
yet as the story goes among educated Fulɓe, their ancestors had lost their
herds when they arrived in Senegal and so acquired new livestock locally. On
the other hand, while modern terracotta toys depict cattle with
disproportionately magnified humps, similar objects collected in the loop of
the Niger river and dating back to prehistoric times represent humpless
bovines. (Information provided by Z. Ligers and collected during research
conducted aboard the Mannogo, Vedette-Laboratory of the C.N.R.S).
[7] This is expressed by the Fulɓe
when they say that “the ‘cow’ of the Dogon is the pegu shrub [Lannea Acida],
that of the scarified is shea, and that of the Bozo the tineni fish [Alestes Nigri
Lineatus].”
A. Hampâté Bâ & G. Dieterlen (1961)
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