“Rudu dalla, Rudu makan dalla, Rudu fabo dalla”[1]
 |
| Malian Tortoise (source unknown) |
“Kuuru kaara,[2]
enclosed in a carapace of bone, toothless, moving slowly, when will you fly
like a hawk?[3] When
will you be able to suck the teats of the sacred sheep?[4]
I am Koumen who nods his head with
pleasure when the cow bellows and shakes it with disappointment when it is
silent. My sight is powerfully set on the yellow ray of the fourth sun.
Make way, paralyse the agents of
evil and may those in front go behind and those behind go in front.
The tortoise said, “Pass, well-favoured
ones, who go into the area where the laareeji
await you under the sixth sun.”[5]
[1] This incantation is untranslatable.
[2] The tortoise, kuru
kaara or heende, is associated
with sheep.
[3] This sentence is a wish for evolution: if the beings
populating the universe continue to evolve, one might see one day the tortoise
“fly”, that is to say attain spiritual wisdom.
[4] The sacred sheep here represents one of the levels of
wisdom (of which more in the next clearing).
[5] The lareeji
(sing. laare) are supernatural powers
and “guardian spirits” on which the health and fertility of the herd depend.
They are 28 in number, corresponding to the days of the lunar month, as well as
to the 28 knots of the rope which Silé will later receive from Koumen’s wife
Foroforondou. The first twelve rule over the twelve months of the solar year,
and the remaining sixteen rule over the sixteen “dwellings” of geomancy. The
initiated pastor invokes each laare through
the mediation of the associated sacramental object of the ngaynirki which are therefore also 28 in number. Silé will gain
possession of each in turn under the sixth and seventh suns by unriddling the
28 knots in the twelfth clearing.
A. Hampâté Bâ & G. Dieterlen (1961)
Text in French: http://www.webpulaaku.net/defte/ahb/kumen/
English Translation:
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