Review by Hubert Deschamps: Hampaté Bâ & Germaine Dieterlen, Koumen, Cahiers de l'Homme, École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section VI. Mouton and Co. Paris, 1961.
This collaboration of Fulɓe scholar Amadou Hampâté Bâ and French anthropologist Germaine Dieterlen, renowned for her deep knowledge of the religions and myths of Mali, has given ethnographic literature a masterpiece.
This initiatory text transmitted by the master of initiation Arɗo Dembo, of Ndilli, in Ferlo (Senegal), is a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress. It traces the progress of the pastoralist Sile Saajo through the twelve clearings of knowledge, guided by the bearded dwarf ancestor, Koumen, devotee of the mythical serpent Caanaba or Tyanaba, and his wife Foroforondu.
A sequence of tests await, which are just as much initiations into the structure of the world as they are a struggle to develop control over oneself. The first four clearings correspond to the four elements, then comes the test of courage, the clearings of the seven suns, the contact with the mythical bovine hermaphrodite and the unknotting of the twenty-eight knots representing the completion of knowledge. Left alone with the emblems of the pastoralist, the initiate will then have to defeat a magical lion to return to the land of men.
The dramatic poetry of the story evokes the most beautiful pages of the Bible, and it took outstanding translators to keep it as fresh. The text is rich in symbolism, for while its style is almost dancing in a rhythmic flow, there is not a sentence, nor hardly a word, not rich in symbolic meaning. These symbols are explained in the abundant footnotes, as well as in the introduction which clearly introduces us to the spiritual life of the Fulɓe and its material support: family, cattle, cattle brands, milk, vegetables, altars, poles, cattle ropes and cattle whisk.
The reader is introduced to the degrees of initiation, to the role of the silatigi (the fully initiated priest of the community) and the myth of the snake Caanaba who emerges out of the ocean at the mouth of the Senegal River, which runs through all the countries of the Western Fulɓe peoples before disappearing into Lake Faguibine.
The conclusion and accompanying pictures show how the myth of the snake, the cattle hides, the suns and the clearings explain some of the ancient cave paintings found by H. Lhote in the Sahara, dating back to what he called the “Bovidian period”, imaginatively depicting the likely ancestors of the Fulɓe in visual art. The authors of the present text add further weight to Lhote’s hypothesis. The continuity of civilization and beliefs revealed over five millennia is striking. Through the great human achievement of this work, we dive with Koumen into an African history whose antiquity and depth of esoteric experience flourish in a natural and charming environment; a beautiful human achievement.
Hubert Deschamps
Introduction
Koumen is the initiatory text of the Fulɓe pastors. We have it from Arɗo Dembo, from Ndilla, a Fulɓe community in Moguer, Cercle de Linguère, in modern-day Senegal. This master had it recited, as a test, by his best pupil, Aliw Essa, descendant of the great initiate Sule Yugo.
It seems that this text is nowadays solely preserved by the Fulɓe in Senegal. Indeed elsewhere, massive conversions to Islam have often altered traditional knowledge. In this territory where herds migrate seasonally during the dry season by fording across Gambia — gayo beele (beele, pl. de weendu, waterhole) — the initiation was given in the Cercle de Linguère, on the land between Senegal and the Gambia, near Tambacounda, called jeeri (high bush).1
The instructors were jengelɓe (sing. jengello), i.e. “the people of jeeri”, usually belonging to the Jal family. Initiates from other families could also become instructors, but in this case they acted in the name of Jal, saying, “here is your staff” - a reference to the consecrated pastoral staff of the initiates, which has a symbolic value. At Maasina, the main rite of pastoralism took place in the dry season in the depression of Lake Débo near Gurawo; it was associated with the networks formed by the region’s rivers which, after splitting (such as the Niger and Jaka at Jafaraɓe) or reuniting (such as the Niger and Bani at Mopti), converge at Lake Débo and then divide again before reuniting once and for all at Issafay, where the Issaber and the Bara Issa meet.2 It should be noted, however, that while initiation has almost completely disappeared at Maasina, the “passage of the oxen” at Jafaraɓe, instituted by Sheku Amadu when he organised the seasonal migration to the west, remains a rite for the execution of which the Bozo participate and which involves a religious bathing of the animals.
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Understanding of the Koumen text requires an introduction that brings the reader up to date with the main elements of traditional knowledge concerning family structures and herds, the altars, and the objects and emblems related to the pastorate and the process of initiation.
Families
Fulɓe society historically distinguished three caste groupings:
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nobles, owners of the herds and shepherds (rimbe lit. “to be born”)
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foreigners or artisans (nyenyude lit. “to be skilful, to know how to make”).
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serfs, farmers, captives, (rimayɓe)
The nobles traditionally comprise four “families” (lato sensu) or clans, whose names, jettooje (sing. yettoode), are Jal, Ba, So, Bari. This basic ethnic structure allowed, during the domination of the empire of Mali, the integration of Fulɓe, defeated by Soundiata, into the quaternary system observed in Mandé. Thus, the four initial clans of the Fulɓe adopted four “Mandé names”, respectively Jallo, Jakite, Sidibe and Sangare.3 This integration also resulted in matrimonial alliances: the Ba, who married Malinke women, founded the Wasulu, while also Bambara nobles married Fulɓe women.
The ancestral clan names of the Fulɓe have changed in different regions, depending on migration, habitat, history and political events:
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Jal gave rise to Jallo, Ka, Kan, Dikko and also Mayga,
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Ba gave rise to Bal, Bach (?), Balde, Nuba, Jakité, Jagayete,
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So gave rise to Sidibe,
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Bari gave rise to Sangare.
3 See G. Dieterlen, Mythe et organisation sociale au Soudan français, p. 59. This note contradicts one of the fundamental aspects of the main text, which underlines the endogenous character of the Fulɓe quadripartite onomastic (naming system), which makes the four family names correspond to the four natural elements (water, air, earth, fire) and the four cardinal points. Moreover, this assertion is not supported by any facts and seems to proceed from a hasty comparison; it should therefore be treated with caution. [Tierno S. Bah]
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Thus, the Ba, also known as Urube or Wuwarɓe, would theoretically comprise twenty-eight sub-clans or families. The Ba in Jolof (Senegal) are Bal, Balde in Fuuta-Jalon, Nuba in the Soso region, Jakite in Mande and Jagayete in the Bandiagara region. All Bororo are Ba; borooro literally means “very closed” and by extension “egotistical”. The Bororo, custodians of the most authentic tradition, are endogamous (marrying strictly within their own clan); they have remained nomadic and have never been in contact with Mandé structures.4
The yettode (or yettoore) is borne by an individual in Guinea, Senegal and Sudan. The further one moves away from these regions, the further one gets from the Mandé, the less a Fulɓe bears his clan name. In Fuuta-Tooro, he combines his first name with that of his mother.5
Each clan has its particular attributes: the Jal are pastors and “owners of knowledge” relating to the pastorate. The Ba are warriors; when a Jal is chief, he is preceded by a Ba if he is on horseback. The So, who live on the fringes, hold the initiatory knowledge concerning the bush, because the laoɓe (lumberjacks and woodworkers), considered as great magicians, are associated to the So.6 It is among the Bari that, since the conversions to Islamism, marabouts are recruited.7
Generally speaking, the Fulɓe maintain friendly relationships with various West African societies with which they are in contact (denɗiraaku, senenkuya, Bamana).
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The alliance with blacksmiths is worth mentioning here, as it is of a very special character, with the blacksmith playing a role in initiation as mentioned in the Koumen text. Fulɓe and blacksmiths do not marry each other; in the past, they never sat on the same mat when they were not of the same sex;8 absolute mutual aid is the rule between them; they must never betray each other. The Fulɓe appease quarrels between blacksmiths and vice versa. In the past, a Fula never sold milk to a blacksmith, and the latter worked for him for free. A Fula coming to the door of the blacksmith's shop, bringing milk, had the highest priority to ask for a service. If someone came to bother the blacksmith, he would answer “the red one has passed”, and if the other insisted, he would say: “Can't you see the fire?” The Fula is indeed a symbol of fire for the blacksmith. Red Fula fla ble, “red gold” sanu ble, “red copper” sira ble, are synonymous for the blacksmith. To make fun of the Fula, the blacksmith might also call him “red beast” wara ble, referring to his savage wildness.9
The Herds
Cultivated animals belong to three main categories, necessitating three kinds of shepherds, generally referred to as banyaaji (sing. banaaru) “shepherds”:
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those for the ovine family of domestic sheep, known as balinkooɓe (sing. baalinke), have the ram as their emblem,
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those for the bovine family of cattle, called na’inkooɓe (sing. na’inke), have the bull as their emblem,
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those of the caprine family of goats, known as be’inkooɓe (sing. be’inke), have the goat as their emblem.
It is rare to change one’s role in the exercise of the pastorate; at the beginning, this was probably forbidden. Animals are located in separate places: goats are always kept isolated, and though cows and sheep can be located together, they do
8 This is a prohibition picked up by the Fulɓe in Mande. It is no longer observed from Dori. 9 These five expressions are in the Bambara language.
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not mix. During transmigration, sheep leave first; on the return journey, the cattle go in front. The goats transmigrate separately toward the mountains.
For the Fulɓe, the cattle are not property, not a commodity, but are “relatives”. This kinship is expressed in the symbolic relationships established between the four great Fulɓe families, the four main colours of cattlehides, the four natural elements (earth, water, fire, air) and the four points of the compass:
|
Jal |
yellow cattlehide — oole |
fire |
East |
|
Ba |
red cattlehide — woɗewe |
air |
West |
|
So |
black cattlehide — wane |
water |
South |
|
Bari |
white cattlehide — daneere |
earth |
North |
The four main cattlehides, corresponding to each of the clans, are each divided into sixteen subdivisions according to the colour, position and shape of their spots. For example, the fadaletoodde is a black and white cow (she has a white saddle-shaped patch on her back). She plays a special role in the herd. Each of these cattlehides has a name and corresponds to a clan family.
The interpretation of these cattlehides, of which there are 96 combinations because of the possible “marriages” between them, constantly comes into play in the pastoral life: they can be “read” like geomantic signs for the purposes of divination. For example, at the time of transmigration, on leaving the park, hoggo, the colour of the animal placed near the gate determines, according to the correspondences mentioned above, the family whose herd must walk ahead, and the direction to take. Once this rite has been observed and the entire herd has left, the animals take the direction towards the place of transmigration, and rearrange according to the traditional order of the clans: up ahead those of the Jal, followed by the Ba and the So, with those of the Bari bringing up the rear.
As well as the color and the patches on the cattlehides, the “element” associated with a family also plays a part: if the rains are excessive, or if water is lacking, it is the patriarch of the family associated with water who must intercede with his prayers.
The cattle are also branded by their owners with a red-hot iron. Originally, there would have been sixteen marks of a religious nature: indeed each mark would be associated with a corresponding invocation for the protection and fecundity of the herd. Fourteen of them are given below:10
10 Two of these marks are missing from our table. Research must also be continued on the symbolism of these marks.
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| |
uddal (closing) |
|
palal (from falde, to stand in the way) |
|
|
lonyal (line) |
|
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takkal (the big paw) |
|
|
meselenje (the needles) |
|
|
sokaaɗe (closed loops) |
|
|
dorral (the big whip) |
|
|
hondorewal (if only it were so, the wish) |
|
|
malfal (the gun) |
|
dadorgal (the attachment) |
|
|
korwal (the coil and the shuttle; these two signs together palal on the left, lonyal on the right, also relate to the weaver) |
|
|
piilal (from fiilde, to make a loop, winding) |
|
|
arkabeewal (the stirrup) |
|
|
girraaje (the slender ones) |
These marks are general; one could adopt one or more of them, and combine them in different ways on the animal. Animals could be marked anywhere on the body, but tradition taught that this should be done in the place where the “luck” of the animal resides: it may be on the head, or on the rump, etc..11 Once done, an owner never changes the mark on his animals.
Milk
In the past, the meat of the ox or cow was never eaten. The Fulɓe rarely ate the meat of any animal in their possession. Their staple food was milk, which was the subject of special rituals and prohibitions. The Fulɓe bartered their milk instead of selling it, exchanging it for everything they needed. Milk was offered to any visitor as well as to any foreigner: this gift called "drop for the foreigner",
11 The religious value of the mark was noted by M. Dupire (1954), in his study on Livestock Property Marks among Fulɓe shepherds. He writes: “It is therefore apparent how much in its details this operation of marking (dyelgol) bathes in a magical context that has meaning that goes far beyond the simple recognition of property” (p. 130). The reduction of the signs to simple elements and the shift of the marks uniformly to the ears, as described by Dupire, are intended to respect the hides: these are relatively modern facts due to the current development of leatherwork among the Hausa.
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toɓɓel koɗo,12 is comparable to the traditional dish offered by the Sudanese farmer, or to the fish given by the Bozo fishermen.
The milk must never be deliberatively allowed to fall onto the ground. If it has been poured by mistake or clumsiness, the Fula dips his finger in it, which he then places on his forehead and chest, where the heart is. When a milk offering needs to be made, the officiant fills a calabash gourd with water, citing the name of the pond or stream where the libation is usually made; he then spits into the gourd, then pours in milk, and finally throws the whole mixture onto a thatched roof making sure the liquid does not run down to the ground. This gesture represents a restoral of plant life, because all plants are related to cattle.
One takes an oath “on milk and butter”.
In the realm of initiation, milk has nine names, for as the proverb goes: “milk is eternal water; three that afflict, three that heal, three that nourish” (kosam ndiyam ngeenam; tati 'ana nawna, tati 'ana cawra, tati 'ana payna).
Plants
Plants also play a role in the daily life of pastors, and, of course, in initiation, because, according to tradition, “there is not a single one of them that is not related to the various parts of the body and to cattlehides”. Without dwelling on the system of cosmo-ecological correspondences to which these relationships refer, we give a brief list and commentary on plants to which the Koumen text refers or which come up during initiation.
12 The diminutive tobɓel is used out of modesty, to voluntarily diminish the generous aspect of the gesture.
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The first two are the kelli (Graewia betulifolia Jussieu) and the nelbi (Diospyros mespiliformis Hochst) from which the shepherd’s staffs are made. These trees are the “two mythical staffs” of initiation. The nelbi “contains the pastoral virtues”; all the works of men and especially of the initiates take “their strength and their support” from it; the spear shaft, the handle of a knife or axe, the bowl of the head of the family, as well as most of wooden utensils are made from nelbi. The kelli is related to what belongs to the women in a house. The frame of the roof of a dwelling, made by the women and then covered with thatch, is made of kelli. Since one is associated with female and the other with male activities, their combination has a sexual symbolism.
Meanwhile, the baobab is to plants what the bovine is to animals: every part of this plant can be used, so it symbolises the maximisation of utility.
The kodyoli (Anogeissus Schimperi Hochst) is used to dye clothes yellow (wolo). The Fulɓe usually dressed in white, or in yellow-dyed fabrics.
It is also worth mentioning the delɓi or mburri (which is Gardenia erubescens Stapf. or Hochst or some other variety of gardenia bush), the kooli or koyli (Mitragyna inermis O. Kuntze), the kombi, the ngelooki (Guiera senegalensis), the caski (Acacia albida),13 the kahi (Khaya senegalensis), the kohi (Prosopis africana Tomb.), the mbarkewi (Bauhinia Thonningi Schum), the ɗooki (Combretum ghasalense Engl. et Diels), the foogi (Saba / Landolphia senegalensis), the ndaaɓi (jujubier, Ziziphus jujuba Lam.), and the ɗammi (tamarind tree). The medicinal use of certain plants is still a subject for investigation today, so it would be interesting if the benefits of the plants mentioned in this tale continue to be recognised and re-discovered.
Altarpieces
13 From cay (to take abruptly, to seize)
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The most important shrine of the Fulɓe shepherds is the kaggu.14 It is made from a lattice of interlacing kelli and nelɓi branches, supported on wooden poles made of the same plants, and resembling a wicker cabinet. It is placed against the western wall of the hut belonging to the first lady, and immediately adjacent to the head of her bed, which is oriented lengthwise from West to East. One can place pastoral objects and equipment on the kaggu, gourds, calabashes to collect milk and the shepherd’s clothing apart from his shoes.The room where the kaggu is located is forbidden to women during their menstrual periods. They should also never put their cut hair upon its shelf.
Abovethe kaggu, hung against the wall, is the wineskin bag containing the ngaynirki (lit. that which promotes the bulls’ fertility). This collective term refers to a series of altarpieces, made of various plants having the ɗooki as their base. Each is a relay, and supports the offerings made to the laareeji (sing. laari) the “guardian spirits” of the herds, which in turn endow them with power. One calls up, invoking the laareeji, communicating to them through the medium of the ngaynirki. These play a role in all the details of the pastoral life (procreation, rains, protection of shepherds and flocks) as well as to obtain this or that colour of an unborn calf. There are as many ngaynirki as there are laareeji, that is to say 28, based on the twenty-eight days of the lunar month, called “dwellings of the moon”. As the constitution and consecration of altars is costly, this rarely allow a Fula to possess it whole. If necessary, he addresses himself to the owner of the altar which corresponds to his needs.
The wineskin bag also contains the shepherds’ amulets (piɓol), which protect against the dangers of the bush: snakes, carnivorous, insects etc..15
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The shepherd’s equipment
The technique of the pastorate needs apprenticeship. In the Koumen text, the equipment that the shepherd will use is requested and received by the applicant during a series of tests that constitute his initiation: this equipment is consecrated. Thus, it is emphasized that the use of the tool goes hand in hand with the knowledge of what it symbolically represents, an association which proves, for the Fulɓe as for other Sudanese populations,16 that the technique has cultural significance.
The shepherd carries with him two walking staffs (aynirdu),17 one made of kelli, and the other of nelɓi. He takes an oath on his staff, on milk and on butter. As the saying goes: “swearing on the pastoral staff, milk and butter” (watoraade duudurdu e kosam e nebbam).18 When a young shepherd who already has a staff is initiated, his master gives him a new instrument and consecrates the first one by pronouncing a sacred utterance (secret words referring to the secret name of the bovine).
The shepherd also needs the various ropes that are used to tie the animals; they are made of baobab fibres or, failing that, of Hibiscus cannabinus i.e. hemp (polli).19 The rande20 or maagol ties the calf to a rope stretched between two stumps of Diyospiros, called daangul.21 A daangul usually supports several rande that keep the calves away from their mothers during milking. This long rope represents the “lifeline” of the herds and the stakes that support it (tonteeje)
bear the same name as the blocks that divide the lunar month, for like them, they symbolise time.
At one of its ends, the rande has a knot, at the other a loop in which the knot fits: it is female. The daaɗol,22 another cord, is used to tie the calf to its mother. It has a knot at each of its ends and no loop, so it is male. When a Fula goes to town, he walks with the daaɗol over his right shoulder “when it's time to milk”.
The sirgal is a milk whisk or ladle, made from a stick at the end of which are attached four branches of the same wood, either by cotton cords or kelli or mbarkeewi fibres. These branches correspond to the four elements (water, air, fire, earth), to the four points of the compass, to the four Fulɓe family clans and to the four basic colours of cattlehides. In the case of the ladle belonging to the wife of the chief, each branch bears a sign. The object is oriented when it is placed on the kaggu. It is used to separate milk from butter,23 and this work, together with that of initiation, gives it considerable value. It is to be distinguished from the burgal, a natural two-branched mburri wood ladle, which is considered incomplete and should never be put into [fresh] milk. If this fault is committed, the culprit purifies himself by plunging his right index finger into the milk, the thumb being folded under the other three fingers, and then touching his forehead and sternum. The fact of folding the thumb under the three fingers expresses the absence of intention, the thumb being the finger of the will, and the fault having been involuntary. On another level, the three fingers represent the three Fulɓe families who are not at fault, family at fault, to which the guilty party belongs, being represented by the index finger. “The fork of the sternum is the burgal of the body”: by wearing the index finger on it after touching the forehead, one symbolically transforms the burgal into a sirgal, that is to say into something complete, and therefore pure.
Thus, the first four accessories of the pastorate, which are used in the initiation, are in order:
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the staffs, the daañgul and the daaɗol, which are linked to the activity of men.
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the sirgal, a feminine object, whose use comes after milking, which is not part of the initiation.
The prohibitions concerning these objects of both technical and ritual use are as follows:
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the daaɗol must never be used for any other purpose than to tie the calf to its mother, to milk her or to move the animal forward.
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animals other than those belonging to the three categories mentioned above may not be attached to the daañgul.
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the sirgal must never be put into any material other than milk.
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With the consecrated staff one may hit a man, but never a donkey, dog or cat.
-
When the staff is broken, the shepherd can neither throw it in the rubbish
nor use it as kitchen wood; he abandons it in the bush where he is no longer responsible for its pollution.
We should also mention the two gourds the shepherd carries: one containing milk, boliiru kosam, and one used for water, boliiru ndiyam. Their use must never be alternated.
In the Koumen text, reference is also made to other objects related to the pastorate, to milking or to the consumption of milk, but which are not directly part of the initiation. These are the ɓirdugal, a calabash gourd or wooden container in which milk is milked, and the tumbude, a decorated calabash for ordinary milk.
The Fulɓe shepherd from Jeeri also has a ritual one-stringed musical instrument, the moolaaru (from moolaade: “to ask for protection, exorcise or remove a curse”). This instrument, which he has to make himself, without the help of caste specialists, woodworkers (laoɓe), leather workers (sakke) or gourd repairers (kule),24 protects the herd. Only the blacksmith, with whom the shepherd has a special relationship, has to help make the cow-bells (cencenje). The skin before being stretched over the casing must have been tanned according to a special rite. The instrument must be dedicated to one of the four categories of cattle. The initiate must therefore possess four different instruments to be able to take effective action at all times, and they often did. In order to avoid this multiplication, they could also have a cross engraved on the instrument, between the branches of which are drawn the four types of cattle. Without such a mark, the instrument is reserved exclusively for one of the four kinds of animals. The môliiru must be placed on the kaggu when not in use. Its owner plays it to invoke Koumen and can only lend it to one initiated within his lineage.
Shepherds also play an instrument for secular music, the popiliwal or illorowal, a flute made from a sorghum stem.25
Initiation
"The initiation,” says a Fulfulde text, “begins on entering the park and ends in the grave” (pulaaku fuɗɗi gila hoggo fa yanaande).26 The life of a Fula, as an initiated shepherd, begins with the “entry” and ends with the “exit” from the park, which
26 Pulaaku literally means “the state of the Fula during initiation”.
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takes place at the age of sixty-three. It consists of three sequences of twenty-one years each:
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twenty-one years of apprenticeship,
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twenty-one years of practice,
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twenty-one years of teaching.
“Leaving the park” is like a death for the shepherd; he then calls his successor: the most able and devoted of the initiates or his son. He makes him suck his tongue, because saliva is the medium of “speech”, that is to say of knowledge, and then he blows the secret name of the bovine into his left ear.
The initiation comprises 33 degrees to which are added 3 invisible upper degrees, acquired automatically after the thirty-third. These 33 degrees correspond to the 33 phonemes of the Fulfulde language, i.e. “sounds that man makes which come out of his throat”:
“a, mbe, be, ɓe, d, d, d'e, nde, dye, nde, ɗe, ndye, e, fe, ge, nge, he, i, yi, ke, le, me, ne, nye, o, pe, re, se, te, tye, u, wu, we, ye”.27
The three upper degrees are inaudible; they are those of “the unspoken word”, but always present, called “the unknown”.
The applicant progresses through four degrees at a time, passing successively through nine states. The ninth has only one real degree, the thirty-third, to which are added the three higher degrees. The latter three correspond to the three shells that surround a fetus, called “the three obscurities of the matrix” (niɓe tati
27 The phonemes are given in alphabetical order, as the information did not provide the traditional order which would certainly be different. [One must moreover read sounds and not phonemes, the latter a technical term in phonology that designates the fundamental units of a language, whose opposition is relevant, i.e. carrying a difference in meaning between words in the lexicon. E.g. the opposition between the short vowel and the long vowel in the words: laɓi (knife) and laaɓi (clean), or the relevance of double consonants in the pair of words: ladde (bush) and laɗɗe (knives). - Tierno S. Bah].
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raanga). On the spiritual plane, the initiate is thus brought back to the fetal stage; “he is born” then to a new life and bears the title of “son”.28
Physically, the initiation penetrates the applicant through the “seven lamp posts” that constitute the seven openings of the body — the eyes, ears, nose and mouth — between which correspondences are established.
Once he has decided to be initiated and to seek a master, the young Fula is bound by duty to fulfil a number of obligations for several years. From the age of fourteen until twenty-one, he has to beg or mow grass for a salary, or sell dead wood, in order to buy, thanks to the fruits of his labour or donations received, a handful of grains and seeds of three varieties of calabash.29 He then goes into the bush to clear the land to establish a field and sow the grains and calabash seeds. This work has to be kept secret: he has to weed, harvest and thresh his grain alone. He must then transport the harvest to sell it in a market held regularly on Saturdays, and not on any other day of the week. The profit from the sale must be used to buy a goat and clothing: a tunic, a pair of trousers, a hand-knitted cap of native cotton, and shoes. He usually has to repeat this for several years, doing several harvests, before his earnings allow him to make these purchases.
When this last stage is reached, he must kill a goat and remove the animal's skin without emptying it out. Then he tans the skin to make a goatskin container, always alone and in his field. At the same time, and in the same place, he prepares with his calabash produce the following: a gourd, a calabash bowl and a spoon. When the goatskin is dry, he has to go and fill it with pure water and go to a
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market taking place on a Saturday, dressed in the clothes he has bought and carrying the instruments he has made by his own hand. There, the first person who asks him for a drink must become his instructor or else lead him to a master. If the applicant is a man of age, he asks him to teach him; if he is young, he asks him to take him to an old man of his family who becomes his master.
From the moment the applicant is approved by his master, he becomes his servant, and remains so until the end of the initiation. Until that time, he must also keep and carry with him the goatskin and the objects from the calabash on which he makes libations of milk and butter every Saturday. However, he may instead of keeping them, bury them in his field and build in this place a termite mound in the soil, on which he regularly makes the same offerings. In the first instance, he must wear his clothes not only until the end of his initiation, but until they are completely worn out. In the second case, he must give them to a poor person.30 The preliminary labours imposed by tradition on the adolescent therefore involve his own free will: he can choose to be initiated or decide otherwise. They also bear witness to his patience and perseverance without him being conscious of it. On the other hand, they require the learning of techniques (farming, woodwork, leatherwork) which he will no longer engage in and which are completely different from those which, as a noble and shepherd, he will later have to practice. He then discovers his master through the ritual process we have just recounted, a master who is delegated to him by the supernatural powers, the invisible agents of initiation. From then on, having shown character, discretion and certain moral qualities, he will develop, by his attitude towards his master, other necessary virtues: obedience, modesty, a sense of discipline, and maintain this until the end of the initiation. The instruction received will exercise his memory and stretch his intelligence.
30 It is worth understanding the role of clothing in initiation as a particular example of the symbolic relationships between “weaving” and “speech” observed in other Sudanese societies (Cf. M. Griaule, Dieu d'eau, p. 31).
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With age, practice and according to the extent of his knowledge, the initiated shepherd, known as aga in Fuuta and baanyaaru in Maasina, gets progressively closer to the title of silatigi, a term whose precise etymology cannot be given,31 but which can be explained as “he who has the initiatory knowledge of pastoral things and the mysteries of the bush”. The considerable influence of the silatigi is explained by this title, the most prestigious that a Fula could wish for. Every initiated shepherd dreams of one day being a silatigi.
The silatigi is the priest of the community.32 As such, he observes a number of prohibitions throughout his life: he must not have sexual relations with women other than his own, he must not knowingly lie or bear false witness, even in favour of his own parents.
The status as well as the functions of a silatigi are, of course, all related to animals and everything that concerns them: health, fertility, transmigration, pastoral rules, etc. He knows exactly all the things which need to be done for the well-being of the herd. He is also the “steward” of animals offered by members of his community to one of the mythical personalities of the traditional Fulɓe pantheon, d’alâffl: these animals, which are part of the herd but which should not be sold or sacrificed for personal profit, can be donated by the community to the needy, or be consumed during celebrations or collective functions. On the other hand, donations or offerings to d'alâiî, which the silatigi makes in the name of the community, must be taken from personal property.
The silatigi performs a certain number of regular rites, daily, monthly or annually: he recites incantations, whose text and conditions he knows, at sunrise and sunset. He does the same three times per moon: at the first crescent, at the three “full
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days” (thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth days of the moon) which correspond to the full moon, and at the new moon. Every year he presides over the feast of transmigration, the distribution of awards to the oxen, and determines the date of the new year ceremony. In fact, for the initiated, the year is divided into 28 periods of 13 days, with an extra fourteenth day in the 28th period, each period associated with the position of a star. At the end of the 28th period is the ceremony of lootoori, the “general bath”, during which the shepherds bathe and followed by the lustration of the animals.
When the silatigi recites the ritual mantras (kongi), he must observe the rules of “correspondences”. The recitation, which is rhythmic, varies according to the circumstances and the family to which the reciter belongs. It is usually accompanied by libations of milk. It also varies according to the position of the moon: the lunar month of 28 days is divided into eight periods, known as “stakes” (tonteeje)33 and the litany is addressed successively to each of the “guardian spirits” of the integrity of cattle, spirits that theoretically sit in the eight directions of the compass. The reciter faces the cardinal direction associated with his family: his position is in fact even more important than the incantation itself, its rhythm or the words that compose it. The initiatory teaching also includes the knowledge of incantations intended to render harmless the panther’s claws, the lion’s teeth, the hyena’s bite, etc.. They are called fanaade ladde (fanaade: lit. “to protect against”) meaning “to muzzle the mouth of the wilderness”.
The silatigi studies the classification of plants and all their therapeutic properties; in so doing becoming a “master of plants” (cawroowo). Moreover, he “charges up” the plants he collects with an authority depends on his knowledge of the required movements and appropriate words.
33 These “stakes”, which divide time, bear the same name as those which support the daanygul “calf ropes”.
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In the plane of initiation, plants fall into three categories: plants with vertical trunks, climbers and creepers. In each category, one distinguishes between plants with or without thorns, with or without bark, bearing or not bearing fruit. The plants are further classified into series, each series related to one of the days of the week and to one of the eight points of the compass.34
Plants play a constant role in the life of the shepherd; they must be collected according to these various classifications, for the sake of the herds or dairy products, for the transfer of a family or a group of families to a new site, or for medicinal use. Bark, roots, leaves or fruits must be collected in relation to the day of the lunar month to which the plant corresponds, and while invoking the laare or “guardian spirit” of the herds, which depends on the period of the month and according to the position of the sun. Thus the silatigi, in giving his instructions, will say, for example: “To do such a thing, you must take the leaf of a thorny climbing plant without bark, on this day, when the sun is in this position, looking in this cardinal direction, invoking this laare.”
Initiation also gives the silatigi the role of diviner. Depending on the symbolic value of the colours and patches of the cattlehides, he interprets, if necessary, the respective position of the animals in the park, which he “reads” as geomantic signs. This function is exercised in particular when choosing a new shepherd, which we relate here by way of example: the young man designated to accompany the transmigrating oxen is equipped with a shepherd’s staff which has not yet been consecrated and apart from geographical and purely technical guidelines for the care to be given to the herd, he receives no particular instructions. On his return, the silatigi finds out about what he has done during the transmigration, he watches his attitude, but it is the cattle themselves that will determine his future prospects. Indeed, their entry into the park and their respective positions when
34 For a comparable classification of plants among the Dogon, see G. Dieterlen, Classification des végétaux chez les Dogon.
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they are settled there are carefully examined by the silatigi according to the criteria set out above. Depending on the configuration presented by the animals, and, of course, without the knowledge of the applicant shepherd, his admission to the pastorate is decided or refused.
When he has to transmigrate the herd, the silatigi plays the moolaaru instrument corresponding to one of the cattlehides. If the sun emerges on the horizon, he invokes the yellow cow, in the middle of the day, he invokes the white cow, the red one at sunset and the black one if it is dark. Equipped with his instrument, he goes into the bush and, if it is daytime, stands in the shade of a Diospyros mespililormis Hochst (nelbi) or a Graewia betulifolia (kelli) and, if possible, near a termite mound. After playing his instrument for a long time to invoke Koumen following his own inspiration (the rhythms are improvised), he proceeds to divination by geomancy. The corresponding “sign” must be discovered and determines the order in which the transmigration will take place: the head of the herd, the time of departure, the direction, etc. The “sign” must also be given to the person who is to take on the transmigration. At night, he proceeds in the same way, but places himself under an Acacia albida, a baobab, a diki, a kohi or a kahi, and, not being able to carry out the geomancy, he lets his inspiration guide him after playing his instrument.
Koumen
The Koumen text requires an introduction familiarise the reader with the pantheon of the initiate. Indeed, the initiation instructs the applicant in traditional cosmogony, as well as in the role of the supernatural powers that intervene, one after another, in the progress of the universe.
Above all, there is God, Guéno, immortal, omniscient and omnipresent: geno comes from yenɗude, “eternal being”. But this is not the only name given to it: Guéno is also called Dundaari, a term meaning “he who can be fearless, who can act without fearing the consequences” and which implies omnipotence.
Guéno, always present, remains invisible and does not manifest himself on earth. However, the entire life of the Fula shepherd and nomad is, as we have seen, associated with cattle and their transmigration: the supernatural personality who is Guéno’s “guardian of the herd / herdsman” on Earth, is called Caanaba. The representations that involve him make up a mythical geography.35 (Figure I).
Caanaba takes the form of a snake with 96 scales that correspond to the 96 combinations of cattlehides. When he was very small, he came out of the ocean, known as the “salt river” (maayo lamɗam), accompanied by the first 22 bovines entrusted to him by Guéno, and then, crossing the barrier, he went up the course of the Senegal River, crossed the jeeri (high bush above the waterline) and the waalo (seasonally flooded plains), and then went down to the sources of the Niger (jeeliba), whose course he “married” and where, from Bafoulabé, he took the name Nikinanka.36
As he was still a defenceless being, he was adopted by the mother and family of Ilo, son of Yaladi,37 of whom he became the “twin brother”. As the animals multiplied, he entrusted them to Ilo who accompanied him everywhere and led the herd with him. Together they went down the Niger River.
But Caanaba had one prohibition. Having confided in Ilo, with whom he lived, he forbade him to let him be approached by a woman “whose body was yellow and ochre, whose eyes were red, and without breasts” (bolo, bolto, boɗeejo gite, coppi). While staying at Sama, Ilo, who went to the village every day, became engaged to a young girl who matched the description of Caanaba’s forbidden woman. He made the usual expenses for his marriage of which he forewarned Caanaba. The latter reminded him of his prohibition and the promise he had made to respect it. Three times a day, in the morning, at noon and in the evening, four gourds were filled with milk and taken to Caanaba. However, Ilo’s wife occasionally had an elderly woman come to her house to do her hair: on the third
37 Lit. red-eared.
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visit, the old woman asked where all the milk went. Ilo’s wife replied that it was intended for her brother-in-law.
So it was a Monday, while Ilo was at the market, when his wife approached the hut where Caanaba lived and looked through the hole in the wall. “Their eyes made four” (gite maɓɓe ngaddi nay), it is said of the moment when their eyes met. Then Caanaba, the prohibition having been broken, inflated himself until he burst out of the hut, and went to the river followed by the cattle which Ilo could not hold back. Ilo followed the herd in vain trying to keep a hold of them. After several days of walking, Caanaba took pity on him: “Use your staff of nelbi to strike the horns of the animals,” he told him. And every time Ilo touched an animal, it would stay put; he was therefore able, little by little, to round up the herd.
Caanaba crossed Maasina through the caanabawol, a natural depression in the ground that starts behind Senzani (Sansanding on the map), joined Molodo and then headed towards Lake Débo.39 Here, considered to be the final point of his peregrination from the Mandé, he established an alliance with the genie of the place,40 which bore the name of ga, the “mother” of all living things. Then he entered the lake with the animals, crossed it, and after emerging, then went to Lake Faguibine and Lake Oro, where he died. It is in this region where the most important livestock are to be found. Ilo remained nomadic.41
38 The old woman in this legend should be likened to the twin of Pemba Mousso Koroni Koundyé, the mythical personality of the Malinke and Bambara, who contributed to perpetuating disorder on earth (Cf. S. de Ganay, Aspects de mythologie et de symbolique bambara, p. 183; G. Dieterlen, Essai sur la religion Bambara, p. 39).
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If Caanaba is the mythical owner of the cattle, Koumen is his auxiliary, his shepherd, and the depositary of the secrets concerning pastoral initiation. Koumen was entrusted by Guéno with the care of the land, the pastures and the wild and domestic animals. Free to take whatever form he likes, “he is black when he is in charge of minerals, white when he is in the service of the powers responsible for wild herbivores, and red when he is in the service of Caanaba and responsible for domestic animals, especially cattle”. He can also transform at will wild animals into domestic animals and vice versa. Koumen can appear to humans as a child of three, seven or nine years old, but never more than eleven. Assisted by his wife, Foroforondu, he passes on his secrets to those he wants to initiate “by leading them to an invisible place where the shepherd becomes a man”. He makes his protégés “suck his tongue”; through the medium of his saliva, the virtue of intelligence penetrates the heart and brain of the neophyte. The privileged person who completes the cycle of initiation acquires a power that enables him to understand the language of animals and gives him the key to ritual words. From that time on, he will no longer belong exclusively to his own family, he will lose his family name and will become silatigi, “venerable possessor of the saliva charged with power” and master of his own will.
As we have already seen, initiates also address themselves when their intervention is necessary to the laareeji, supernatural powers or “guardian spirits” on whom the status and fecundity of the herds depend, and who sit in space at the eight cardinal and intercardinal points of the compass. There are 28 laareeji, associated with the 28 days of the lunar month; moreover, the first twelve of the list govern the twelve months of the solar year; the last sixteen govern the sixteen “houses” of geomancy.
The Koumen text relates the initiation of the first silatigi, Sile Saajo or Sule, diminutive of Suleyman, i.e. Solomon.
The initiation of the Fula shepherd ranges from making the applicant understand knowledge relating to shepherding to instructing him in the structure of the universe. For the Fulɓe, the world created by God, Guéno, came “from a drop of milk” (toɓɓere ɓira) containing the “four elements”, which then formed the “hermaphrodite bovine”, symbol of the universe. Based on the morphology of this initial principle, the creator established a series of cosmo-ecological correspondences between all the elements that make up the universe. We have indicated a snapshot of these correspondences between the cattle (distinguished by their cattlehides), the four elements, the cardinal directions and the Fulɓe family clans. These correspondences apply also, of course, to the four great human races: the white, black, yellow and red. They extend also to the stars and on Earth to animals, plants and minerals. This is how man, who is one in substance with the bovine, is in a personal relationship with a star, a day of the month and even of the week, with plants in general, as well as with the forbidden animal of his clan. This apparently simple example is complicated by all the interferences due to his race, his geographical situation, his family status, his social role, his professional skills, and, on the psychological level, his character, and ultimately his destiny.
The Koumen text presents initiation as a progressive teaching of the structure of elements, space and time, the essence of which the applicant must penetrate: it comes across, at the same time, as a succession of trials, symbolic of the struggles he must undertake within himself in order to progress with God’s help. The applicant must successively penetrate twelve “clearings” which symbolise, on one level, the year and its twelve months, and on another level, his movement through a landscape where passing from one clearing to another he meets the mythical personalities who must teach him. In addition, he is brought into contact with wild animals which are symbols of the forces with or against which he must fight, as well as with the main plants which play a role in pastoral life. Crossing the threshold to the first clearing is for the applicant his passing from the disordered world of men, from the “disturbed city” (ngendi jiɓuya) which is his home, to the bush “city of God” (ngendi Guéno) and the organised world of pastoral work.
The first four clearings put him successively in relationship with the “four elements”, the bases of creation, in the following order: fire, earth, air, water. In the fifth clearing, the applicant, having penetrated the four elements and having himself been penetrated, realises his definitive state and becomes a complete person (neɗɗo kiɓɓo). This clearing is also that of the “genie of war”, symbol of the resistance that opposes him, of the spiritual struggle that he must pursue: he must cross it without fear in order to reach the higher degrees of knowledge. From
the sixth to the twelfth clearing, he receives the “lights of initiation”: he sees seven “suns” in succession, which have the colours of the rainbow and symbolise completeness, for seven unites the male principle, 3, and the female principle, 4.42
After the twelfth clearing, the initiate receives from Koumen’s wife a rope with 28 knots. The “twenty-eight knots or interlacings” correspond to the days of the lunar months which are to be “untied”, i.e. whose succession must be consciously penetrated. Thus, he is instructed in the mystical calendar of the year, which combines solar time with lunar time, and which is composed, as we have seen, of 28 periods; these also correspond to successive areas of knowledge.
The “unravelling of the knots” to knowledge allows the initiate to receive the emblems of the pastorate: sticks, ropes, gourds, etc., which are the emblems of the pastorate. He then leaves his instructors to return to the land of men. He goes alone, to the frontier, to wage an ultimate struggle against a lion that he defeats, by his incantations, and then sacrifices. He then invokes God, Dundaari, master of creation.
A number of footnotes accompany the text. They include various invocations which, in the present state of research, are for the most part untranslatable. However, a few hypotheses are made as to the meaning of certain words.
Because of the extremely strict ritual conditions necessary for publishing the text in Fulfulde, and therefore for its transcription, must be strictly respected, it is not possible for us at present, out of respect for the masters who taught it to us, to publish it in its original form.
42 “The number 3 represents the rod and two testicles of the male body, the number 4 represents the four lips of the female.” (G. Dieterlen, Essai sur la religion bambara, p. 5, n. 4).
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