Njeddo Dewal, Mother of Calamity: Introduction

This is part of a series: Njeddo Dewal, Mother of Calamity

Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born in Mali in 1900 into an aristocratic Fulɓe family. As a writer, historian, ethnologist, poet and storyteller, he was one of the greatest specialists of Fulɓe culture and African traditions.

As a researcher at Dakar’s French Institute of Black Africa (I.F.A.N., Institute Fondamentale d’Afrique Noire) since 1942, Amadou Hampâté Bâ was one of the foremost African intellectuals to receive, transcribe and explain the treasures of traditional West African oral literature — its tales, stories, fables, myths and legends. His first publications date from this period. In 1962, at the Executive Board of UNESCO, where he sat since 1960, he drew attention to the extreme fragility of ancestral African culture with his now famous rallying cry: “In Africa, when an old man dies, a library burns.”

In addition to tales, such as Petit Bodiel et autres contes de la savane, Amadou Hampâté Bâ also wrote works of history, religious essays, such as Jesus vu par un musulman and Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar: Le Sage de Bandiagara translated in Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar (2008), as well as his memoirs, Amkoullel l’enfant peul, followed by Oui, mon commandement, published in France in 1991.

Amadou Hampâté Bâ died in Abidjan in May 1991.

*

*      *

Introduction

The great Fulɓe initiatory text Njeddo Dewal, Mother of Calamity is part of the same literary cycle of mythical tales as Kaydara and The Radiance of the Great Star,1 and it comes first in this sequence. These three tales, whose subjects complement each other, have certain characters in common. Hammadi will reappear as the hero of Kaydara and again in The Radiance of the Great Star, while Bâgoumâwel, the great initiate in The Radiance appears here as a miraculous child, young and old at the same time.

While Kaydara illustrates the quest for Knowledge, with an outward and return journey strewn with trials and understanding specific signs, and the Radiance of the Great Star is similarly a quest for wisdom with the progressive initiation to royal power of the grandson of Hammadi by Bâgoumâwel, in the tale Njeddo Dewal, Mother of Calamity, we witness the struggle between the principles of good and evil. Unlike the other two tales which have a linear path between a starting point and an endpoint, here by contrast we embark on an abundance of crazy adventures, fantastic battles, perilous journeys, successes, failures and the excitement of perpetually questing until the happy ending. The tale of Njeddo Dewal is representative of life itself: the struggle between good and evil is always to be taken up again and again, both around us and inside us.

1 The books Koumen, Radiance of the Great Star and Kaydara are often cited in the footnotes to the present work. Just to clear up any misunderstanding, I have nothing to do with the “readings” or “visions” of third-parties based on tales previously published by me and their works and reflections are by definition purely their own fabrication. While every kind of investigation has its merits, I would gently encourage young researchers to avoid the temptation to attach certain African tales to pre-established systems of thought or intellectual criteria which are generally foreign to them.

Like all Fulɓe initiatory tales, Njeddo Dewal can be read – or heard – at many levels. It is, first and foremost, a fantastic fairy tale whose charm can entertain young and old alike. It is secondly also a didactic tale on the moral, social and traditional planes, teaching through paradigmatic characters and events, what ideal human behaviour should be like. Finally, it is a great initiatory text because it illustrates the attitudes to be imitated or rejected, the pitfalls to be avoided and the steps to be taken when one is engaged in the difficult path of self-conquest and self-fulfilment.

Faced with an almost omnipotent agent of evil in Njeddo Dewal, certain characters will appear who embody the noblest human qualities, relying solely on their own powers and the mastery of certain magical forces, and the greatest strength in the end will be to trust in Providence time and again, at the risk of one’s life.

Let us not forget that myths, tales, legends and children’s games have always been for the wise men of ancient times a more or less veiled way of transmitting through the centuries in the language of images, knowledge which, received since childhood, will remain deeply engraved in the individual subconscious to reappear perhaps, at the appropriate moment, enlightened with new meaning. As the old Bambara initiates say, “If you want to save knowledge and preserve it through time, entrust it to the children.”

*

*      *

The tale Njeddo Dewal is of particular interest in that it poses, from the outset, the problem of the origin of the Fulɓe people. It describes the fabulous country of Heli and Yoyo where long, long ago, before their dispersion across Africa, the Fulɓe lived happily, blessed with all riches and protected from all evil, even death. What followed was that their misbehaviour and ingratitude provoked the wrath of God. Guéno (the supreme God, the Eternal One) decided to punish them and to this end raised a terrible and evil creature, Njeddo Dewal the great witch, whose spells would bring upon the unfortunate inhabitants of Heli and Yoyo such terrible calamities that, to escape them, they would have to flee throughout the world.

Only very pure beings (Bâ-Wâm’ndé and his wife, or the miraculous sheep Kobbou, or Siré the initiate or, later, Bâgoumâwel the child whose destiny was foretold) would be able to fight against the terrible witch and, finally, triumph over her thanks to the help of Guéno.

This origin myth raises, in its very presentation, various questions that we address among other things in footnotes to the text, notably about the influence of Mandé traditions on certain Fulɓe myths.

Another interest of this tale is that we find in it, apart from a few variations, almost the entire storyline of the Western tale Hop-on-My-Thumb (in French, Le Petit Poucet), but with an infinitely greater wealth of details and adventures. We find the seven rather silly brothers, the young boy full of ingenious trickery and finesse (called Bâgoumawel who is their nephew) struggling not with an ogre, but with a vampire Njeddo Dewal. Curiously enough, Njeddo Dewal cannot be killed unlike her vampire counterparts in Western tales, as we shall see at the end of the tale. One cannot help but be curious about the source of these myths.

*

*      *

Like Kaydara and The Radiance of the Great Star, Njeddo Dewal is a jantol (plural janti), i.e. a very long tale with human or fantasy characters, with a didactic or initiatory purpose, often both at the same time. As the storyteller says at the beginning of Kaydara: “I am futile, useful and instructive.”

The jantol is always recited either in verse to a rapid rhythm (mergi: poetry) or in Fulfulde prose (fulfulde maw'nde). Here, unlike in Kaydara, the prose version, while repeating the mergi text in places, is much fuller and richer in detail, so this is why we have opted to present the prose version to the reader.

In any jantol, the plot of the story (i.e. the progression, the steps, the symbols, the significant facts) should never be changed by the traditional storyteller. However, he may make variations on secondary points, embellish, expand or shorten certain parts depending on the receptivity of his audience. Above all, the storyteller’s goal is to engage his listeners and especially make sure that they do not lose interest. A tale must always be pleasant to listen to and, at certain moments, to crack a laugh from even the most serious. A tale without mirth is like food without salt.

In the version presented here, not only has the plot of the story been strictly adhered to as it should be, but also the details of the prose narrative as they are traditionally transmitted. We have only allowed ourselves, in some places, to make small formal clarifications to facilitate its understanding by Western readers, especially to clarify certain points of chronology and motivate reasons, which are not essential for a traditional audience who are generally little concerned with logic or chronology. Those trained in traditional storytelling tend to intersperse their stories with numerous instructive asides. Each tree or each animal can be the subject for a whole teaching which can be both practical and symbolic. We did not want to interrupt the flow of the story with digressions of this kind, although the text itself does contain some, especially at the beginning, so we have included in endnotes anything specific we wanted to bring to the reader’s attention.

In footnotes at the bottom of each page (notes with small numbers), we offer explanations of a linguistic nature to facilitate the understanding of the text — or even of the hidden meaning of events — while in the appendix we have included endnotes (referenced with bold numbers in brackets) offering more detail into the meaning of symbols and African traditions in general.

*

*      *

After the first chapter devoted to the description of the mythical country of Heli and Yoyo and the calamities that befell its inhabitants, the tale is then structured around two story cycles.

The first cycle follows the quest of Bâ-Wâm’ndé, grandfather of Bâgoumâwel. Bâ-Wâm’ndé is a simple and good man, charitable and benevolent towards all living things. With his wife Welôrè, he embodies all human virtues. To prepare the coming of his future grandson who alone will be able to face the fearsome Njeddo Dewal, he does not hesitate to embark on a dangerous quest that will lead him to the heart of the territory of the Great Witch! With an innocent and untroubled soul, he does not doubt himself, so Guéno (the supreme God) will help him in each step of his journey and the whole of nature will put itself at his service.

Accompanied by a miraculous sheep, Bâ-Wâm’ndé will first go to deliver Siré, a man of great power held prisoner by Njeddo Dewal. Then the two and their sheep will succeed, at the end of a particularly eventful expedition, in freeing a god enslaved by Njeddo Dewal, who is the main source of her magical power. This exploit will allow the first knots of her “calamitous” evil power to be undone and prepares the way for the future exploits of Bâgoumâwel.

The second cycle, is the roller-coaster adventure of Bâgoumâwel himself, the child foretold by his miraculous birth, sent by Guéno to triumph over Njeddo Dewal.

Bâgoumâwel also embodies nobility, kindness and generosity, but served by a wickedly keen intelligence and blessed by the powers of destiny. He can take all forms because, like Njeddo Dewal, he has access to the subtle world where forms are not yet fixed as in the material world.

Bâgoumâwel is the prototype of the initiate. His ways of acting escape human understanding. In The Radiance of the Great Star, he symbolizes Knowledge: he is the instructor, the educator, the initiator. Here, he is incarnated in the form of a child to come to the aid of the Fulɓe people and to deliver them from the evil spell that keeps them under the thumb of Njeddo Dewal. All that he does is not motivated by individual will, but in the name of the power and the mission that Guéno has given him. Njeddo Dewal by contrast always acts to satisfy her personal desires, basing her powers on the capture and servitude of intermediate forces (gods or spirits) without invoking Guéno, the supreme Creator. She will only do so at the end of the story when, almost defeated, deprived of everything and unhappy, she finally turns to him to ask for his help, although still with the intention of doing harm.

*

*      *

In traditional society, each jantol is like a book that the Master recites and comments on. The young person must listen, allow himself to be impregnated, retain the tale and, as much as possible, relive it within himself. It is recommended (as with Kaydara) that he should always return to the tale on the occasion of important events in his life. As his inner evolution progresses, his understanding will change, and he will discover new meanings. Often, a particular event in his life will enlighten him on the profound meaning of a particular episode in the tale; conversely, the tale can also help him better understand the meaning of his current experience.

Indeed, all the characters in the tale have their correspondence within ourselves.2 Njeddo Dewal and Bâgoumâwel are like two extreme poles within us, separated by an infinite number of possible degrees. Our being is the place of their struggle.

2 This applies to other tales also, in particular Kaydara. It is within ourselves and not in external social categories that we must find the character correspondences, qualities and faults.

To triumph over Njeddo Dewal within us, we must first know how to identify her, then tame her, and finally know how to listen to and recognize the voice of Bâgoumâwel who knows how to inspire courage to face evil with the help of Guéno. He is the voice of the good, the voice of the one who knows how to forgive and sacrifice himself. This is why he is invested with the help of Guéno and the help of the ancestors. An unexpected event will always come to his aid in the most desperate circumstances.

But we also have within us the stupidity of the seven brothers, their stubbornness and their lack of self-awareness...

Finally, entering into the heart of a tale is like entering our own heart. A tale is a mirror where each may find an image of themselves.

Let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Nouria,3 whose tireless labour and care has helped give birth to this and other works.

3 Affectionate name for Amadou’s wife, Hélène Heckman.

Amadou Hâmpaté Bâ 

Abidjan, 1984