This is part of a series: Njeddo Dewal, Mother of Calamity
The Great Quest of Bâ-Wâm'nde, The Good Man
In the village of Hayyô,1 located at the foot of one of the seven mountains of Heli and Yoyo and whose leader was Hammadi Manna, there lived a very good man named Baba-Wâm’ndé: “Father of Happiness”. He was called Bâ-Wâm’ndé for short. Most of the inhabitants of the Hayyô region had not sinned, but without a doubt Bâ-Wâm’ndé was the wisest and most virtuous of them all.
He was not among the wealthy of Heli and Yoyo, but was renowned as a model of integrity. He never cheated anyone and he never scrounged from anyone. Many of the poor came to him asking for loans,2 but he never called on them to pay him back. Meanwhile, he never took on debts himself although very often, since the coming of the great misfortunes, his little family had spent the day without eating and gone to sleep without supper.
The companion of Bâ-Wâm’ndé was named Weldo-Hôre: “Sweet-faced blessing”. She was called Welôré for short. She was even more patient than her husband, and some said even more accommodating and generous. Pure like a saint, she combined in herself the four qualities that are considered to make a woman perfect and she could never be supplemented by a second wife. (31) She was not envious and never nagged her husband.
One night, Welôré had a dream. She dreamt that she was eating a dish whose rice she had cooked in the sun and whose sauce she had cooked in the moon.3 Once the dish was finished, she saw herself give birth to a little bull-calf, white as milk.
1 This is both the name of the village as well as of the countryside around it, just as Heli and Yoyo are both names of cities as well as of the country around them.2 This was not necessarily for money or its equivalent, but could also have been about livestock.3 The meeting of the complementary poles of sun and moon (masculine and feminine, gold and silver, day and night) implies here an idea of totality, therefore of harmony. It is not unimportant to the story since it is symbolises the announcement of the future birth of Bâgoumâwel, the predestined child who will be sent by Guéno to fight against Njeddo Dewal and defeat her. While the latter is an instrument of evil, she is incomplete, unbalanced, because she is composed solely of dark elements.
“Your daughter Welôré will give birth to seven boys and a girl, but none of the seven boys will have offspring. Only the girl will conceive a male child who will be a boy whose destiny is foretold. Before his conception, this mysterious child will first incarnate into a large star. Every evening, this star will appear in the east as the sun sets in the west and every morning it will disappear in the west as the sun rises in the east.4 As soon as your daughter is pregnant, the star will no longer appear at sunrise or sunset. He will be in the womb of your daughter, where he will be incarnated as a boy.
“He will be a predestined boy, for his destiny is to fight a bitter battle with Njeddo Dewal, the Great Calamity. Their conflict will last seven years. During these seven years, the country will continue to suffer the great misfortune Njeddo Dewal has inflicted by withholding the beneficent rains so they may no longer revive the plants and pastures, preventing the animals from reproducing, drying up the rivers so that even a thirsty traveller cannot find a single sip of water to quench his thirst or give the animal he rides to drink.
But after these seven years, the earth, made so hot by Njeddo Dewal’s breath that even the cacti try to run away, will begin to regain its freshness.
The trees will no longer fly this way and that at the mercy of every wind, as if they had wings. They will not shake and thrash their limbs like giant beasts, but suddenly they will sink their roots deep into the earth and begin to lose themselves in it.
Because of the spells of the great sorceress, the thatched roofs, no sooner woven, would bristle up their straw like the quills of a porcupine’s fleece, allowing the scorching sun to invade the interior of the hut; but now the shadows which had fled from the interior of houses will return and the atmosphere will again be breathable and restful.
When Njeddo Dewal enchanted the country, she enclosed the great Fulani fetish (33), their source of powers, in a metal gourd; she inlaid this gourd in a stone, buried this stone in a mound of earth, and then placed this mound in the middle of an island. Then, she threw this island into the centre of a huge salt lake5 which she animated with furious waves higher than high mountains and which flung asunder all who tried to land there.”
4 We see here the recurrent theme of the star that heralds the coming of age reappearing, which is also represented as a kind of pre-incarnation of Bàgoumâwel. Appearing in the evening in the east, disappearing in the morning in the west, it is like a substitute for the sun, a presence of celestial light in the heart of night.
5 This suggests a very great expanse of water, like a sea or ocean, which makes it impossible to measure. Were it not other-worldly, it may be immense or impassable for some while easy to cross for others. Njeddo Dewal hid the source of these powers in the heart of the ocean of the netherworld, where no-one was supposed to be able to reach it.
“This is the sacrifice you must make,” he said. “You shall look for a kobbou-nollou sheep and give it in charity to a deaf-mute-one-eyed man.”
Bâ-Wârn'ndé was somewhat embarrassed because he did not know what such a sheep could be. “I pray,” he said, “would you be so good as to explain to me what a kobbou-nollou sheep is?”
“The kobbou-nollou,” Aga-Nouttiôrou replied, “is a sheep with a white coat and two eyes of different colours: one is brown, the other milky.”
“Is this the only definition of this sheep?”
“No, it is not. Its coat must always be white, as well as one of its eyes, but the other eye can be either brown or red.”
Bâ-Wâm'ndé warmly thanked Aga Nouttiôrou, then returned home happy as a newly-wed. He took a supply of cowries and went to the sheep market to look for a fleshy kobbou-nollou of a beautiful white color.6 He was fortunate enough to find the animal he was looking for very quickly. Contrary to custom, he paid without haggling, and led off his kobbou-nollou attached by a cord and began to look for a deaf-mute-one-eyed man. This was certainly not an easy kind of man to find, but when prayers are answered, the rarest things can come to hand because the heavens have a say in it! After a few hours of wandering through the streets and alleys of the city, Bâ-Wâm'ndé met not a deaf-mute-one-eyed man, but a one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback. He greeted him with great respect and said to him:
6 White as the colour of milk (the sacred liquid par excellence for the Fulani) is a symbol of purity and therefore beneficent.
“Brother, can you give me some information?”
“Why don't you laugh at me like people who meet me always do?” wondered the one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback.
“And why laugh at you?”
“Because I'm badly built and my curious shape is seemingly hilarious. Don’t you think it funny? Don’t you see this as an opportunity to roar with laughter? Why don't you scoff at me like other men?”
More inclined to pity than to laughter, Bâ-Wâm'ndé, replied with tears in his eyes: “My brother, you did not make yourself, and you did not buy what you are in the market. He who laughs at the appearance of a thing indirectly laughs at the one who made it. For my part, I do not see in you a man to be ridiculed, for you are as Guéno wanted you to be.”
The one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback burst out with a happy laugh and said: “What information do you have to ask?”
“I'm looking for a deaf-mute-one-eyed man.”
“Can you give me a kola nut to get my teeth into and a pinch of snuff to clear my nostrils?” asked the hunchback.
As luck would have it, Bâ-Wâm'ndé was carrying a packet with a few kola nuts and a snuff box filled with almou'njalla, a very finely ground and flavoured snuff. Instead of giving just a pinch of tobacco and a single kola nut, Bâ-Wâm'ndé gave the whole snuff box and the whole packet of nuts to the hunchback. The latter opened the biggest of the nuts, splitting it in half, and each half was enough to fill his mouth. He took one of the halves, chewing on it voraciously, and handed the other half to Bâ-Wâm'ndé, inviting him to do the same. Then, with his mouth full of kola, he grabbed Bâ-Wâm'ndé's right hand and dragged him into a corner.
“Let's sit down here,” he said, “no matter how long we sit, it is always more comfortable than standing. It is more restful.”
The two men sat on the ground, facing each other. The one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback then opened the snuffbox that Bà-Wâm'ndé had just offered him. Between his thumb and index finger, he then took a pinch of snuff that he inhaled at length through both nostrils in the characteristic way. Two tears flowed from his eyes. He wiped them away with the back of his left hand and said:
“So, you are looking for a deaf-mute-one-eyed man and you did not think it beneath you to ask me. Did you do so because I myself am a one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback, or for some other reason?”
Bâ-Wâmndé answered: “How many times has it happened that a rare pearl is found in a small pond when one has searched in vain in the great ocean.”7
7 This answer proves that Bâ-Wâm'ndé never tries to minimize anyone. He is not superb; he is just considerate and open minded. These are qualities of Bâ-Wâm'ndé that the tale will constantly emphasize and that every neophyte should possess: humility, benevolence, integrity, respect for others, and above all else, charity.
“Well, Bâ-Wâm'ndé! He who does not despise inquiring from everyone is sure to find what he is looking for. Your benevolence and consideration have obliged me greatly. So, I will tell you where you can find the man you seek.”
“Njeddo Dewal, the calamitous, mother of misery and desolation, has built a mysterious city called Wéli-Wéli, “Sweet-Sweet”. There she holds my twin brother Siré, because he conceals a secret that could be her undoing. Now, just as I, Abdou, am a one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback, my brother Siré is a deaf-mute-one-eyed-man. Njeddo Dewal keeps him in a room where she wanted to imprison us both, but I managed to escape. She has put my brother in irons, and to be sure he cannot escape into the streets of the city, she leaves him completely naked, without boubou robe and without trousers. Thus, naked and in chains, he is whipped half to death every day by the servants of Njeddo. So, it is in Wéli-Wéli that you will find the one you are looking for.”
After revealing to Bâ-Wàm'ndé all the occult secrets relating to his brother Siré, Abdou the one-eyed-lame-knock-kneed-hunchback took out from one of his pockets a talisman. “Wear this around your neck,” he said. “It will allow you to go to Wéli-Wéli unharmed.”
Endnotes
31. She could never be supplemented by a second wife: According to a traditional saying, “He who supplements a perfect woman will neither sleep nor rest. He will suffer one hundred and eleven ailments, because his ancestors will come to torment him.” The four qualities of the perfect woman are: to be virtuous, to be beautiful, to be a good mother, and to be a good lover.”
32. Aga-Nouttiôrou: Literally, “Shepherd Pincher”. This may suggest that he had a habit of stealing children or students. Nouttiôrou also means “He who roams around a bit”; so perhaps he was a man who “pinched” or “took” a little from all kinds of knowledge.
33. The great Fulani fetish: A fetish is an object that through ritual was spiritually “charged” to become the support a force. Such an object becomes the tool or vehicle of the force of a spirit or god, which is itself only an emanation of the primordial force of the supreme God, the sole creator of all things. Here, as we shall see later, it is one of the 28 gods of the Fulani pantheon, whose force is thus enslaved and imprisoned by Njeddo Dewal to serve her destructive endeavours. In principle, each of the 28 Fulani lares or gods (cf. note 53) has such a support, which also serves for sacrifices, usually of milk and butter as sacrifices are rarely bloody among the Fulani. Guéno and Kaïdara are the only ones who do not possess a “fetish”. Also, the burning of perfumes and plants happens in all the rites.
Translation from Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Contes initiatiques peuls
Painting: Arthur Hacker, Annunciation (1892)
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