The Birth of Njeddo Dewal

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

For such a long time, so long we cannot count the days, the Fulɓe lived happy in the land of Heli and Yoyo. But after a long while, they were so engorged in happiness that they became proud and lost themselves. They began to behave very badly. Some of them were so disrespectful that they wiped themselves with ears of grain.

Some of the women cavorted with male animals. Others, forsaking water, bathed in milk.1 They even used it to wash their clothes and their children, or to groom their pet sheep2 and their husbands’ white stallions!

Did they not go so far as to use diluted rice flour to paint their houses? Sometimes, overcome by desire, they would go out into the street naked, swinging their hips to better show off their assets.

The men began to imitate them and went naked also. They met the women in the bushes and made out like animals.3 Little by little, men and women refused to marry and gloried in their infamy. Being single became a normal state of affairs.4

______________________________

1 To wash with milk indicates an abrogation of norms, and a state of pride and excess, especially among the Fulɓe for whom milk is a sacred substance.

2 A pet sheep is a kind of family mascot which comes and goes freely from the hut of the family to which it belongs. They are much loved and pampered.

3 In traditional society of the African savannah, the sexual act is considered sacred because “the woman’s belly is Guéno’s workshop”; in a society which emphasises mastery of oneself, the sexual act performed outside its norms and contrary to its customs is said to reduce humans to the level of animals.

4 Even into the 20th century, being unmarried was rare in Africa and judged poorly. It was considered that a bachelor was not a man conscious of his responsibilities, and therefore unreliable.

This is how most of the Fulɓe lived, without a prophet to warn them.

Once this state of affairs had gone on too long, Guéno became angry. He decided that misfortune would cure the Fulɓe of their perversity, so he set out to create the being who would be the agent of this misfortune.

Guéno took a black cat, so black that it would blacken black coal and darken the darkest night! He took a stinking goat with jet-black fur (17), then a bird whose plumage was also a deep black. He burned them all with a green ray, put their ashes in a yellow goatskin, and mixed them in colourless water. He placed the mixture in a turtle shell, made from a gigantic sea turtle from the depths (18), then transformed the whole into an egg (19). He gave the egg to be brooded by a hard-skinned, old caiman who had aged through countless years (20).

The caiman brooded the egg. Guéno made the egg hatch. A being came out of it. This being, while vaguely human in shape, had seven ears and three eyes (21). It was a girl.

All that is venomous and wicked, all that live in forests or in the high bush, that dwell in the valleys, wallow in rivers or burrow within the earth, all that climb the hilltops or take refuge in caves, the evil that lives in fire and hides in plants, in short all that we ask Guéno to keep us far away from, all these beings took turns to breastfeed the girl who had just been born. The baby grew and became a chubby little girl, unpleasant to look at, with deformed ears. No creature on this earth had ever seen such ears!

The monstrous little girl was given the name Njeddo Dewal Inna Baasi, the Great Septenary Hag, Mother of Calamity.5

She learnt the seven sounds of magic words.

She got to know all the spells to command the evil spirits of the four elements and the six points of space.

Able to take all forms, she metamorphosed at will, throwing spirits into turmoil.

Thus, enveloped in darkness, surrounded by all the evil spirits and demons, Njeddo Dewal reached adulthood.

A man named Dandi (lit. Chilli) son of Sitti (lit. Saltpeter)6 saw her and proposed his hand in marriage. His proposal was accepted. After their marriage, the couple moved to Toggal-Balewal, the lugubrious black forest.

______________________________

5 Njeddo comes from jeddi, which means seven. She is therefore “Septenary”. Dewal is composed of dew (woman) and the affix al which can be pejorative or admiring depending on the context. Dewal could mean “Extraordinary Woman”, but here it means “Great Hag”. Inna Baasi literally means “Mother of Calamity”.

6 Chilli causes burning; as for saltpeter, it is used in the making of explosive powders, hence destructive, and also in various evil spells. This goes to show what evil elements, both maternal and paternal, will unite to give birth to the seven daughters of Njeddo Dewal.

Dandi and Njeddo Dewal had seven daughters, each more beautiful than a female genie.

One day, Dandi met Tooké (Venom).

“O my Dandi, where are you going?” Tooké asked Dandi.

Without further provocation, Dandi threw himself at him. Tooké then swelled himself with venom and rose up like a high riverbank. Then he grabbed Dandi and squeezed his neck until his body became completely cold.

Nearby, toads with sagging hindquarters and pregnant bellies had witnessed the scene. They, in turn, threw themselves on Tooké, killed him and swallowed him without leaving anything behind.

Snakes came out of nowhere and rushed at the toads and ate them, then rushed to hide in holes.

Then black scorpions, as big as small turtles, attacked the snakes. They triumphed and swallowed them just as the snakes had swallowed the toads.7

Where did these scorpions come from? (22)

Silence! ... I will say it so that mouths can relate it back to ears.

These scorpions are older than Kîkala himself, the ancestor of mankind.

They are older than elephants, older than the oldest vultures, older than baobabs, older even than some mountains (23).

On that distant day when the first raindrops fell on earth, the scorpions were already there and washed themselves. Afterwards, they dug up excavations and waited so that whatever should come should come, waiting for what they might encounter there.8

______________________________

7 The succession of animals which swallow each other show that for every evil, there exists a still greater evil.

8 This whole scene serves no other purpose than to present the death of Dandi, whose only function was to procreate the seven daughters of Njeddo Dewal who will play a major role in the tale.

Endnotes:

17. Black cat, black goat: Since these are involved in a creation that brings about misfortune and disaster, it is the colour black that dominates, reflecting the shadows in which sorcery is ideally practiced. The cat and the goat appear in many traditions because they are considered as particularly “charged” as receptive vessels of magical power. The most active fetishes are kept in black catskins or goatskins. The goat is more often sacrificed than even the bull. Once upon a time, every village in the Niger Delta had its own goat which roamed where it pleased. The goat was thought to receive all the misfortune that might strike the village and so was considered its guardian and protector. The symbolism of the goat is also related to reproductive health (see Kaïdara).

18. Turtle: The turtle is considered to be one of the first animals of creation. Symbolising long life and duration, it is also a symbol of protection because of its shell under which it can withdraw completely. Moreover, the fact it lives in the depths further symbolises vitality, as water is considered to be the source of life.

19. Egg: The egg is a symbol of life because, as well as water, all life comes from eggs. Even the seeds of plants are considered to be eggs.

20. An old caiman: The caiman is likewise a symbol of antiquity and longevity. Lest we forget, everything in Africa which is old or ancient is charged with nyama (occult power), as a receptacle of a force emanating from the creator God, who is the pre-eminent “Ancient One”. It is therefore a little of the divine force itself (in its aspect of duration and perpetuity) which is found in all that is old, because of the law of correspondence through analogy that prevails in African thought. Although we describe the caiman as a “symbol” for lack of a better term, this is not an abstract or purely intellectual symbolism; it is a concrete correspondence or a manifestation as it were of one of the aspects of the original divine force (duration, vitality, power, etc.) through a receptacle, the degrees of intensity of this manifestation varying according to the nature of the receptacle.

21. 7 ears & 3 eyes: The seven ears are one of the manifestations of the septenary principle which marks the entire existence of Njeddo Dewal. The third eye is on the forehead and designed for inner sight. It is called the “eye of knowing” or “eye of the sorcerer”, because this knowing, while neutral in itself, can lead to good or evil depending on the use one makes of it.

22. Scorpion: In diurnal (positive) symbolism, the scorpion embodies selflessness and maternal sacrifice (not “paternal” as printed in error in the first edition of Kaydara published by the now-disbanded Nouvelles Éditions Africaines, Abidjan). Indeed, it is believed that the female scorpion’s young plough its flanks and suck out her insides before being born.

In nocturnal symbolism (negative), the scorpion embodies warrior spirit and bad temper, always lurking and only showing itself to sting and sometimes to kill. Generally, one avoids to speak its name because it is maleficent.

Its eight legs, two claws and tail symbolise the eleven forces about which there is a whole field of esoteric study.

Black scorpions are often seen in Mandinka or Bambara huts, and even among the Fulɓe, hanging inside the front entrance or at the entrance to the room reserved for funeral ceremonies. The animal symbolises magical protection against the evils of the night and against vampires.

23. Elephants, vultures, baobabs and mountains: These three are the quintessential symbols of antiquity. In L'Eclat (p. 43), we refer to the “baobab council”, a secret assembly held each year by the vulture, the elephant and the baobab to examine past and future events together. Only the silatigi Bâgoumâwel was able to attend this council, forbidden to humans, and to receive initiation from these three ancestors of living beings.

Translation from Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Contes initiatiques peuls

Painting: “Scorpio” by Hiroko Sakai.