A Search for the Heart of West Africa 2

Photos:  Grand Mosque, Touba, home of the Mouride Brotherhood, the largest Sufi Brotherhood in Senegal;  panorama of the outside of Sandaga Market.  

A group of eight of us accompanied A. on a tour of the Sandaga, Kermel, Mali and Medine Markets today, the aim being to explore traditional medicine, incense, and fetish.

We began with Sandaga, the large three-level African Market, pausing at a incense vendor, one of several selling, it seemed, identical products.  The incense comes in two varieties, one for sacred use -- prayer, meditation and purification,  the other for use in the home, some with medicinal properties.  We asked the vendor about the special properties of the incense used for sacred purposes, which included frankincense.  He offered no particular insight.  

We need to return to carry out a cataloging of materials and uses.

Our little group then wandered over to the Kermel.  Just outside the main entrance to the market, at a kiosk of masks, fetish items, and other more authentic African artifacts, A. and I discussed the nature of juju, grigris, and the role of the marabout with the vendor, a friend of A.  The flow of our conversation included the following points:

The fetish objects for sale in the kiosk are discharged, powered down, as it were.  They could be electrified (my characterization), but would require a marabout to charge it through ritual/ceremony, which involves prayer and the use of palm oil. 

The ceremony associated with electrifying the fetish object involves imbuing the object with a jinn, or spirit, of local origin.  The jinn comes with its own spirit/personality, which informs the effect of the fetish.  The jinn operates through the object.  A gris-gris, or talisman, is then assembled, and worn around the body,  connecting the individual to that jinn, whose influence is potent regardless of distance.  The gris-gris becomes, then, a kind of psychic antennae, binding the bearer to the fetish 

I am biased by my culture frame, and found that deriving shared meaning for more abstract terms and concepts from my tradition -- evil, sin, suggestibility/belief verses a material, physical energy, independent of belief -- to be challenging, requiring that I be clear and specific about my own understanding.  

The gris-gris seems conceived and designed to address problems of daily living:  getting a raise at work, protection while traveling, protection from bad talk/gossip, or attracting praise from friends and family, even getting good grades on school exams.  (The marabout can whisper a prayer into your pen, which then should not be used prior to the exam for it to be effective.  So much for No Child Left Behind.)  All are external and practical.  I wondered whether there were gris-gris designed to attract mindfulness, sincerity and compassion, or to ward off sin -- anger, avarice, jealousy, greed -- lodged within oneself.  This was a special situation, the vendor responded.  This was psychological.

After Kermel, we paused for cold drinks at a little restaurant.  There I sat with A. and continued our discussion of grigris.  I asked about the title marabout.  It seemed like a general term for a variety of spiritual practitioners, from the juju doctor, to the herbalist (akin to the Mexican cuandero), to the Koranic teacher.  A. agreed.  He went on to refer to the herbalist as the traditional marabout, as distinct from his Mouride Brotherhood marabout, to whom his has pledged himself a disciple.

A. explained that a juju curse was placed on him some years ago, the result of jealousy, the curse concealed in something he ingested.  The effect of the this has been pain in the lower abdomen, particularly when eating, and being underweight.  A. has consulted with a number of traditional marabouts, largely without relief, but has recently found an 84 year old marabout with whom he's made some progress.

A. explained that consulting with his traditional marabout does not require a history of symptoms.  Instead, the marabout takes one of your hands, pauses to reflect, then places his hands about your solar plexus, pauses again, as if listening/reflecting/scanning, then relates your condition.  He knows what's going on, A. related, without explanation.

I asked A. how he became a Baye Fall.  

(Ibra Fall was a disciple of Amadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride Brotherhood.  Fall was known for his dedication to God, and considered work as a form of adoration.  He founded a sub-group of the Mouride called the Baye Fall, many of whom substitute hard work and dedication to their marabout for the usual Muslim observances of prayer and fasting.) 

A. explained that his brother had become a Baye Fall, and A. was introduced to his marabout through his brother.  He eventually joined the sect and became a disciple in his late teens.

A. explained that when in the presence of his Mouride marabout, A. lowers to his knees in a gesture of reverence.  If he should meet the marabout on the street, A. is to extend a hand and offer a gift, again, as a symbol of reverence and devotion.   A. confided that his marabout has an energetic presence:  encounters set his chest vibrating, and he carries a heightened energy around in the aftermath.

A. explained that my meeting and consulting with both his traditional marabout and his Mouride marabout was entirely possible.  In addition, A. invited me to join him for the annual pilgrimage to the Mouride holy city of Touba in February, where the sect's founder, Amadou Bamba, is buried.  He thought I would find the experience eye opening, as when disciples entered ecstatic, highly charged spiritual states.  Unlike the Haj to Mecca, where pilgrims reside in hotels and dine in restaurants, pilgrims attending the grand magal would be fed and lodged by local residents.  

After lunch, our group drove to explore a series of fetish vendors in the Medine district, where you find tables of animal skulls, strips of animal hide, antlers and horns, shells, all used for the making of gris-gris.  One young vendor claimed to be a marabout from Niger.  He sold ready-to-wear grigri, one for bad talk, one for virility, one to ward off attack.  He had a keyed padlock wrapped in hide.  If you wanted to seduce a particular honey pie, this lock could do it for you. Just whisper her name into the padlock, closed the lock, and voila, a good time assured. 

A. confided that he would not consult with these street side marabouts, of dubious skills and intents, but would purchase medicinal products from them.  

Several of us have an interest in returning to further catalogue their materials -- what they are and how they're used.