En route home from the market we stopped at the workshop en plein air of one of Nouhoun’s uncles, a numó, so he could fix my knife. Bambara men carry a long sheath knife with a wooden handle. Nouhoun had given me one that had belonged to his grandfather and back during Tabaski the edge had been damaged by a young man using it to chop ram bones. Nouhoun assured me it could be repaired
Out in the open, under a brush-covered arbor was the blacksmith’s workshop. There were scrap pieces of heavy iron and steel to use as anvils. The forge, a depression in the ground, was served by a bellows made of two large, fired clay pots. The pots were half- buried in the earth, with open tops. At the bottom of each, buried in the earth, was an opening attached to a tube leading to the forge. As we watched the smith attached a leather bag to the top of each of these jars and bound them tightly to the pot with a cord. A younger man was summoned who sat himself on the ground behind the bellows. By pulling up on one leather bag while pushing down on the other, a stream of air was blown into the forge.[1] A fire was started and the smith gently heated the knife blade. He then carefully hammered the metal to stretch it back into the nicked area. It took perhaps twenty minutes from start to finish and the job was done. It was impossible to tell where the nicks had been.
The numó gently heats the knife blade while his assistant pumps the bellows. A skilled blacksmith can create extremely complex rhythms with the bellows.
Back in the village, I was gifted with a rooster by Nouhoun’s
father and a hen by someone else. Later in my stay the imam and the village chief each sent me a rooster. Big honors!
People here are so eager to share their culture, especially their language. They teach constantly. Adama, Nouhoun and Braima spent two hours this morning coaching me in Bambara. I’m actually retaining some!
There are no mosquitoes at this time of year. They can’t stand the flies.
Later. Swallows wheel their evening paseo in the indigo sky. Three-quarters of a moon and a hundred villagers celebrate a wedding. Last night there was drumming and two balafons (marimbas) amplified by a PA system hooked to car batteries. The PA horns persistently screeched feedback but no one took steps to eliminate it. Perhaps they consider it a natural characteristic of PA systems; like ants at a picnic. Maybe they don’t know how to fix it. I’m not clear on why they consider they need a PA. Perhaps it makes things fancy and modern and upscale, a machine that makes one more powerful. Drums and balafons aren’t instruments that need a lot of amplification. After all, how long have folks been celebrating and done just fine without?
The music was at the groom’s house. At one point everyone went to another house in the village where the bride was. She was brought out, face covered with a shawl. She got on the back of a motorcycle and was whisked off to another house where she would spend the night. Today she will be brought to the groom’s house.
Women perfom a line dance at the wedding. A drummer is at right.
At the night-time music a horde of pre-teen boys danced frantically to the balafons. It was comical; all these dusty, skinny legs sticking out of baggy short pants. They kept moving in, encroaching on the musicians and kicking up such a cloud of dust they had to be repeatedly scolded and driven away by the grownups. Finally, a few men cut long switches from some nearby bushes and kept the madly jigging 10-year-olds at a reasonable distance by swatting at their bare feet. None of the blows connected.
Eventually some of the young men came out to show their best steps. These guys could really move and Michael Flatley from Riverdance will be in for some competition if these boys ever make it out of
This morning Nouhoun’s motorcycle got a makeover. The mechanic, Adama, from another village, installed new piston rings in less than an hour, then repaired the horn, horn switch, brake lights, turn signals and headlight in another two. All done under a shade tree and without multimeter, ratchet, end- wrenches, etc.
We went to another market; a smaller one. For the first time I saw someone drunk. We’d gone to a shop stall on the edge of the village where some sort of local beer was made. The drunk was sitting and unsuccessfully trying to play a bintan bolon.[2] When he saw me he reached up to shake hands. Then, to my shock, he threw himself at my feet with his face in the dirt and groveled! For a moment I thought he was making fun of me, but Africans aren’t big on irony and it became acutely embarrassing. I motioned to Nouhoun for us to get out of there and we did, but the man followed, singing and playing, stumbling and falling down. When we got back to our motorcycles at the market he fell again and this time he stayed down. An old man happened by carrying an axe. Suddenly the drunk lunged and tackled him. He pulled the man to the ground and started punching him, not with any great effect, though. Women screamed, people shouted, and the old man gave the drunk a few good whacks with the blunt side of the axe but it didn’t faze the drunk a bit. The crowd closed round them to intervene and we left.
Tonight Nouhoun took me for a walk to a small hill outside the village. Ex-archaeology student that I am I could tell the place was an old habitation site. The vegetation was different and there were potsherds everywhere, thicker than I’ve ever seen at any ruin. Thousands upon thousands. Plain, incised, stamped, painted, basket-impressed. Nouhoun said it was inhabited by the ancestors of the villagers but they were driven away by a great war, no one knows how long ago. Gradually the people filtered back and established the 3 villages that are now here, no one knows how long ago. One man stated with great conviction “280 years”. An old man said more than 400 years. The site of the old village is considered sacred.
There is actually a third town inhabited by Serahule tribesmen. Serahule are known as great traders. Many of the Serahule in The Gambia are extremely rich, even by Western standards. I only visited their village once and, at least superficially, it looked like the Bambara villages.
When we returned we found a small watermelon Mama, one of the chief carvers, had brought for me. It was the best watermelon I’ve ever eaten: pink and delicately crisp with a scent of earth-sweetness it had drawn into itself.
Binna and Mama Koumare. Master carvers of the village. Mama carries a trapezoidal hunter's bag of heavy leather with a wooden-handled iron knife attached. This is typical of Bamana men in the villages.
Morning brings a quiet, concerted busyness to the compound. Animal sounds fill the cool, golden light. Cocks crow. There is already the ubiquitous thonk-thonk of mortar and pestle. A bala-bala bleats hoarsely, monotonously, reminding everyone that sheep need breakfast.
Children ready themselves for school and head out with their satchels. Little girls take care of the babies. Hens shepherd their chicks scratching up small dust storms. Greetings are exchanged:
An sogoma? How is the morning?
M’ba sogoma! A good morning!
Ereh sira? Did you sleep well?
Ereh! Very well!
Ereh sira? Did you sleep well?
Ereh! Very well!
Men ready tools for work -- hoes, axes, adzes – testing edges, checking hafts.
The compound’s bad-tempered little green-and-yellow parrot, his wings clipped, goose-steps past, a self-important minor functionary, the only animal here that isn’t required to earn its keep. His step is a trifle wary though. I’ve seen the occasional hen give him a whack in passing, letting him know he is really just a very small bird and useless, to boot.
Nana, Nouhoun’s wife in Sina (his other wife, Hawa, lives in
Nouhoun's wife, Nana, walks past the family granaries where millet is stored.
Visiting the village school made me reflect on the enchantment of this place. It is easy for a visitor to romanticize, but at the bottom of the page of the Book of Sina is poverty. There is richness of culture, richness of society, of family, but there are also those child graves outside the village, likely as not a reflection of the complete absence of medical facilities. (The nearest is a tiny dispensary manned by a nurse, 35 kilometers away over rough tracks.) There is the poor soil. There is the fact that, each year, to draw water from the wells requires a longer rope. They survive on the edge. I expect a few of them know about global warming and it is bound to affect them. If desertification continues and the
Schoolroom, Sina Bamana.
Watermelon transformations.
And there is watermelon. Mama brought another last night. And I marvel at how something so dripping and succulent could emerge from the Malian dust. How such a miraculous transformation could take place.
That’s the wonder of transformations. Tribal people accept them for the mystery and miracle that they are, for the change of inanimate to animate and back again, insensate to sensate, inchoate to known, ordinary to miraculous. Their rituals, masks, dances, celebrate transformation. We in the West seek to quantify such processes and some, in doing so, believe that they truly freeze –objectify – describe the truth of such miracles. Some believe such quantification sucks the life out. Some believe that is a good thing. Einstein understood that such quantification no more mummifies the described than writing down the notes of a song can rob the emotion from music. The description simply accomplishes yet another miracle of transformation.
I heard a balafon playing and went to investigate. The young man motioned for me to bring another balafon that was leaning against the wall of a house nearby. When I’d brought it and set it down he handed me a pair of sticks and showed me a simple pattern. Et viola! I was instantly 2nd balafon in the the Sina-Bamana Balafon Duo!
The Sina Philharmonic.
As always, it quickly drew a crowd of kids who started dancing their skinny little legs off and raising a cloud of dust. Balafons are right down there on the ground and a little bit of dust goes a long way. It made me think. Tendonitis is common among professional musicians but I’d never realized silicosis must be an industrial hazard for balafon players!
One of the old women came to the compound and scolded Nouhoun for hitting one of the children. I’ve seen children scolded, and not much of that, but never hit. If a child survives the health problems this must be a wonderful place to grow up. Infants are always with their mothers or another woman. When they are hungry the breast is always available. There are other children to play with. Gaggles of kids chase around the village unattended well after dark. They are loved and doted on and raised by the whole village.
Toys: motorcycle and auto tires and bicycle rims without the spokes are rolled around like 19th Century American kids in knickers used to roll hoops. There isn’t nearly the intensity of football play I’ve seen in the city and less remote villages. Older boys have catapults (slingshots) with which they hunt birds.
Saturday, 3 Feb.
The village chief sent a gift of a chicken to us this morning and a bit later a man went around the village blowing an antelope horn to announce a festival to be held in my honor. They will dance the chiwarras I was gifted as well as other masks.
Village herald sounding his antelope horn.
Meanwhile, I was called to attend un malade. Nouhoun had explained to the man and his family that I had no equipment, not even a stethoscope, but they wanted me to consult anyway. It turned out to be a “gimme” diagnosis. He had a huge goiter, had obviously lost weight and had a fast rest-pulse and a tremor. Thyrotoxicosis. Goiter seems to be common here. I saw two people at one of the markets with large goiters. Perhaps there is no dietary source of iodine. Anyway, the man is supposed to go to
Last night Musa Coulibally came by with a mask for Binta and a carved catapult for me. I’d bought two very lovely chiwarras from him and I guess he appreciates the business.
[1] Throughout the Mande world (Bamana, Dogon, Bozo, Mandinka, et al.) numó pump the bellows in incredibly complex rhythmical patterns. So complex, in fact, that drummers say they learn their rhythms from the blacksmiths.
[2] A stringed instrument made from a calabash, one of the predecessors of the kora.
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