Tabaski
We stop for our second night in Pays Dogon at a village called Ibi, our guide Atemelou’s hometown, if you can call it that. In fact Ibi is an agglomeration of three villages, one on the plain at the foot of the escarpment, the other two ranged precariously along its lower slopes. Our stoping place for the night is in ‘lower’ Ibi, a bleak, exposed place.
During the night our peaceful repose is a broken by a strong wind sweeping in from the plain, bringing with it clouds of dust and sand that whip across the rooftop where we’re sleeping. After a night of little rest, we awake to a washed out world. The sun is rising, but it is only visible as a flat, white disc behind the veil of dust that has been kicked up into the sky. This is the first sign that the Harmattan is on its way, the great seasonal wind that every December to February sweeps south from the Sahara, coating much of West Africa in a fine patina of dust.
The drab morning is pierced by what sounds like gunshots coming from the direction of the escarpment. In fact, this is exactly what they are. Today, the 30 December, is Tabaski, a major annual Muslim festival commemorating Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac.
Tabaski is one of Islam’s most important festivals, and in Mali, as in other Muslim countries it’s marked with a two-day feast, the centrepiece of which is freshly slaughtered sheep or goat. Over about the two or three weeks prior to the festival, it had been obvious Tabaski was coming up, as everywhere we travelled there seemed to be as many live goats and sheep as passengers on public buses; there are no cattle trucks in West Africa.
The gunshots herald the beginning of the day’s festivities. The weapons in question are very ancient and elaborate-looking ornamental rifles that as far as I can tell are home-made. They’re muzzle-loaded with a charge of crude gunpowder – also apparently homemade judging by the number of rounds that fail to ignite.
Venturing outside the Auberge we encounter groups of Ibi’s young men strutting around with their firearms, discharging them at random. There’s no apparent ceremony involved in this; they simply load up, pull the trigger, there’s a click, a hiss, and then, depending on the quality of the gunpowder, an enormous bang that rolls and reverberates along the escarpment with a booming echo.
But it’s not just the young men and their guns that are out. All the villagers have congregated at the foot of the escarpment for the occasion, which begins with prayers. After this, they all mill around, talking, laughing, greeting one another in the sing-song, Dogon tongue that sounds more like chanting than speech. It’s a vivid scene, the colourful dress of the villagers in their best attire bright splashes of primary against the dun-coloured canvas of rock, sand and dust.
Tags: Travel
djnorwood