SUPYIRE SACRIFICE: THE FUNCTIONS
5. To ask for forgiveness
6. To inform the ancestors of someone joining the family
7. To aid someone recently deceased to get established in the village of the
ancestors
To gain knowledge
1. To discern the cause of a problem
2. To determine whether the ancestors have consented to a request
3. To determine the cause of death
To deal with problems in relationships with ancestors
1. To seek forgiveness from an aggrieved ancestor
2. To reconcile ancestors still quarrelling
To ward off evil
1. Problems caused by jinas
2. Curses
3. Misfortune
4. ¤…m…
5. The earth being spoilt
To punish a wrongdoer To gain power through sorcery
To dedicate some object or place to the jinas
To make requests for the future
1 To ask for blessings. The requests made by the elders at the village sacrifices can be summarised as follows: they were seeking wives, good rains, millet,
increase in population, the ability to be generous hosts, and a good reputation for the village. Most of these could be grouped around the theme of fertility: fertile families
and fertile earth are earnestly sought after among the Supyire and will result in honour for the family or village.
Many individuals’ sacrifices at the same festival were accompanied by requests in a similar vein: a large family, help to find a wife or wives, good rains,
millet and mouths to eat it, health for the family and workers, healing for a sick child, peace within the family, riches for the family, and children with whom to play the
balaphone. One request was “Help us celebrate the festival with laughter.” Escudero comments on this prayer: “This expresses the wish that the festival will pass in a
spirit of conviviality and unity, without disputes; and also that there will be as many guests as possible in his courtyard, for their presence brings honour to the host.”
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In another prayer, the comment is made: “Even if you lose everything, but you still
have people around, that compensates for the lack of things; it is people who are more important than everything else.”
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The importance of fertility is again shown in another village where three sheep were sacrificed for all the women giving birth.
2 To ask for protection against perceived dangers. The requests for protection are the natural counterpart of those for blessings: protection from hunger,
from birds eating the millet in the fields, from lightning, from the death of infants, from those jealous of the village who would seek to harm it.
One prayer uttered with a sacrifice of food to the Komo fetish was: “May
those who would do evil forget to do it.” Another at the annual sacrifice to ancestors was: “May the evil wind stop outside the village vestibule, may the violent
headaches stop outside the village vestibule, may excessive diarrhoea stop outside the village vestibule.”
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To maintain good relations with the supernatural realm
1 A greeting. A series of sacrifices at the village festival is formally initiated by an offering either of a chicken or millet water. This offering makes the initial
contact and gives thanks for the blessings that have been accorded in the past. At the same time, it seeks to prepare the ancestors to be favourable to the sacrifices and
requests to come. In the village of Fanterila, Ninga Sagoro in his initial prayer to the ancestors said, “If I speak too little, do not hear that way” i.e. I may not present
everything required, but do not limit your work according to my words. “Even if there are a hundred other things, it is not a question of those; this is the
sacrifice for the new year” i.e. if someone in the village has not fulfilled a vow to
you, please overlook that for now.
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47
Escudero, La Célébration Senufo du Katyire et la Célébration de L’Eucharistie, p.72 my
translation.
48
Escudero, La Célébration Senufo du Katyire et la Célébration de L’Eucharistie, p.106 my
translation.
49
Recorded at Fanterila village by Malana Sagoro and Robert Carlson.
50
Recorded at Fanterila village by Malana Sagoro and Robert Carlson.
A parallel offering will be presented at the end of the series to conclude the proceedings. A final general prayer included the words: “Here is the last water
poured out to you, may the family be blessed with women, millet and riches.”
2 To maintain an alliance. The elders of the village of Sarazo, recounting the history of the foundation of their village, talk of Tiéfari, accompanied by a group of
jinas who looked after his cattle, coming to take up residence in a wood of tamarind trees. A crocodile living in a pool made to grab one of the cows, but the jinas who
inhabited the wood stopped him. Then the two sets of jinas formed an alliance to live there together. The jinas protect the villagers and in particular the chief from all
harm, and punish those who use sorcery to kill others. The villagers are to respect the wood of tamarind trees, not to collect firewood there, nor kill its reptiles that are the
embodiment of the jinas. If a sacred reptile dies, the villagers are to hold funeral ceremonies for it. “If they neglect to do this, the jinas get angry and decimate the
population.”
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Apart from the sacrifices that form part of these funeral ceremonies, they will also make an annual sacrifice during the village festival. According to
tradition, in his dying hour, Tiéfari gathered his children and told them: “After my
death, worship these woods that have given us a primitive lodging place. Then the jinas
will be favourably disposed to you and help you in all you undertake to do.”
3 To fulfil a vow. When a Supyire desires to obtain some blessing or to avoid some catastrophe, he will often make some vow to the jinas, stating that if they fulfil
his desires, he will bring some specific offering in return. A lady who was sick promised a chicken if she got better; another made a vow on the condition that all her
sons got successfully married; and a hunter sacrificed a bull when his request that his mother’s village be spared an epidemic of cattle disease was fulfilled.
4 To avoid offending a member of the pantheon through neglect. To neglect a sacrifice normally made each year is to risk suffering the wrath of the neglected
party. One traditional healer stated that if you forget to sacrifice to the family’s twin spirits, they would send their allies the scorpions to sting you within three days.
51
Escudero, La Célébration Senufo du Katyire et la Célébration de L’Eucharistie, p.37 my
translation.
In another case, a boy had recurring nightmares, seeing his ancestors in his dreams. It was divined that the cause was that his family of late had neglected to look
after its little jina house, and had stopped making the annual sacrifices there. One diviner is obliged to give her jina an offering and in addition a gift of
cola nuts to an old man every six weeks on a day called Saturday- kìi
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the day in the Supyire calendar that she built her jina hut. If she neglects her duties, she is liable to
become insane.
5 To seek forgiveness and reconciliation. This is another sacrifice that is performed at the annual festival. Each family brings a chicken to re-establish total
reconciliation with everyone. The jinas in the village of Kabakanha have a horror of onions and indigo. So
with this chicken one asks the jinas to pardon sins committed against them, such as cooking onions, washing the cooking pots in the stream they inhabit, washing clothes
in the wrong place, and washing indigo cloth in particular.
6 To inform the ancestors of some addition to the family or someone leaving. When a child is born, a ceremony to announce its arrival to the ancestors is held in
the vestibule, with flour, or in some cases cinders, being poured on the doorway. The
ancestors are thereby charged to take care of the child, and, if necessary, to take its life, if it strays from the traditions. Usually, when a girl gets married, she leaves her
home to live in her husband’s village. The groom’s family is expected to provide two chickens for sacrifice, one for the ancestors of the bride’s village, and one for the
ancestors of the bride’s mother’s village. These sacrifices act to notify the forefathers
of the change of location of one of their family.
7 To help someone recently deceased get established in the village of the ancestors.
The ancestors’ lives resemble in many ways those of the living: they hunt, cultivate and cook in their own village. Many of the funeral rites are aimed at
providing the deceased with the wherewithal for these activities. A black chicken is killed on the site of the grave before it is dug; a female goat on the path while the
body is being carried to the grave. The following prayer has been recorded at the
52
See below Appendix C, p.146 on the Supyire six-day week and seven-day week.
time of this sacrifice: “Here is your grave-diggers’ goat. When you arrive in the land of the dead, share it with those who don’t have a goat.”
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A family prosperous enough to own a herd of cattle may sacrifice a cow for the deceased relative. One
man remarked: “If you build a cattle corral after the death of your father, you take a cow and say, ‘My father, this is your share of the cows.’” In this way, the deceased is
provided with livestock so he can start his own farm work, share with his neighbours and be happily integrated into the village of the ancestors. He will not feel neglected,
nor be tempted to come and seek his due rights and cause problems among the living.
To gain knowledge
1 To discern the cause of a problem. Often the first step a Supyire will take when confronted with a difficult problem will be to seek the help of a diviner to
discover the source of the problem. Joyce Carlson documents one case where a family consulted a diviner to discover why their mother had become insane.
Different diviners use different methods, one of which involves the killing of chickens. Before a chicken is killed, two hypotheses are announced. If one
hypothesis is correct, then the chicken should fall on its stomach; if the other is correct, then it should die on its back. The answer can be narrowed down by killing a
series of chickens answering a series of either-or questions. In the case of the insane lady, they first asked if the madness was caused by
the jinas, and the answer was yes. Further questioning discovered which jinas were responsible and what they required in order for the woman to be restored to her
senses. When the problem has been discovered, the diviner also prescribes the
solution, which will usually involve a sacrifice either to ancestors or the jinas.
2 To determine whether a sacrifice has been accepted. One can tell whether a cock sacrificed to the ancestors has been accepted by opening its stomach to
inspect the colour of its testicles. White shows approval, but if they are black, the sacrifice needs to be redone. An alternative method mentioned by Nawara Sagoro
of discovering if an ancestor has been successfully appeased is to leave a bowl of cooked cereal lying around. If it is devoured by some animal, then it is taken as a
53
Carlson, Dictionnaire Supyire-Francais, under the entry fanntugusika.
sign that the ancestors have eaten it and are happy to share food again with the family.
If one is sacrificing to the jinas, their attitude can be determined by watching how the chicken dies. After its throat is slit, it is allowed to flutter around. If it finally
falls and comes to rest on its back, that is taken to mean that the jinas are pleased. But any other position shows that there is some outstanding problem that needs to be
addressed, and that may require further consultation with the diviner. 3 To determine the cause of a death. When a village chief who was the
owner of a fetish with a reputation for great power died, several hours were spent on finding out who had caused his death. The fetish had to be consulted, using the
method of killing chickens and seeing which way they fall. The answer, however, was seemingly already determined. The fetish itself had to be the agent of the death
of its owner; otherwise that would mean that there was something stronger than his fetish had killed him, which was either inconceivable or too uncomfortable to
contemplate. So several hours were required until the chickens fell appropriately and gave the right answer.
To deal with problems in relationships in the extended family
Sacrifices are seen as a powerful means for cutting through complicated family disputes, which can stretch back over generations.
1 To ask forgiveness from an aggrieved ancestor. A Supyire farmer named Bémé
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died in the 1950s. He had had a troubled marriage; his wife had divorced him. Ill and knowing he would not live long, he had called for his daughter Jeneba to
come and visit him, as is the Supyire custom. The daughter, who was married and was living away in the Ivory Coast, did not come, as her husband had no money to
spare for her to travel. On Bémé’s death, it appears he cursed his daughter, saying, “If I die before she comes back, may she suffer all her life.” Jeneba did not even
come for the funeral.
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The author is grateful to Nawara Sagoro and to Joyce Carlson who both provided information on this story.
Bémé’s ex-wife was bound to come to the funeral, and carry out certain rituals, as she would still be considered his wife in the village of the ancestors. She
did attend the funeral, but left early without carrying out the necessary rituals. Bémé was thus an ancestor snubbed by his ex-wife and his daughter. So when
Jeneba had difficulties in conceiving children —having just one daughter—it was
evident that her father was wreaking his revenge. She and her husband came back to the village in the early 1960s to sacrifice a cock. She arrived at night, and found in
the morning that her clothes had been gnawed at by mice, though the clothes of others were all intact. This was a bad sign, and when the elders confronted her later
in the morning she readily admitted she was wrong in not coming home earlier. They called upon the services of an in-law, a narafoo
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who came to pour water on the altar of the ancestors and ask Bémé to pardon his daughter. A cock was
killed, plucked and roasted. Its testicles were inspected and found to be white; and so it was declared that Jeneba had received pardon from her father, and she was free to
leave. In the mid 1960s, she and her husband had three boys in quick succession.
2 To reconcile ancestors quarrelling in the village of the dead. Although Jeneba and her husband were successful in producing a family, as the children grew
into adults, they began to be dogged by ill fortune: epilepsy, unemployment, dropping out of school, failing to find a husband. Jeneba herself contracted a form of
leprosy. After visiting diviners, it was realised that all was still not peaceful in the village of the ancestors between her father Bémé and her mother who had died in the
late 1980s. The series of misfortunes was attributed to this continuing quarrel among the dead.
So, in 1991, Jeneba and her husband returned to her home village to try and sort out the problem once and for all. Instead of a simple sacrifice, they felt the
situation serious enough to warrant calling on the services of a member of the Bugudugu family that has a
zìükunü›
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relationship with their family. He is able to play a significant part in the reconciliation because in normal circumstances, he has
nothing to do with the family. As an outsider he can say whatever needs to be said, and be out of reach of any offended party who may wish to take revenge.
55
See p.19.
56
See pp.19-20.
The family elders gathered in the vestibule, and the husband of Jeneba explained the whole history. The village chief then repeated this. A cock and a small
coin were taken and given to Bémé with the prayer that he accept his wife. A second cock was then given to resolve the conflict between them. Now they had no more
right to be in disagreement. Finally, the
zìükunü› poured water as a symbol of cooling the heated relationship and said, “I pour this water on the altar of the [family] ancestors. The
disagreement between you and your wife ... I put an end to that for today, and for tomorrow. I ask you to take her as your wife in the village of the dead. I ask you both
to sleep on your bad hands and bring out your good hands for your children and grandchildren.”
Finally, as the traditional means of distancing himself again from the whole family, he insulted everyone, even the ancestors, “You are false, spoilt, and
untrustworthy.” He then took the calabash and the two cocks, still alive, and left the
village, talking to no one on the way. He could do with the cocks what he wanted, the
only rule being that no one from Jeneba’s family could eat them.
To ward off evil
1 Problems caused by jinas. As jinas are seen ambivalently, sometimes bringing good, sometimes evil, the Supyire on occasion make sacrifices to them to
persuade them not to repeat their harmful activity.
A family who loses more than one child will attribute that to the jinas taking back those children that they fancy. To prevent this reoccurring, several courses of
action may be attempted; for example, the family may move house to avoid the attention the jinas, or the next child may be named “Ugly child” or something similar
to show the jinas that it is not worth taking. In addition, a sacrifice may be made to
the jinas, or a vow saying that they will make an offering if the next child lives.
The family of a teenager who had raped a younger girl believed that he had been driven to do it by a jina, and killed a large ram for the jina to try to persuade it
to leave their son alone. Apparently it was in vain, as he repeated the offence months
later.
2 Curses. Words are believed to have great power. Once uttered, they take on a life of their own to bring about what was spoken. Faced with such a curse, a
Supyire will often make a sacrifice to ward off the evil directed towards him.
The curse may be connected to an action, such as defecating on the doorstep of the one who is the object of the curse. One old man testified in church that he
found in his field that someone had cut off the head of a snake, and wrapped up as if it were a corpse ready for burial. His family counselled him to bring chickens to their
fetish in order to rebuff the curse.
3 Misfortune. If a wife is barren or if her husband falls ill after their marriage, a diviner may pronounce her to be the bearer of ill fortune. As a remedy a
chicken is killed on the trunk a jatigifahanga, a parasitic tree. The tree is believed to have taken the ill fortune on itself and will die within three months. The leaves of the
tree are taken and boiled, and the husband will drink the potion and wash himself with it, and will be cured.
On one occasion, we noticed an ear of roasted corn hanging at just above head height over a major path from the village to the fields. We were told that it was
a sacrifice to the jinas with the object of getting rid of a burden or problem. The idea behind it is that the burden will fall on those who pass underneath the sacrifice, and
thus the present sufferer will be rid of it. If a diviner sees some hot problem on the horizon for a client, such as a house
fire, lightning or an accident involving rifles, he may counsel using a red cloth red being a dangerous colour as protection, by tying it to a tree. Again, the idea is to
pass on the problem to another, or to tie it to someone terminally ill who could accept such an object with equanimity.
4 ¤…m…. We noted above p.18 that when a hunter kills his prey, or a soldier
kills someone, he will seek to protect themselves by means of some sacrifice against revenge attack from the life force
¤…m… of the one killed. Robert Carlson writes, “a person can also be attacked by the ¤…m… of his own actions”
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He cites in evidence the Supyire phrase “the ¤…m… of hisher own action has seized him.”
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This
57
Carlson “External Causation in Supyire Culture”, p.11.
58
Carlson “External Causation in Supyire Culture”, p.11.
is seen as something external to the person. Carlson explains the Supyire mind on this as follows: “The consequences of my action do not arise from myself, but are an
external force which I may be able to protect myself from by means of making certain offerings, wearing a certain type of clothing, or enlisting the a
id of a fetish.”
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5 The earth being spoilt. As we have noted p.25, the Supyire see the earth or bush land outside the village as animated and in a mystical union with the sky.
Their oral tradition is that God told their forefathers that the earth could be spoiled in three ways. Firstly, if human blood is spilt on it through an assault or murder.
Secondly, if sexual relations take place on the earth, rather than inside a village. Lastly, if farming is carried out on a Monday, one is liable to cut a large snake-like
creature believed to live under the soil whose blood spoils the earth as human blood
does.
If the earth in a certain locality is spoilt, then according to one relative of the family of earth owners, an inhabitant of the village of Molasso, “Kile skyGod
agrees to reign in kingship, and measures off that place and leaves it: the rain does not reach there.” The chief of the ancient village of Buwara himself put it like this:
“If the earth is spoiled, it ... rises and takes the sky, and stops the rain from coming.”
If it is known or suspected that the earth has been spoilt, because the crops are poor or the rains are failing or indeed if, on occasion, there is too much rain
then one calls for help from the owner of the earth at Buwara. He or a delegate from his family will go to the area spoilt and perform sacrifices out in the fields, away
from public view. The owners of the earth carry a risk in doing their duty as they believe that if, within three days of their sacrifices, they have not succeeded in
causing rain to fall, then before long whoever carried them out will die.
To punish a wrongdoer
Physical punishment is very rare among the Supyire. What is much more common is seeking supernatural help to carry out punishment, as we saw in the case
of the old man who sacrificed to the ancestors, so that they would punish and kill his
son who had forsaken Supyire traditions see above p.26.
59
Carlson “External Causation in Supyire Culture”, p.11.
As another case shows, it is not necessary to know who committed the offence
—one can ask the fetish to find that out. A young girl came across a wallet full of money on the way home from the fields. She left it alone, but told her family.
The traveller who had dropped it was told, but could not find the wallet. He accused the girl’s family of stealing it, and the 2,000 francs it held. The father of the girl went
to the Kono fetish with a chicken, saying that it should find the person who took the money and plague him until he gave back 4,000 francs. If he refused to give this it
should kill him. A couple of days later, the woman who had in fact taken the money grew ill. Later on, someone said that he smelt the odour of a corpse in the village.
This was enough to persuade the woman to confess and pay the 4,000 francs.
The fear of the power of the fetishes is so strong that just the knowledge that
someone has consulted one is often enough to force a thief to confess to his crime.
To gain power through sorcery
In pre-colonial times, warrior chiefs would make sacrifices to gain advantage over their enemies. In modern times, rumours circulate during election time about
candidates resorting to similar means to gain an advantage in the polls. The word “rumours” must be emphasised here, because it is in this area that we move from
sacrifices that are public, open and generally acceptable to the Supyire population, to those that are secret, shady and looked on with suspicion, fear and distaste.
It is the very nature of the subject that makes it difficult to discern fact from fantasy. What can be affirmed though is that the fear of sorcery is very real, and that
groups of sorcerers are popularly believed to offer human children from their own extended families in order to qualify to be part of the group and gain power for the
group. One man explained it in this way: the sorcerer who takes the life of a child will gain the extra years of that child’s life. In so doing, he or she may live a very
long life until his mental powers give up on him and he can no longer carry out the secret rites.
Other powers attributed to sorcerers include: to render oneself invisible; to walk through walls; to change one’s enemy into an animal and kill them in a hunt; to
change sticks into snakes which will attack an enemy; to effect abortions. Traditionally, it is supposed that men and women without children are
sorcerers —the logic being that they must have given up their children for this
purpose.
To dedicate some object or place to the jinas
Specific objects such as a blacksmith’s tool or a musician’s balaphone may be dedicated to the jinas with a sacrifice in order that its use may bring blessing.
Similarly, to establish a new village market, a sacrifice to the jinas to bless the new venture is customary. Nawara Sagoro has said that at one market where this was
done,
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on market day there is a sound over and above that of the normal throng at the market and that is the sound of the jinas.