INTRODUCTION THE SUPYIRE PEOPLE AND CULTURE: AN OUTLINE SKETCH

The Supyire are inextricably linked to their family It is likely that most, if not all, of the young people cultivating together were from one large extended family. A united family, working and living together in harmony, is of the highest priority for the Supyire. The impossibility of success outside this context is expressed in a plethora of stories and proverbs such as: You cannot lift a pebble with one single finger. The fool says, “The family is not good”, but in reality, the family is more savoury than salt in the sauce. A united family is defined as follows: “They do the same work.” “They listen to one another.” “They follow the same customs.” “They eat at the same place.” The Supyire are closely bound to the supernatural. The name of God is never far from the lips of the Supyire. They will invoke his blessings at every occasion, such as: Blessing Occasion “May God sweep the road before you.” departure on a voyage “May God make his mother’s milk sweet to him.” news of birth “May God give you a lot back in its place.” the receipt of a gift “May God open the morning.” good night greeting To have access to God, one normally has to go through the channel of intermediaries who are closer to him than humans are: spirits who live in the bush, or ancestors who live in the village of the dead. The field I witnessed being ploughed belonged to one family who would pay the young people with an animal, which the young people would keep to celebrate the annual village festival. Then it would be slaughtered in honour of the bush spirits or ancestors, and provide a communal feast. Summary Typically then, a Supyire farms in co-operation with his extended family and seeks to maintain harmony in his relations with the family, and with the supernatural beings who inhabit the earth, and indeed with mother earth herself. Regular sacrificial gifts are essential to maintain these peaceful relations, and if for some reason the peace is broken, inevitably a sacrifice of some sort will be required to repair the damage and restore harmony.

2.2 THE SUPYIRE PEOPLE AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS IN WEST AFRICA

The Supyire people who number, according to some estimates, 15 over 350,000, live in south-eastern Mali in the region of Sikasso see maps, figures 1 and 2, pp.10-11. Their language, which also bears the name Supyire, is one of a chain of seventeen Senufo languages spoken in the savannah of West Africa stretching into Burkina Faso, Cô te d’Ivoire and Ghana. The Senufo language family can be divided into northern, central and southern branches. Supyire is one of the northern group which includes Minyanka further north in Mali and Sucite across the border in Burkina Faso. 16 These languages are closely related but have their own distinctive peculiarities. The same can be said of their cultures. Despite many features in common with neighbouring groups, the Supyire can be said to have their own distinctive customs. Unlike their neighbours, the Minyanka, 17 the Supyire do not practise sacrifices to God. Unlike the southern Senufo groups, they do not have secret societies. 18 In our research, we have noticed variations on the theme of sacrifice even from one Supyire village to another. The largest ethnic groups in the region are non-Senufo: the Bambara to the north and the Jula to the south, whose languages are closely related to one another. The Bambara have been dominant militarily and politically, while the Jula traders have considerable economic power. A large majority of both groups are Muslim, but 15 Grimes, Barbara F., ed., Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 13th Edition; Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics Inc., 1996, p.310. 16 Carlson, Robert, A Grammar of Supyire; Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994, p.1. 17 Berthe, Pierre, La Religion Traditionelle chez les Minyanka, Abidjan, Institut Supérieur de Culture Religieuse, 1978, p.37. 18 Called poro and sandogo see Glaze, Anita, Art and Death in a Senufo Village; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. their Islam often affects the exterior forms of their religion, while they remain at heart animistic. 19 19 See Paques, Viviana, Les Bambara; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1954, p.87.