SUPYIRE SACRIFICE: THE FORM
Who makes sacrifices?
Any individual, man or woman, family or group such as the village elders, can bring an animal or other offering for sacrifice for a specific reason. But the actual
killing of the animal or presentation of the offering will be made by the person who has a special relationship to the recipient of the sacrifice. The oldest man in the
ruling extended family is the closest to the ancestors and is thus responsible for the sacrifices. A fetish owner will sacrifice to that fetish. While a woman may bring an
animal for sacrifice, only a man will ever kill it. There is no formal ceremony to consecrate someone to the office of
sacrificer, but in a society where relationships are constantly being monitored, it is widely known who fills which role.
What is sacrificed?
By far the most common sacrifice offered during the village festival consists of a chicken. Of the thirty-one sacrifices made during the Sarazo festival, twenty-five
included a chicken, one was a bull, three were of staple foods, one of kola nuts, and two included money. Only those traditionally considered as domestic animals are
acceptable as an offering. The size and value of the sacrifice is important. A fully mature two-year-old
cock is considered a better singer and a more valuable sacrifice than a young one. On one occasion, a large chicken had been promised, but only a small one was available,
so the difference was made up by adding 100 francs. There is enough evidence from various sources to affirm that in the past
human sacrifices were made.
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In order to establish a market in a village, a girl had to be buried alive. In place of this, in 1985, the village of Kabakanha asked its pastor to
say a prayer for its new market. In sacrificing to a fetish, dog’s blood is now accepted where once human blood might have been required.
Different members of the pantheon require different sacrifices. Nawara Sagoro, in conversation with Joyce Carlson, stated that the most common offering to
42
Carlson, Robert, Dictionnaire Supyire-Fran
Ç
ais, unpublished defines dahaba as follows: “a kind of
fetish consisting of a pot enclosed in an adobe wall and covered with a small thatched roof; inside are the roots of 33 types of trees ... formerly warriors used to wash with water in which powder from
the roots had been put and then they would not be attacked by the spiritforce of those they had killed; formerly a person was sacrificed to this fetish, then a dog, but nowadays more usually a goat.
”
twin ancestors was kola nuts, followed by millet paste, money, chickens, and cowry shells.
Another sort of offering which is also called a sÃraga, the general Supyire
word used for sacrifice, is that of cloth. These are not burnt or eaten, but are often given away, often to a poor stranger. Alternatively, a cloth of a certain colour or with
a particular design is to be worn by the offerer.
When are sacrifices made?
The annual festival, seeking blessing on the year ahead, generally lasts a week and is usually held near the beginning of the rainy season. There is, though, no
fixed date and each village will hold its festival on a different week at the discretion of the chief.
Individuals or families who have links to a particular jina or fetish will often hold a celebration and make a sacrifice annually to keep up the relationship.
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Otherwise, the sacrifices will take place whenever a problem or situation demands it. If someone is dogged by misfortune, for example some illness, he will consult a
diviner, who will use some method —throwing cowry shells, reading palms, slapping
of the thigh, or hitting a calabash full of water
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—to diagnose which divinity or ancestor has been offended, why he is causing the illness, and what sacrifice should
be offered as appeasement.
Where are sacrifices made?
The different spirits in the Supyire pantheon live outside of the village —in
the fields, trees and rivers. That is where the sacrifices offered to them take place. There is often a sacred spot, sometimes marked by an unusual geographical feature,
where they reside: in the village of Sarazo it is a dense thicket, whose trees must not be cut, where the original alliance between the founding fathers and the jinas was
made. In Ifola, there is a pool with sacred fish that should not be eaten; in Kabakanha, a large flat solid rock; and in Misiricoro, an unusual grotto. In each case,
43
Diarra, Niara, Le Pori, Une Fête Traditionelle en Milieu Senoufo, Mém oire de Fin d’Etudes à
l’Ecole Nationale d’Administration, Bamako, 1996, p.19.
44
Carlson, Robert “External Causation in Supyire Culture”, Notes on Anthropology 3:3 1999 7-14, p.12, fn.3.
the Supyire make contact with the divine through sacrifice in a place in the earthly, natural world marked in some way as out of the ordinary.
By way of contrast, if a particular jina has an intimate relationship with an individual or family, it may require that a hut be built, smaller than the huts used for
human residences, which will be where it lodges and receives sacrifices. Fetishes often have similar diminutive huts.
The ancestors receive their sacrifices in the village vestibule that is their meeting place with the living.
On what are sacrifices made?
As noted above,
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the Supyire have an intimate relationship with the earth; it is seen as the symmetrical counterpart of the sky, which itself is associated with the
supernatural.
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So the earth is seen as a suitable place for the cult. It is usual for the victims to be sacrificed on a simple altar of a pile of large stones, or of earth packed
together into a half wall two or three feet high.
What steps are performed?
The typical pattern for a sacrifice is as follows: 1.
An introduction: whoever brings the offering will let his intentions be known to the sacrificer by way of an intermediary. The intermediary then takes the chicken
or other offering and, naming the person who has brought it, passes it on to the sacrificer, who performs the remaining steps.
2. The offering is presented, with some appeal to tradition such as, “This is the
offering from X on the path of the new year,” or to the name of someone who has performed this before. Thus it is shown that it is not something new which is
being done, but there is an authoritative precedent for it. 3.
A prayer is made for specific blessings for the offerer. The name of God or some other supernatural force is often invoked. The expressions “God is more powerful
than all,” and “Every good person says God and every bad person says God” are
commonly heard. Malana Sagoro explained this by saying that this adds power to the sacrifice.
45
See p.25.
46
See p.14.
4. The throat of the victim is slit, and its blood is poured over the altar. As a sign
that the sacrifice has taken place, the feathers of a sacrificial chicken will be stuck to the altar with the congealing blood. Food in a liquid form may also be
poured on the altar. However, if it is a question of a sacrifice to a fetish, the fetish itself is dipped in the sacrificial blood, so that over the years the fetish becomes
black with thick coagulated blood. 5.
After the animal or food has been presented to the deity, it is shared around the community. Joyce Carlson witnessed a sacrifice in the fulfilment of a vow made
by the family of Kara Sagoro at Misiricora caves, home for the most renowned jinas in the region, where many people come to make sacrifices. She writes at
the end of her notes of the account, “I began to realise too that eating the exact sacrifice that you brought was not so crucial as eating some part of some
sacrifice. So Kara and family ate with 3 or 4 old men who were already there eating a previous sacrifice, and then we came away.”
During the village festival, the sacrifice rituals are accompanied by song and dance and the playing of the balaphone, a celebration in which the whole community
can participate. There is a brouhaha, a nonchalance among the crowd and those bringing sacrifices. There is no idea of a respectful silence in the presence of the
sacred, as everything in life has a religious dimension for the Supyire.