Afiniam Senegal

The path through the forest leads to the house of the local wise man. He has many names: the healer, the sorcerer, the feticheur, the gris-gris man. Black and white polka dot butterflies dart in and out of the trees on their own mysterious business. And high above, the bats screech and tussle. They come in their millions to feast on the mangoes but when the last mango falls with a thud, they disappear. No one knows where they go, or what they do, but they will return the following year when the mangoes are ripe. Black birds with iridescent blue wingtips and long tails like kites, swoop and glide.  A group of five undulate through the open space above the path. Four of them are in perfect unison. “Keep, keep, keep,” they say. One, the sole maverick, bucks and weaves in a different direction. “Keep, keep, keep,” the others say, “keep in formation, number five.”

I keep to the path, and arrive at a small house. The smell of woodsmoke and rotting fruit linger in the air and a goat eyes me suspiciously.

Squatting in the doorway is a small ordinary looking figure, younger than I expected, but he watches me with old eyes. The feticheur makes the charms, the gris-gris. He instils the magic, ties the knots, says the prayers and spits secret words of power. He can make a spell to protect your car, to prevent accidents. He can make an amulet to protect your child from illness. He can prepare a potion to make the girl of your dreams love you, or to give you many children. He can make a gris-gris to protect you from everything, to keep you safe, to keep you strong, to keep you healthy. But it will be expensive, he says, It will cost you a cow. Or he can make a charm just for the car. It will protect you when you are driving. That will be cheaper. The magic is binding, the magic is strong and cannot be broken, except by a more powerful spell.

Today he is making a potion. A pot steaming on the small, smokey fire. Leaves and roots and unknown objects swim in a brown soup. Hanging from the wall and roof beams are bunches of dried leaves and seed pods, a monkey skull, a desiccated lizard and a photo of a snaggletooth old man. Looking every bit like a magician, it is a photo of his father. He was the previous feticheur, but is now buried under the floor where I sit, he tells me. Only the gris-gris man, who learnt it from his father knows the recipe for today’s ceremony. Whilst the potion cooks, and bitter fumes and smoke fill the room he tells me more. For the fetish you must sacrifice an animal, and pour it’s blood over these objects here. The simpler spells you can do with a chicken, but for the more powerful magic you need a goat, or sometimes even a calf. If you want to curse or do harm, you need a red chicken, or goat. Or a black one will do. But if you want to bless or help someone, it must be a white animal. He tells me he can make a spell to make someone do something, even if they have already decided they don’t want to. If you want to make some business, but another person won’t accept it, he can make a spell and they will immediately agree. And they won’t know that they have been influenced, or that the magic made them do it. They will think it was their idea to change their mind. He can make your life go exactly as you want it, if you can afford to pay. The potion appears to be ready, so we head back to the village, carrying it in a plastic Fanta bottle.

Once every few years, the boys are made men. Just on this one day, the boys are doused with this potion. Over their heads the green and brown liquid is poured, until their entire skin is wet. The blend of herb and root, chants of ancient lore and precise preparation will make them invulnerable. Even a knife cannot pierce their skin. Then begins the celebrations and blessings. The boys will fight; razor sharp daggers flashing and slashing and fists flying. Clothes will be torn, bruises earned, but not a drop of blood will fall. The magic is strong.

After the fighting, and after the feasting, the boys will follow the men into the sacred forest. No woman can enter. Even eating the fruit from the sacred forest, where it overhangs the path, would be certain death to a woman.

What happens in the forest is known only to those inside. No cameras are allowed. No one can tell of what they saw. No one can describe it in a song, nor write it in a story. Apart from those who are initiated here, no one knows.

I watched a group of men and boys enter, but a day later, only men came out.