Afiniam Senegal

A little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old stands beside the track. She wears a simple white and pink dress, stained and dusty, as any happy child should be. Her hair is neatly braided and beaded, but her pretty face is distorted by a look of fear in her dark eyes.

Out of the mango forest a melodic wordless chant rises and falls to the beat of a drum and a crowd appears waving branches of green leaves over their heads. Leading them is a creature. A ghost? A man? A monster? No, it is Kumpo. The Spirit of the village, come from the Sacred Forest.

The girl looks anxiously from side to side, sees me watching, and runs up to take my hand. With one word she voices her fear, “Mama”. 

The Kumpo would be a giant if he were a man. Like a huge stack of grass, he glides along the sandy road. He has no face, and no eyes, but a tall dark pole points skyward from what may be his head. He gets taller, then smaller as he walks and leaves no footprints in the sand. The grass or palm, that is all you see of his form, rustles and ripples as he moves. I take the girl into my arms, she calms and holds me tight. “Don’t worry, it’s only Kumpo” I say in a language she doesn’t understand.

Kumpo, along with Samay and Niasse are the ceremonial spirits of the Diola people. Today, Kumpo leads the villagers, dancing. From the village, out of the forest, they emerge onto the causeway. Salt marsh on either side and a group of cows grazing on a patch of firmer ground. The procession follows the red track between grey mud and the ever changing pools of oozing salt water. Past the mangrove trees standing on tiptoes with their stilt-like roots covered in oysters, keeping their bottoms out of the water. Boys on scooters fly past, Kumpo dances, the people sing and drum, and I carry the little girl.

We reach the quay, with the wide river ahead, and now the celebrations really start. The drummers fire off staccato beats and the women tap metal tools together creating a rippling, tinkling tune. Kumpo spins, the grass-like palm leaves fly out like an automatic car wash. He leaps and dashes around, scaring the watchers back, to clear a circle in the crowd. The village women come forward to form a circle on their knees, tapping out the tune, ting, ting, ting. Heads bowed, eyes to the ground, focussing on the music, ignoring the grassy whirlwind bounding all around them. Kumpo dances, like no man could dance, but leaps and shakes. Kumpo stretches skyward, tall as a tree and shrinks down like a grassy hummock. Kumpo jumps in the air and lands spinning on the pole on his head. The grassy fronds lash the ground, sending sand flying in the air. Another leap, Kumpo flies, and lands, thump, in the centre of the women, motionless for a moment, in a cloud of dust. The women bow lower, and keep playing. One girl rises and ties a flag to Kumpo’s horn. I lower the little girl to the ground, but she holds firmly to my hand.

The new boat arrives from the river and moors at the dock. The reason for the celebration, the inauguration and blessing of a new pirogue for the village, seems like a sideshow. Important people shake hands, and women from the boat do a little dance in matching luminous orange lifejackets. But most people are dancing and playing and singing with Kumpo. His magic infects them. “Come together my villagers, dance with me, you are my people. I will bless you,” he says in a quiet, squeaky voice that only special interpreters can hear. He dances and spins on his head. A blue plastic chair is swept up in the whirlwind and spins with him. The young men chase him with switches of green leaves and, braving the sweep of his steel tipped horn, dance close to pluck a lucky frond from his pelt. The young women dance before him and flip up the front of their skirts to flash their knickers, hoping to be blessed with fertility. One hopeful young man, blue jeans and t-shirt, rucksack on his back, struts and dances past the girls. His good looks and style, are completely unmarred by the new sunglasses with a UV sticker still covering one eye. The little girl, still clinging to my hand, is dancing too. She smiles and says, “Kumpo”.

The crowd starts to break up, to head back to the village and more partying. A woman approaches and greets me. “That is my daughter. Thank you.”

Late into the night I hear the same music and the haunting undulating song. Somewhere nearby, Kumpo is still dancing.