Melissa Demarest

Professor Katsanos
LBST 2102-338
Of Water and the Spirit Essay Questions
1.) Grandfather Bakhyes death ritual starts with Grandfather Bakhye walking from mission
hill to his home because he died in a foreign land and if an important person dies in a
foreign land, in the Dagara culture, they have to correct it by walking home even though
they are dead. Once the funeral ritual is over, grandfathers body would be carried to the
burial ground. The order of the gourds and cans in grandfathers room were rearranged,
medicine was being prepared and the meal they were going to eat was being prepared.
Grandfather Bakhyes hair was shaved off his head and then he was washed clean while
he was on his death bed. The prayer of the dead was recited along with songs sung by the
women and then grandfathers room was flipped upside and turned into a kitchen. A
hyena tail was given to grandfather to make him walk back to his home from mission hill
and then was given back to him right before they were to eat their meal. The reason they
were eating was because they did not want Grandfather Bakhye to go to the ancestors on
an empty stomach. This upside down practice was only performed when someone of
great importance died. This ritual was a symbolic reenactment of the things that
important individuals enter through death. Grandfather Bakhyes death ritual is an
ideological ritual because he goes through three phases with include changing his
identity/appearance, symbolically dying and being buried with a ceremony to remember
everything he has done for the village. As described above, Grandfather Bakhye has his
head shaved and he is stripped of his clothing while he is on his death bed. A practice that
is only practiced when someone important dies was practiced when Grandfather Bakhye
died which was the upside room that his bedroom turned into. Grandfather was not with it
but was not fully out of it. He was between the living and spirit world. He was in the in
between phase that allowed him to be brought back for certain parts of the ritual. Right
before he was buried in his grave, they had a ceremony where men and women sang
about and for Grandfather Bakhye to show their appreciation for him and to thank him
for all he may have done for them and for all he has done for the community. His funeral

went on for three days with grieving happening mostly on the first day and the second
day being more relaxed than the first was. A secret practice of an upside down culinary
experience was performed before Grandfather Bakhye made the journey to the ancestors.
By leaving his body, Grandfather had escaped the laws of physicality; therefore, only
food cooked according to the laws of the new realm he now inhabited could be eaten and
digested effectively (p. 52). This is a symbol to show that Grandfather Bakhye was an
important person to the Dagara Burkina Faso community and that he was a well-known
medicine man. It also showed how the body changes when someone dies and how their
spirit leaves their body and they will be able to interact with the living before they
officially make the journey to their ancestors. During this liminal phase, this upside
kitchen practice happens which is very symbolic to the Dagara people. Another symbol
during this phase was the hyena tail. The hyena tail was given to grandfather to hold so
he could walk back to his home once he died and then given to him to hold again during
the upside down culinary experience so he was able to eat with everyone before he made
his journey to the ancestors. The hyena tail allowed for Grandfather Bakhye to move
while he was in his out of body experience once he died. As soon as the tail touched his
hand, Grandfather opened his eyes and sat up, all in slow motion. His behavior seemed
strange (p. 46). This symbol shows that it has the power to allow people who have died
to interact with the living one more time but without speaking and making any noise
unless asked to. Grandfather Bakhye is not in the living world nor in the spirit/ancestor
world because his soul has left his body and is in between the living and spirit world but
is still able to interact and communicate with the village he is from and his family. He is
in this in between phase until he eats his last meal from the upside down kitchen and is in
his home. This funeral differs from my own experiences with funerals because we did not
celebrate funerals with song like the Dagara do. I also seen a lot of crying people but men
mostly holding it together during the funerals. The general atmosphere appeared festive.
It was hot and everybody was sweating. Outside the compound I could hear the music of
the xylophones, the songs of the chanters, and the crowds monotonous, persistent
murmur (p. 59). Compared to the Dagara funerals, I have not experienced a funeral that
was festive and had dancing and music. Every funeral I have been too has been sad and
depressing because we were grieving and mourning the person who has passed away and

trying to remember the good and memories we have had with that person. Adult men,
however, have a more difficult time expressing public grief, for they are forbidden to
except on special occasions (p.60). This shows that men and not allowed to cry when it
is not a special occasion like a funeral or seeing their initiated child after a long time. The
funerals I have gone to, everybody, male or female, have been crying or have had cried.
Mostly, the men try to be tough and hold it together during the funeral when they see
people they know and when the get home or am by themselves, is when they cry and
express their sadness.
2.) When Malidoma was at the seminary, he received an education that was very different
from his traditional education. Seminary education consisted of learning everything from
writing and geography to mathematics and sciences along with Latin and a little bit of
French language classes. Also, Malidoma learned to sing and learned about Christianity
and God. Once Malidoma got to the seminary, he was already supposed to know French
because that was what was taught on mission hill and was required in order to read
textbooks given in the seminary. The seminary had a schedule every day that became a
routine for the children there in terms of education and free time. Geography opened up
worlds far different from the one we learned about in history class. It was amazing for
those of us who were born inland to realize that there was so much water on the Earth. As
our horizons became wider, it was both wonderful and disturbing (p. 115). This quote
describes how much Malidoma learned in just one class and how it related to other
classes he was taking at the seminary and how it differed from his traditional education.
What he has learned at the seminary is far more in depth than what he learned about his
culture from his grandfathers stories. In Somes culture, the relationship between and a
grandfather and grandchild was very important and would be how the children learned
about life and their culture. He had the habit of introducing an answer by way of a whole
bunch of stories that often placed the question being asked into a wider context..Thus
one would go away with more than they came for, enriched with fantastic tales (p. 28).
This quote describes how grandfather would tell stories to Malidoma and how he would
explain things about life to him so he would be able to understand why some things
happened. Story telling by grandfather was big for grandchildren in Somes culture and
learning from your grandfather was a good way to get an education about your own

culture and what to do when you grow up. In Somes culture, he could learn whenever he
wanted to by going to his grandfather and asking a question which happened mostly
everyday but there was no set schedule he had to follow. Education in the west was far
more different and harder than the ancestral and spiritual education Malidoma received
while at his home in Dano. Both of these forms of education have similarities and
differences to the education I have received throughout my educational career. My
education seems to very similar to the seminary education by having a schedule every
day of what I am learning and that it is a variety of things in one day. An example of this
would be learning history, geography and composition writing in one day. The study of
vocabulary and the memorization of texts, especially excerpts from the French poets, was
very important. Composition was crucial (p. 115). In my high school and college
education, I have not had to memorize French things but I did have to memorize
vocabulary for many things including now for my engineering classes. Memorization is a
big part of college classes and differentiation of courses in one day is basically required
in order to get through my education. My education compared to the Somes traditional
education seems to be very different because I went to catholic elementary and middle
school, a public high school and a public university for college. I was able to learn from
stories that my grandparents told me but I never learned about my culture. Also, when I
would talk to my grandparents they would talk at my level and not above my head so I
understood what they were saying. Grandfather always spoke to me as an equal, perhaps
because his belief that I was his brother implied, in some sense, that I already was an
adult (p. 32). This is very different from how I would learn my family history by talking
to my elderly relatives. I would not be talking with them like I was an adult, I would be
talking with them like I was a child trying to understand things about my family past.
3.) Malidoma Patrice Some must undergo initiation when he returned to his birth village
after being at the seminary for 15 years because he has been in the white mans world for
so long that he forgot how to speak his Dagara language and he does not fit in with other
individuals from his birth village. Malidomas father tells him that by being initiated, he
will learn the ways of his ancestors and that will make Malidoma more like the people of
his village. The concern of his elders are that they do not know if it is possible for
Malidoma to be in his birth village and be in the white mans world at the same time. The

elders also want to make sure that Malidoma can acquire something else in addition to
the knowledge he learned from the white mans world so he can be more interactive in his
village and among his people. The elders want to quiet the white man/white man
knowledge that is in Malidomas soul and they feel that being initiated is the right thing
to do for that. This initiation Malidoma undergoes can be considered an ideological or
revitalization ritual because it makes sure the Malidoma has not lost his cultural ways of
life even though he has been in the white mans world and it changes Malidoma for the
better so he can communicate with his ancestors in the spiritual world. Malidoma has
gone through initiation which was very dangerous and he risked his life in order to be
fully accepted back into his birth village as an individual with white mans knowledge but
also an individual that belongs. In terms of the three stages of initiation, the initiation
ritual starts with seeing things by staring at a tree, jumping through a light hole in which
he risked his life, crawling through the egg shaped cave to get to the underworld and
finding a shiny stone in the underworld that showed Malidoma his mission of life once he
got back to the living world. For the first stage of initiation, Malidoma and many other
children were taken away from their birth villages and brought into the bush for many
weeks so they became isolated from what they know so they would be able to get in
touch with their ancestors and the spiritual world. Malidoma and the rest of the children
were stripped of their clothes before they left their villages so they were naked for all of
their initiation. For the transition phase of initiation, Malidoma got tested in ways that the
elders thought he would not be able to succeed because the white men had brainwashed
him so much. One of these events was the elders had Malidoma sit against one tree and
stare at another tree until he saw something and they would not tell him what he needed
to see until he saw it. At first Malidoma could not see anything for over one full day, all
he saw was a tree. Then, on the second day, Malidoma saw and talked to a green lady that
transformed from the tree. Before Malidoma saw this lady, the elders were about to give
up on him and say that he would never be able to be part of the village fully again.
Another event that happened was the elders requiring all the children to jump through a
light hole and catch themselves from falling too far into the hole by grabbing lines of
light they would see as they descended. While Malidoma was in the light hole, he tried to
touch his body and found that while in the light hole, he did not have a physical body.

Malidoma saw a mountain in the distance and was being pulled toward the mountain and
it ended up being that he was being pulled back into the living world. Once he exited the
light hole, he noticed that his eyesight changed and that he was very receptive to
everything around him. Towards the end of the initiation, Malidoma was told to go to the
mountain he was at the day before and to find an egg shaped cave to go into so he would
be able to enter the Kontombl world. Once he entered the Kontombl world, he crossed
a river by walking across what he thought was a bride but it ended up being a bridge that
was created by crocodiles which are an important animal to Malidoma and his family
name. He also found a shiny stone that stuck to his hand and he was transported into
another world where he met a lady that became his wife and he had two children. While
he was there, he violated a rule in his village and was ordered to be executed which is
when his wife pushed him off a cliff which brought him out of that world and back into
the Kontombl world. He saw a young lady who told him to go to a cave which would be
his way of getting out of the world and back into the living world. To Malidoma, this felt
like a dream, but he conquered the initiation without death. The incorporation phase of
initiation was when all the children returned back to their birth villages as men and their
mothers cried tears of joy to see their sons alive. Malidoma got fed, washed and
welcomed back into his village by his family and was seen as an individual who belonged
in his village and who had white man knowledge. This initiation process was important
for Malidoma to complete and it showed his strength and determination that he wanted to
be a part of his birth village again. Everything that happened during the liminal phase of
the initiation process had some symbolic meaning to it and how it will prepare the
individual for the rest of their life and how they will view their life mission that their
name has given them.
4.) Malidoma means Be friends with the stranger/enemy (p. 1). Names within the Dagara
culture describe the task of their name holders and continually remind the child of their
responsibilities throughout life. What a person is meant to do in their life is described by
the name they have been given. I believe that Malidoma has met his destiny because he
has traveled to the west and listened to his ancestors calling by learning about what the
white men do and how it can help his home village. I am here in the West to tell the
world about my people in any way that I can, and to take back to my people the

knowledge I gain about this world (p. 1). While reading this book, I have learned about
Malidomas travels to the white mans world and then bringing back what he has learned
to his village to teach his people the ways of the white man. His adventure throughout his
childhood consisted of learning the religion of the white man and everything the white
man does. In the last chapter of the book, it describes how he met his destiny by going to
a university and getting three bachelors degrees, a scholarship, and airline ticket to
France. For me, going to France was to allow myself to be swallowed deeper. While
getting ready to leave, I kept hearing Guissos voice repeating the old admonition: Go
and allow yourself to be swallowed (p. 311). Malidoma was meeting his destiny by
going into the Western world to learn more about their culture and so he will be able to
succeed in life and go back to his village and family to tell them what he has learned and
how it could help them survive. There is a ritual that is performed months before a birth
of a child. It is called a hearing. The living must know who is being reborn, where the
soul is from, why it chose to come here and what gender it has chosen. Sometimes, based
on the life mission of the incoming soul, the living object to the choice of gender and
suggest that the opposite choice will better accommodate the role of the unborn child has
chosen for him or herself. The name of the newborn is based upon the results of these
communications. A name is a life program of its bearer (p. 20). Ancestors and
reincarnation are a big part of the name that is chosen for the newborn child. Ancestor
souls talk to the mother, priest and grandfather that are in attendance for this ritual and
allow for their voice to be heard about who is being reincarnated and what their mission
for this child is when it is born. Ancestors help the child reach their destiny that their
name has given them and also guide the child through their life.