Translated by Susan B. Hunt
Originally published in French as
Aspects de la civilisation africaine: personne, culture, religion
Paris: Présence africaine, 1972.
Notes on the Notion of Person
in the Fulani and Bambara Traditions
In the Fulani and Bambara traditions (the only traditions to which I will make reference because I believe I know them), two terms are used to designate the person. For the Fulani, they are Neddo and neddaaku; for the Bambara, they are Maa and Maaya. The first word means "the Person" and the second "the people of the person."
Indeed, tradition teaches that initially there is Maa, the Person-receptacle, then Maaya, i.e., the various aspects of Maa contained in the Maa-receptacle. As the Bambara expression says: "Maa ka Maaya ka ca a yere kono": "The people of the person are multiple in the person." One finds exactly the same notion among the Fulani.
The concept of the person is thus, from the outset, very complex. It implies an interior multiplicity -- concentric or superimposed planes of existence (physical, psychological and spiritual at various levels) -- as well as a constant dynamism.
Existence, which begins with conception, is preceded by a cosmic pre-existence where man is reputed to reside in a kingdom of love and harmony called Benke-so. The birth of a child is regarded as palpable proof that a piece of anonymous existence was detached and incarnated in order to accomplish a mission on our earth. The naming ceremony or baptism during which a "togo" or first name is given to the newborn has a special importance. The togo defines the little individual. It locates him within the larger community.
Three types of birth can take place: an abortion or "ji-bon", literally "spilled water", regarded as unfortunate; a birth that has been carried to full term, called "banngi", considered a happy event not only for the parents, but for the village, the tribe and, on a larger plane, for humanity as a whole; finally, a birth after more than nine months, called "menkono", or "nyanguan", literally, "a long time belly", prelude to the birth of an extraordinary being, the nyanguan, the super-sorcerer, who comes into the world rich with powerful potential.
The development of the person will take place at the rhythm established by the great periods of bodily development, each of which corresponds to a degree of initiation. The purpose of initiation is to give the psychological person a moral and mental power which conditions and aids the perfect and total realization of the individual.
According to tradition, the life of a normal man is composed of two great phases: one ascending to sixty-three years of age, the other descending to one hundred and twenty-six years of age. Each of these phases is made up of three large segments of twenty-one years comprising three periods of seven years. Each segment of twenty-one years defines a degree in initiation, and each period of seven years marks a threshold in the evolution of the human person.
Thus, for example, in the first seven years of existence, during which the person-in-formation requires the utmost possible care, a child will remain closely connected to his mother on whom he depends for all aspects of his life. From seven years to fourteen years, he faces the milieu around him and is influenced by it, but every day he feels the need to refer back to his mother who remains his point of reference. From fourteen to twenty-one years of age he attends the school of life and studies with its masters, and moves gradually away from the influence of his mother.
The age of twenty-one marks a very important threshold, since it is the age for ritual circumcision and initiation into the ceremonies of the gods. During the second twenty-one years of his life, a man will mature the teachings that he received during the previous period. Throughout that time, he is expected to be on the lookout for wise men, and if it should happen that one of them grants him a word, it is as a favor or a test and not because he has a right to it. At forty-three years of age, on the other hand, he is supposed to have reached maturity, for all intents and purposes, and to figure among the masters. Having the right to speak, he uses it to teach others that which he has learned and matured during the two first periods of his life. Finally, at sixty-three years of age, the great ascending phase ends. He is regarded as having completed his active life and is no longer constrained by any obligation to continue to teach. He is not prevented from doing so however, if this is his calling or his capability.
At no time is the human person considered to be a monolithic unit limited to his physical body, but rather a complex being inhabited by a multiplicity of beings in continuous motion. There is no question of a static or finished being.
The human person, like the seed of a plant, evolves from an initial capital which is his own potential. This potential will develop throughout the ascending phase of life according to the terrain and the circumstances encountered. The forces released by this potentiality are in perpetual movement, just like the cosmos itself.
To illustrate this notion, we refer briefly to the myth of the creation of man in the Bambara tradition:
Maa-Ngala (or God-Master) created himself. Then he created twenty beings who together constituted the entire universe. But he realized that of these first twenty creatures, none was able to become his "kuma-nyon", i.e., his interlocutor, someone able to converse with him. So he took a little piece of each of these twenty existing creatures, mixed them all together, and used them to create a twenty-first hybrid being, man, to whom he gave the name "Maa". The first word therefore consisted of his own divine name.
To contain man, the all-in-one being, Maa-Ngala devised a special body, vertical and symmetric, able to contain at one and the same time a piece of all the existing beings. This body, called "Fari", symbolizes a sanctuary where all beings are moving in a circle. This is why tradition regards the body of man as the world in miniature, according to the expression "Maa ye dinye merenin de ye," which means "Man is the universe in miniature."
The entire body has a symbolism which is a quite precise. The head, for example, represents the highest level of the being, pierced by seven large openings. Each of these is the port of entry to a state of being or world, and is guarded by a divinity. Each entrance provides access to a new interior door, and so on to infinity. The face is considered the primary facade of the habitat of the deeper people of Maa, and exterior signs (gestures, expressions) permit one to decipher the characteristics of these persons. "Show me your face, and I will tell you the manner of being of your interior people," says the proverb. Each interior being corresponds to a world which rotates around an axis or central point.
The psychology of man is thus a complex unity. Like a vast ocean, the part that is known is nothing compared to that which remains to be known. The Malian maxim says it well: "One never finishes knowing Maa. . ."
Why this complexity?
On the one hand, the divine name with which Maa is invested confers on him the spirit, and the fact of participating in the Supreme Force. This refers to his primary vocation: to become the interlocutor of Maa-Ngala.
On the other hand, the diverse elements in him make him the confluence of all the cosmic forces, the highest as well as the basest. The grandeur and the drama of Maa stems from the fact that he is the meeting place of contradictory forces in perpetual motion, which only a well-executed evolution on the path of initiation will enable him to order throughout the phases of his life.
The many and varied forces which move about the universe hidden inside Maa constitute the states, or psychological persons, emanating from the spirit of Maa himself. The Spirit, the immaterial and immortal principal, is not an imaginary being. It exists. It is the Spirit that gives birth to the Imagination, a very real faculty (not to be confused with the imaginaire), the faculty thanks to which Maa becomes capable of vision and of establishing relations with the spirits or beings that dwell outside of him or outside the visible world. To repeat an expression of my friend Boubou Hama, the Imagination "concretizes the abstract" which through it takes on image and form. The spirit of Maa enables him to know, to comprehend and to focus his attention. By developing these aptitudes, Maa becomes capable of judgment.
As one can see, the person is not closed in on himself like a tightly-closed box. He is open in several directions, several dimensions one can say, at the same time interior and exterior.
The various beings or states which are inside him correspond to worlds which rise in stages between man and his creator. These are related to each other, and, through man, they are in relation to the interior worlds.
The person is exceedingly connected to his fellow creatures. One does not know how to conceive of him as isolated or independent. Just as life is a unity, the human community is one and interdependent.
Because of this profound sense of the unity of life, the human person is not detached from the natural world which surrounds him. He maintains relations of dependence and equilibrium with it, codified in the rules of behavior taught by traditional doctrine, Bembaw-sira. These strict laws determine the behavior of man vis-à-vis all the beings that inhabit the living part of the earth: minerals, vegetables and animals. These laws cannot be violated, under penalty of provoking within the balance of nature and the forces which underlie it a disturbance which would turn against man himself.
The concept of the unity of life goes hand in hand with the fundamental notions of balance, exchange, and interdependence. Maa, who contains in himself an element of all existing things, is called to become guarantor of the equilibrium of the exterior world, and even of the cosmos. To the extent that he returns to his true nature (that of primordial Maa), man appears, in the world, as the axis whose vocation it is to keep the external multiplicity from falling into chaos.
This is why the richness of the soil, the regularity of the rains, the balance of the forces of nature, etc., depend on the good or bad conduct of kings or traditional religious chiefs.
So long as man has not ordered the worlds, the forces, and the people who are in him, he is Maa-nin, i.e., a kind of homunculus, an ordinary man, a man who has not been realized. Tradition says: "Maa kakan ka sé i yere la noote a bè to Maa ni yala," which is to say, "One who is not able to leave the state of Maa-nin, to return to the state of Maa, is one who is not master of himself."
To conclude, I draw attention to the fact that tradition is concerned with the human person as an interior multiplicity, unfinished at the beginning, called to order and unify himself for the purpose of finding his right place within unities more vast than the human community and the whole cosmos.
Synthesis of the universe and crossroads of the forces of life, man is therefore called to become the equilibrium point where it will be possible to combine, through him, the various dimensions of which he is the bearer. Then will he truly deserve the name of Maa, interlocutor of Maa-Ngala and guarantor of the balance of creation.