This video was shot at a celebration and baby naming ceremony
deep in the heart of Bamako (Sabaliboogo district). Interestingly similar to the Mali marriage ceremonies with Griot singers and drum and dance friendly competition. Siaka’s drum troupe are the main performance and young Kaliefa plays the lead in this clip. The dance party is for one of the dancers who recently had a baby.
michaelpluznick has a good range of video clips on YouTube with drumming as a theme.
(More from my diary, this time from February)
We left around 6.30 for the baptism of a Fulani baby born 7 days ago. We had to be there before dawn. I am exhausted and the day is
only just started!
First of all, the men and women are separated. I’m being treated as the baby’s grandmother which is sweet. My friends mother can’t come so I am stand-in. My role is to sit beside my friend most of the time. As we arrived the ladies were in a panic still getting dressed. Soon we departed the bedroom for the sitting room where a mattress was laid on the floor and a big blanket on the floor beside it. A mute lady shaved all the hair from the baby’s head. We all had breakfast together - milky coffee, bread and a sort of meat sauce. It was just the closer family in the room, until the praise singers arrived. Now that WAS an experience! The first few were fine, older ladies,come to sing the praises of the new baby and her family. The men meanwhile got together for prayers, and then the word came that the baby would be named. I’m not sure if my friend knew the baby’s name until that moment - the word went round that the baby was called Mariam after her grandmother. Everyone applauded. Then the ‘vultures’ arrived. I ran out of small coins to give (did I say you have to pay to have your praises sung?). One guy singer comes in and tells me I HAVE to go and ask my husband
for money for him. In fact he leads me by the hand to my husband. But he was fine in comparison to some of these ladies - three of them refused to budge until I paid them. The other ladies in the room were catching my eye and motioning ‘no’ to me, telling me to stand firm. In the end I lay down beside my friend and pretended to go to sleep. They finally went. We’ve now excused ourselves for a couple of hours but we have instructions to be back by midday ready for the big meal. I’m not sure what will happen this afternoon but I think it is the ladies party. I had to take my best best dress and we’ll change around 4 pm.
After a short break at home we went back to my friends compound for lunch. Again - men and women separate. We ate with one hand. Try tearing meat from bone with one hand! Then came a couple of hours of sheer boredom. Sitting in a hot room with lots of other women, nothing much happening.
Around 4pm I changed into my best best boubou (kaftan), pagne (wrap-round skirt) and head tie. All the ladies assembled in the sitting room. A man arrived with a local type of guitar. He serenaded us for the next few hours. Wonderful music. First he sat next to the new mum and sang a beautiful song of blessing for the baby, later he sat at the side of the room and gave us a sort of continuous accompaniment. A griot (praise singer) arrived - this was the official one who had sung in the morning. She opened the proceedings proper. She had a sort of side-kick who emphasised certain things she said, or agreed with them. She sang the praises of my friends family and sang the name of the baby. This was the women’s ‘baptism’ ceremony. A non-religious one. Then came presents! Wow talk about complicated! My friend has to keep a book with the name of everyone who gave a present and what they gave. Later she has to visit everyone of them and give them presents at appropriate ceremonies. There were lots of mums with babies. Everything was given publicly and shown around, and then placed in a baby bath (also a present). Finally a rich member of the family gave the baby her first gold earrings. Great ceremony was made of this by the griot. Then the other griots decended. These are the ones I called ‘vultures’ earlier. It was pandemonium. The noise was amazing. I think there must have been a dozen of them in a tiny sitting room already crowded with women. We had already taken a collection for the official griot and the musician, but these ladies also wanted money. Frozen bags of drink were sent round and also take home bags of cola nuts. At the same time the official griot and my friend were arguing about the contribution taken for the griot and for the food. Eventually someone gave the extra amount demanded. This was a reasonably friendly haggle - the ‘vultures’ were not. People started to go, but I was not allowed to. As I was stand-in family I had to be one of the last to leave. In the end I took refuge in a bedroom with a couple of the teenagers and hid! Can you imagine it! Finally they left and we emerged.
We were asked to take a family home across town, and while we were waiting for them to get ready one of the griots descended on me again. This time insisting I paid her fare home. It took a lot of arguing before she finally left.
Now I am home. It has certainly been an interesting day and this little baby has been well and truly blessed, and many useful gifts have been given to the family. For the young mother it has been absolutely exhausting. For the last week she has been confined to a room with the baby with only family attending her. Now she has to spend 6 more weeks on the family compound. The baby will be 7 weeks old before she leaves the compound for the first time.
In Bamako I had seen people have their feet henna’d for celebrations such as weddings, Tabaski and big fetes, but I had never had it done myself. I was staying in the rural village of Zebala, about 50 kms from the nearest large town Koutiala, and one day I talked to my American hostess, and mentioned this. She said that she’d always wanted it done too. So we arranged with the daughters of some Zebalan friends of hers to prepare our feet for the coming Christmas fete. What an experience! The two young girls arrived at about 8 am with lots of old cloths and plastic bags. We had no idea what we were in for! We sat in state in the mosquito netting covered veranda of my friend’s house. The girls discussed with us what patterns we would like on our feet. The discussion was in Minianyka and French and got quite complicated. The girls started cutting strips of white first aid plaster. With these strips they made complicated designs on the sides of our feet and the top of our feet, leaving the soles blank. Once they were happy with their designs they mixed a paste of henna powder bought from the local shop with water. This made a khaki green ‘mess’. This paste was then applied to our feet. Our feet were wrapped in plastic bags and bound up in rags. Then they left! We were told they would be back in the evening. The paste on our feet, together with the plastic bag made walking very difficult, so we just sat. We had decided that this was going to be like a ’spa’ day, a day for refreshment and renewal. So we had brought puzzle books, and other reading matter out to the porch with us.
Later on two little girls of about 8 years arrived and asked if they could ‘do our hair’. This involved washing our hair and then drying it…and for my friend who has long hair…plaiting it. This was great fun and there were a lot of giggles. It was getting very hot and one of the girls ran off and arrived back with a huge palm leaf that she used to fan us with. We felt like royalty. Eventually the two big girls arrived back to check if the Henna had ‘taken’ by unwrapping our feet and scraping a little off. It had. So, they then they scraped all the paste off our feet. To our amazement the skin where the paste had been was orange. They then made up another paste with a powder they had bought in the shop and water. I don’t know what the powder was. They warned us that this new paste would tingle a bit but that it wouldn’t be for long. They applied the new paste to our feet and wrapped them up again. After about an hour they unwrapped our feet, scraped the paste off and then took the first aid plaster strips off. Our feet were BLACK! We had intricate patterns along the sides of our feet and a design on top. The soles of our feet were completely black, as were my toenails. The girls admired their work and then ran off home to get ready for bed as it was already dark. We walked over to the girls parent’s compound to show them their daughters’ handiwork and our feet were admired by everyone by the light of an oil lamp.
The black feet lasted for a long time. We had to be careful not to use soap on our feet so that it lasted longer. The black toenails lasted a lot longer! Next time I will get them to cover my toenails with plaster.
There is a little church in Zebala that holds services in Bambara and Minianka. We were privileged to take part in their celebrations for Christmas on Christmas Eve while we were staying there.The service was very colourful and the music was great.
There are various groups in the church and they all took part at different times in the service. The young women did a very moving telling of the Christmas story using one of their own young babies as the baby Jesus. The young people did a great musical item that was very vigorous and fun. The tiny tots came to the front and sang together with their teachers.
After the service, we all had a meal together not far from the church. We sat on benches around bowls and ate with the right hand (the left hand is considered dirty). I guess we were there about five or six hours.
On Christmas day, there were further celebrations, but we were involved in helping to prepare a local celebration where we fed anyone who wanted to come along and eat. Other families in the village were doing the same, and there was a lot of visiting going on. We took small bowls of food to friends in the village and others brought small bowls of food to us. It was an exhausting day, but great fun.
Last weekend we had a wedding just half a block away from my apartment. First I knew of it was the drums the night before. That was fun! They set up shop on the street corner … several large Djembé drums and lots of smaller ones … some that you hold under your arm and beat with a stick. The decibel level was incredible. The apartment seemed to reverberate. All the local kids were out and a big crowd developed. Then just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
The following day I was drawn to our balcony by the sound of a huge number of mopeds (called motos) and motor bikes .. all revving up and sounding horns. It was the start of a cavalcade .. they paraded the streets in our area for about half an hour. After the motor bikes came the cars .. all sounding their horns and flashing lights. The roads around here are really bad. The rains have washed some of the red mud away and there are huge holes and bumps. You should have seen some of these posh cars trying to make their way around .. I felt really sorry for some of the ladies dressed in their finery being slung around the back seat of a mercedes!
Then the men congregated at one of the local mosques …for the wedding ceremony, without the bride!!! This is the formal part of the day. I think there are five mosques around here.
Later in the afternoon I heard drumming again from the street corner. They had put up a sheltered area and brought in lots of chairs. It was ladies afternoon ….wonderful colours, wonderful boubous in bright colours. It seemed at one point like most of the area had turned out. During this time various ceremonies are carried out by the women. The poor little bride sits under a veil in a courtyard, usually looking terribly scared. There are praise singers (griots) who sing the praises of those who pay them. The ones for this group sang really well. In fact there seemed to be two and one would sing with the other making encouraging comments. Sometime in the late afternoon everyone dispersed and the area settled down for the night.
