2005-04-21 - 12:07 p.m.

Various journal excerpts…

April 21, 2005 and May 20, 2005

“I have a hard time drawing a line between superstition and devotion in Mauritania. I wonder if the Koran makes a distinction between the two, if it ever mentions “superstition” and what it says about it.

Before wearing a new melhava (veil) for the first time, women perform a prayer to ask God to protect them from bad events as well as to prevent them from doing/saying anything sinful while wearing it. Men do the same when wearing a new boubou for the first time.

Before getting into cars or homes, before starting a meal, tea glass, project or speech… it is always: Bismillahi Rakhmane Rahim. A short prayer which means: “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful”
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A while back, a Wolof lady had given me a shell to wear around my wrist to protect me against “evil eye”. Everytime the Moors saw it, they shuddered and aggressively asked me why I was wearing it… it was “haram” (prohibited by the Koran)! When asked why, they wouldn’t really say… except for someone explaining that it was somehow connected to another prohibited practice of “reading the future through shells” – a practice, which I later learned, is quite widespread and “hidden” in Mauritanian society (across ethnicities!) Now… is any of this what we would normally call superstition?

There are also various highly-regarded figures in society called “marabous” whom people will go to, seeking special “gris gris” (amulets enveloping verses from the Koran to be worn around one’s midriff, chest, or arm) to solve one’s problems or protect someone from a certain ailment. Problems can go from a regular sickness, to impotency, to infidelity, to “evil eye”, to a healing wound, etc.

These are the “legitimate” marabous, which act through the Koran and through their deep knowledge of the word of God – therefore not prohibited by religion.

There are others, apparently, whose work is either the Devil’s work or a charlatan’s work. They are usually the ones who will concoct potions (sometimes involving dead people’s body parts) to be given to people to drink or eat (apparently most potent when taken with milk… so the general advice is never to accept milk from unknown or untrustworthy individuals!) Never tell people your parents’ and grandparents’ real names, nor the time you usually sleep at night, nor what you wear while sleeping… they could make a “devilish” gris gris out of it!

They divide these “marabous” into devilish marabous and charlatans because the latter demand steep amounts of money from gullible people and simply “play with their minds”… the “devilish” marabous instead, are those who have a deep knowledge of the Koran and are able to use its words in a very powerful and often prohibited way, through the help of Satan. Uuuuummmmm…

I wonder if there is any link to the “Black Magic” we are more accustomed to hearing about and if the two practices spread in time and space, connected in any way. It would be interesting to spend some time in Benin and Togo where Black Magic apparently originated…

Superstition, prayer, devotion, black magic, potions, amulets, shells… an interesting mix of things that the local population heavily relies on, evidently shaping a culture of “external locus of control”, whereby not much depends on a person’s own efforts, intentions, and desires, but rather on God’s will or Satan’s work.

Not too far removed from this colorful aspect of local culture, is the bleaker practice of Female Genital Mutilation. The widespread belief that an “uncut” baby girl will turn into a nymphomaniac, unfaithful, and promiscuous woman, has driven countless generations to this practice.

Nowadays, publicly criticized and lawfully prohibited by the government, FGM still takes place in most of the country, but with different dynamics. Registered health workers in hospitals and health centers won’t perform it anymore (as it would be illegal) – so families have taken it upon themselves to revert to the ancient way of doing it: through old grandmothers and traditional healers.

A needle or blade will suffice for the operation to take place. It will normally be performed on the baby right around the naming ceremony, which takes place a week after birth (or 45 days after birth at the latest). It is “only” partial mutilation, meaning that only the tip of the clitoris is cut off and no surgical sewing is involved– unlike in other societies where the mutilation is more devastating and most of the vagina is sewn “closed”. The baby will normally cry from pain.

I found out today that a “new” practice started most recently in lieu of the “forbidden” operation. And the baby, apparently, will not suffer pain from it! “Revoluntionary” women who decide not to go the ancient way, are resorting to a “twice a day massage” of the clitoris with baby powder (!?) during the first seven days of the baby girl’s life. According to popular belief, this practice is as effective as FGM… I have a hard time believing that this may affect the woman’s capacity for sexual pleasure for life (it might just numb the little girl for a while!) but if “story-telling” is going to help an entire society change its harmful practices, I am all for it: let’s spread the rumor!!!!

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