Beliefs and castes

written Friday, 15 June 2007

Today my counterpart explained to me some of the cultural/religious beliefs here: the word "bisimillah", which is used in the Koran, comes directly from God, he says. If you say it before eating a meal (like we might say "bon apetit") you will be protected even if the food is bad or poisoned. - Although "protected" only means it won't kill you. Vomiting, diarrhea, etc mean that the protection is working to get the bad stuff out of your system.

If you say "bisimillah" before going on a journey, you will come back safe. And if you say it before going to sleep you will only have nice dreams.

He also showed me the "gris-gris" that he wears on his arm - a small leather pouch which contains words from the Koran. Wearing it protects him from evil and bad things happening.

Gris-gris are made by marabouts, a kind of religious leader (I still am not clear on the difference between marabouts and imams). The secrets to making gris-gris are passed down from marabouts to their children, so they stay in the family. (My counterpart said it is like taking your car to a mechanic - the mechanic will fix it, but he won't show you how to fix it yourself because he wants you to come back and give him more business. I thought it was funny that he would take such a pragmatic approach to religion).

This led to a discussion about castes. In Mandinka society, he told me, there are three castes: the marabout caste, which my host family belongs to, who are religious and political leaders; the nomad caste, which is sub-divided into trades - my counterpart belongs to the metalworker/blacksmith caste group; and the slave caste, which practices sorcery based on pre-Islamic animist beliefs.

I asked him if people don't think it is wrong to mix animist practices with Islam; he said that Senegal is not like Arab countries - here it is no problem to mix elements of different religions, to marry someone of a different religion, or to convert religions. I am still trying to figure out what this means in terms of how important religion is in society here.