This book is not directly about menswork. Its about Some's early life, and his culture, that of the Dagara tribe in Burkino Faso, West Africa. But it contains themes which are relevant for menswork, simply because they are integral to that culture: a boy's relationship with his grandfather, and the initiation rites which all teenage boys undergo.
Malidoma Some works with Michael Meade leading men's workshops, mainly in the US. I attended their residential last year at Gaunts House and it was a remarkable experience. Some's presence is very profound, and he speaks with enormous wisdom, grit, compassion and honesty. These qualities come across in this book which is an autobiography of the first part of his life. The book is a fascinating account of the relationship with the spirit world, which is as integral to the Dagara culture as TV is to ours, of the traditional shamanism in a West African tribe, and, in particular, of Some's month-long tribal initiation along with the boys of the tribe. It also portrays vividly the cruel impact of French colonial repression on Some's life and his spirited response and refusal to forget his roots.
Malidoma, whose name means 'be friends with the stranger/enemy', was born under the shadow of French colonial rule in Upper Volta, West Africa (now Burkino Faso). The book describes how, at the age of four, he was taken by a Jesuit priest and imprisoned in a seminary for training a new generation of "black" priests. After fifteen years, being beaten if he got his French wrong, growing up in an alien culture, Some threw a priest out of the window in a fit of rage and fled, walking 125 miles through the jungle back to his own people, the Dagara. On his return, however, he could not remember his native tongue, and his people regarded him with suspicion because he had been contaminated by the "sickness" of the colonial world. In order to reconnect with his tribe, he underwent the harrowing initiation alongside boys much younger than him.
I found the description of the initiation rites, and the magic of his grandfather, and the intense funeral ritual following his grandfather's death fascinating, exciting, mystifying and frightening all at the same time. For example, when Malidoma is in his mother's womb, his grandfather speaks to his spirit to find out why he has come to earth, which is why he was given the name 'making friends with the stranger/enemy', which is exactly what he has done in obtaining three master's degrees and two Ph.D's, and giving talks all over the world about tribal customs, spiritual beliefs, the world of ancestors and initiation. When a vulture craps on his grandfather's head, his grandfather says some words and the vulture falls to the ground dead. Malidoma (then a young boy) reaches for the bird, only to find that it crumbles to ashes in his hand. When Malidoma's grandfather dies under a boabab tree, the elders perform some magic: his grandfather's (dead) body gets up and walks into the compound so that he can eat his last supper, which is cooked upside-down on the ceiling, and which he again stirs to eat before going to his final rest! The scenes Malidoma goes through in the initiation rites are even more out of this world. It is known that some boys will not survive these rites; they are literally a matter of life and death.
Malidoma has written another book called "Ritual: Power, Healing and Community" as part of a series about the traditions of his culture. In this tradition, ritual is a meeting place for us physical beings and the ancestors, a meeting place for body and spirit: the ancestors need these meetings just as much as we do.
There is little or nothing in the book about gender politics in the Dagara culture: my impression was that all the elders are men. There is no mention of initiation for women. It would be interesting to learn about that side of Dagara life. That said, this book is both a riveting read, and a very mind-expanding experience. I cannot recommend it highly enough, both as a fascinating story of struggle and survival, but moreover for anyone who knows somewhere inside that there is more to life than blood and bones, and is curious to find out more from someone for whom the spirit world is as real as a Ford Escort.
Steve Banks
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
