extracted from "Péril blanc", ("White Peril"), by René Bureau
Harmattan edition, 1978. (p 156, 159-165)
I find myself filled with anguish as I approach with you the wood where grows
the eboga, the plant of truth. Can I find words to express the emotion I feel at
the foot of the motombi tree, on the banks of the creek at mesoso, beneath the
open sky of the djimba, under the sacred roof of the mbandja ?
bandji, na nima na kombo, bokaye !
How can I convey what the cheers of the Bwiti initiates, coming from every
quarter of the village like endless drum rolls, sound like? At every hour of the
day and night they shout, invoking the different authorities of Bwiti, evoking
memories of birth, existence, death, of Man, of the tribe, of Christ, and of the
World. I would need to cover page after page with description and metaphor.
And even after all this, I would still have only succeeded in conveying a vague
idea of what it's like to live like this - among the most alive group of men,
women and children I have been fortunate enough to meet.
(...............)
The Orgasm of the Cosmos
I could, for example, lead you to the temple. And there let you touch the central
pillar, the fulcrum of the universe, and guide you through the steps, carved into
the fabric of the building, up and into the House of God, an adytum, a sanctuary
in the heart of the courtyard.
We could take in hand the three principal musical instruments of the Bwiti,
sacrements of the divine word, and then detail the meanings of the various parts.
The Musical Arc, who's resonant cavity is the mouth of the musician, and who's
notes recall the beginning of time, when God thought up the world and created it
from the ether. The triangle known as the obaka, who's sound recalls the
breaking of the primordial egg, from which emerged the three first aspects of the
creation of God: Nzame, Ninegone and None. After the arc has played for
long enough to allow us mortals to reflect on God's work, the three obaka
players, striking gently, almost inaudibly, on the triangle: ka, ka, ka, ka..., then
with an immense rush, a mighty crack of hammers on dry wood, bring forth the
Birth of the Universe; the fusing of flowing metal in the first foundry, the crack of
thunder and the flash of lightning, the deafening resonance of the striking of the
anvil, the orgasmic rush bringing forth the cosmos; chaos rendered into two
opposing aspects: above and below: the sun and the moon: male and female:
day and night: cold and heat: earth and water: village and woodland: everything
in place: God's work completed. Waiting only the action of Man to disturb the
Divine Plan. And death to do it's work. The word, obaka, also means "dying
breath", bo-ka-yé, a final word of interjection brought to commence a chapter,
and the disintegration of a corpse after a fews days decomposing. The obaka
invokes especially the last groans of Christ as he died on the cross. The sound
of the obaka coincides with the opening of the vulva and the closing of the tomb
in the instant when Man retreats back into the bosom of the earth, the short
moment that separates the two shakings, dissumba is the time of the
eight-stringed harp; the harp is a voice, a word brought back to life from a
sacrificed being, the murmur of love, (the male and female strings playing
together in harmony), the plough moving through the rough earth, the time of
germination and of rotting of vegetation, the breath of life, the tears of death and
the anticipation of what follows. It translates human existence into celestial
music. The smallest part of these instruments has a symbolic meaning in the
great, coherent manifestation of the divine imagination. The baton held in the
right, (masculine), hand of the harp player which monitors, by modulating the
length of the chord, the height of the vibrations, is the phallus which carresses
the female organ and makes it tremble with pleasure. The obaka is a spinal
column sat on the femurs, impaled by two cross-pieces which double as
forearm bones; the skeleton this arrangement makes up is that of Bazeu-Bazeu,
a mythological creation, husband and sacrificer of Benzogo, who's body took
the form of a harp. This reproduces all the parts of the female body, like a
coat-of-arms; down to the small vine that fixes the neck to the sound box and
represents the knife with which Benzogo's throat was cut.
The chief is dangerous
It would be quite straightforward to take you through the three ngoze that make
up the basis of the ritual.
For three nights, from seven in the evening to seven in the morning, we take part
in the ceremonies, the dances, the singing, and the rituals that last 36 hours by
the clock. Efoun, mouengue, meyaya: three moments; the origin of the world,
the moment of creation, the end of the world and what's after; the birth of man,
growing up and the adult world, death and the road toward the house of the
Bwiti; the origin and history of the Fang, the colonisation by the Whites,
deliverance and independence; the birth and young life of Jesus Christ,
(Nzambia-Pongo), his willing death, his return to the breast of God. Each song,
preceded by and accompanied by the harp, each ritual gesture, can be
understood on many different levels, and on each level the route to birth is in
harmony with the route to death. The general direction of the ritual, interpreted
by the progression of events undertaken in the temple, superposes death on
birth and, in doing so, leads to resurrection and re-birth. A relationship develops
between the left side, where the women are, with the right side, where the men
are. Thus, there is reconciliation between the opposing poles of creation, all at
the same time that the ancestors, the children to come and all those people
who've found themselves on the road to the house of Nzame, join with the tribe
of humans still immersed in the uncertain nature of dissumba, here-below, to
achieve nlem-mvore, the union of hearts, and together, the end of division. You
would see, on the morning of the third night, those initiates who've reached, or
returned to, the state of the bubble, the drop of water, the cocoon, the balloon,
to dance, men, women and children mixed together, an angelic ballet, as though
the weight of all time and matter were finally dissolved. The reign of Evus is
annulled in advance, the time of Bwiti near, disparate elements joined,
differences erased, power revoked, death overcome; a fantastic scene begins to
develop, where the set is the cosmos and the actors, humanity, begin to
re-establish the original order, restoring to Man his wholeness and integrity,
creatures become reunited, death and life reconciled, anticipating the
resurrection of the universe.
I recall a Sunday morning where, for reasons I cannot remember, I attended
Mass at the cathedral at Libreville, after my third ngoze at Nzobermitang. The
faithful were seated on the pews, murmuring prayers in French, (a language with
which few of them were much familiar), their empty eyes turned toward a
bearded white man. This man, dressed as a woman, alone in front of a cement
table huddled over his private devotions, appeared to me, contrasting his
activities with the joyous celebrations of the Bwiti, engaged in a sacriligious
pursuit. It seems a facile thing to say, I know, but I do want to share with you
just how I felt that day, witnessing these events. You could also familiarise
yourselves with Bwiti society by learning of the diverse ranks initiates can attain
and the varying functions undertaken by ministers in the religion. I shall first
introduce you to the ekambo. He is seated at the entrance of the temple, facing
toward the ozamboga, the vulva-shaped opening in the umbilical pillar, through
which the tribe was born, and through which the initiates must return to be
re-born. By looking along the female line, the ekambo can see the pillar at the
back; in the form of a woman carrying the world, the sphere of creation, upon
her head, as punishment; this sphere is pierced through the centre, for it must be
overcome to gain access to the house of Bwiti, a cell constructed of planks of
wood without window, where sits the kombo, chief of the tribe, back to back
with the beti, or harp player. The ekambo carries in carries in his right hand a
bayonet: a sacrificial weapon, the blade St Michael used to slay the dragon, the
lightning, the arms of God slicing the universe from top to bottom and right to
left. The ekambo carries out the highest acts, he is the guardian of the order, the
adversary of Evus, the master of thunder, the great blacksmith; he is the only
one, along with the Kombo and the central Nganga, who places himself along
the longitudinal axis of the temple, along the straight line from the maternal
breast to the tomb, from death to life; in the course of certain rituals, the
ekambo holds in his right hand a flaming torch, torn from "the tree that leads to
the sky", and traces, turning about himself, the djimba, the place of labour pains
and place of reunion, and the cemetery, to reunite, in the single flame, the living
and the dead and to invoke the cosmic assembly, formed by the totality of living
existence, in the matrix of God, Nzambia-Pongo, the breast of Jesus Christ,
marked by a torch fixed at the axis of the temple. At the two ends of the
transverse axis, in front of the doors of life and of death opening onto the the
two cubby-holes where the womens' and the mens' basins are situated, are
located the Yombo and the Nina-na-kombo. The latter shares with his partner
the role of judge, they are both confirmed initiates, (nima), and able to decide
how pure prospective initiates are, and indeed all those on the road to death,
which is the road to life; their complementarity signifies the necessary confusion
between sexes and all contrary forces: they are the eye fixed on the central fire,
the crossing of which is a demonstration of the the judgement of God, (nsal);
they are at the threshold of the zone and of the time where all things are
reconciled, where man loses his skin, his colour, his status, his grade, his Evus,
to don again the apparel of the true man-god. The second section of the temple
is outside of dissumba, the here-below. Three other ritual characters are
permanently here: the three Ngangas. Aligned at the foot of the Atlas-woman,
they face the three obaka players and the harp player. They represent
respectively Nzame, Ningone and None. The highest in the central Nganga,
the Mimien, (the innocent or the fool), representing both Nzame and Jesus. He
is the only one who is a complete stranger to Evus; also, he was sacrificed by
men, but his death opened the way to life. The Kombo, at his watch post, God
the father, has decided upon the death of his son. He weilds supreme power.
As he is represented by a human being, this power can only come from Evus.
The Kombo is therefore both necessary and dangerous; he holds the place of
honour, but hidden from view, until the day when, Evus having finally been
uprooted and buried in the heart of the earth, "Bwiti will come", and God will be
plainly visible to all creatures. To be an initiate, a bandji, is to have had for an
instant a vision of this event, this moment when God will become clearly visible
to all, through the grace of the eboga root.
The Bitterness of the Here-Below
If you had accompanied me to the land of these enlightened people, you too
would have experienced, as I did, the deep desire to partake of this bitter plant
of truth which, for the Bwiti faithful, is the only route to knowledge. You would
have begun by confessing, to the Nina-na-kombo all the sins of your life so far.
Then you would have been led into the forest, to the banks of flowing water. I
will tell you the details of the divination operations that act as a prelude to the
mesoso. The river is dammed, as through to hold back the flow of time. Three
women descend into the basin formed by the dam, water up to their thighs. The
would-be initiate plunges naked into the water and swims through their bare
thighs, starting downstream; this is a prologue to the time he will spend in the
womb of his new mother; the dam is broken open, the second life begins; the
ordeal of death will give him life. To eat eboga is to die. On leaving the creek
and the water, the initiate will consume a great quantity of fresh rootbark. The
torch of the temple is carried to the mouth of a lance representing, amongst
other things, the central pole, (the pillar of the firmament), and the lance which
penetrated the heart of Christ on the cross. The songs evoke at times the words
of Jesus at Calvary, "My lord, why hast thou forsaken me?". The initiate still has
enough strength to walk toward the village, where, during the three ritual nights,
he will eat from the tree that grew on the tomb of Christ, and listen to the harp
talking to him, lying in the place of the initiates in the temple, between the legs of
his godmother, his head on her stomach. Little by little, his body will lose it's
weight, sensations will disappear, the feeling of matter evaporates. His spiritual
body first joins its ancestors, then it travels along the narrow path which leads
across many challenges and many judgements of purification, towards the house
of the Bwiti. "The Bwiti have no faith, unlike the Christians, they have direct
sight": Albert tries to explain the originality of "the religion of eboga". In truth, if
you could come and do as I did, you would have declined the invitation to
submit to the ingestion of eboga. It's one thing to try to understand another
culture's religious perspective, quite another to embrace it. To be engaged in
research does not permit one to fool with the sacred. You would have been left
the opportunity of becoming an honorary bandji, as I was. At the beginning of
the ceremonies, I made myself, with palm-leaves, the umbilical cord for my
re-birth, fixed to my left wrist; I was painted white and red, with the sperm and
the menstrual blood needed to make a man; I relived the death of Benzogo and
of Jesus Christ whilst taking part in ritual dances; I tasted the bitterness of the
here-below by chewing pinches of eboga; I held back sleep to abolish night and
to repress the forces of Evus which possessed me. How could one refuse to
commune in the fight of these people against the power of death, in their
passionate desire to bring about a world where all hearts are forged in the same |
