Michael Hrabosky

Prof. Katsanos

May 4th, 2017

Of Water and Spirit Essay Questions

1. It is traditional in Dagara culture, that if someone dies outside of the village, they

wont be given a traditional burial and funeral until they return to their home. Grandfather

Bakhye died on Mission Hill, away from his village. After Grandfather Bakhye is given a

hyena tail, he walks home, and is carried to his funeral and given a proper burial.

Another traditional ritual in the Dagara culture is to rearrange the room of the deceased;

the positioning of his gourds and cans were misplaced. Meanwhile in the kitchen, it was

entirely flipped upside down. Another death ritual the Dagara people practice is feed the

deceased a final meal in the upside down kitchen, so that the deceased does not return to

their ancestors on an empty stomach. The majority of these rituals practiced by the

Dagara people are ideological in that they seek to reaffirm the traditions and values that

the Dagara people hold so dearly before the deceased return home to their ancestors.

When looking at an ideological ritual, it is comprised of three stages, and Grandfather

Bakhye is taken through all three of them. The first stage of an ideological ritual is

separation. This is shown in Bakhyes death. A symbol of this stage in the ritual is

Mission Hill, where Grandfather Bakhye died. The second stage, transition, is shown

when Bakhyes loses his identity, or his body, and is forced make the journey to return

home to his ancestors. There are a lot more examples of symbols from this stage. When

Grandfather Bakhye is given the hyena tail shortly after his death, it is a symbol of the

spiritual connection Grandfather Bakhye holds with his ancestors. The hyena tail is
supposed to give him the energy to return home to his ancestors. As soon as the tail

touched his hand, Grandfather opened his eyes and sat up, all in one motion (p. 46). The

final stage of an ideological ritual is incorporation. We are shown this when Bakye

completes his spiritual journey to be with his ancestors. Grandfather Bakhye is neither

here nor there during the liminal phase of the ritual because he is the middle of his

spiritual journey his is making to be with his ancestors. While he has certainly began the

journey, it is not finished in the liminal phase, so he is neither here nor there, but on his

way. A major difference with a funeral in the Dagara culture and a funeral in my culture

is that a Dagara funeral usually lasts around three days, while a funeral I have been to is

over within a couple hours, and certainly by the end of the day. Another difference is the

overall mood and atmosphere; a Dagara funeral will feature a lot of singing, praising, and

dancing; it is more like a celebration. A traditional funeral for myself is usually very sad,

somber, and melancholy.

2. In Malidomas seminary, all the boys live on the campus, however this particular

seminary is run more like a military school. Malidoma attends a religious seminary

similar to a boarding school in our culture. The priests are the teachers and are not afraid

to lay their hands on the students as punishment. They know no boundaries and one,

Father LaMartin, goes to the point of even forcing a student to remove his clothes. You

are a lazy boy, and I must teach you to obey, take off your clothes (p. 108). Basically, the

students in the seminary school had very little choice of their actions. In the traditional

schooling, Malidoma could just go to Grandfather Bakhye for anything he needed to

learn or for any advice he needed. It was a very causal and enlightening experience for

Malidoma every time he sought out Grandfather Bakhye for advice. At the seminary, they

followed a super strict daily schedule which included waking up before the sun. This was
new to Malidoma. French, Latin, and English were all also routinely used. This was also

a shock to Malidoma as all he had ever known was the Dagara language. At the seminary,

the priests followed very strict guidelines on what they taught the students. They were

taught that as a priest, you were going to have special privileges and powers. The students

were treated more like cadets in training than young boys learning to be priests. I can

compare this to my traditional education in the fact that I also had to follow the same

exact schedule each day, starting real early. There was rarely a change and nothing I

could do or say would change my schedule. In my school, however, my teachers were

nowhere near as strict and ruthless as the priests in the seminary. No one was hit and

certainly no one was forced to remove their clothes. Also, in my traditional school, I

continued to sleep and live at home with my parents rather than live at the school with

my classmates in a type of boarding school. This allowed me to separate my personal

home life from my life at school, something the students at the seminary are unable to do.
3. When Malidoma returns home after his time away at the seminary, he is not

initially greeted with open arms. Because Malidoma was away from his people and

village for around 15 years, they are suspicious of his knowledge and his motives. They

know he has been taught by the white man, another unnerving fact that made the Dagara

people even more weary of Malidoma. Malidomas mother said in a way you are not

here yet. Its as if the real you is away, still trying to find a route home, (p. 176). She is

questioning her son. They are not sure whether or not Malidoma will be able to a member

of the Dagara people while also being a member of the white man's world. Malidoma

must undergo an initiation in order to reintroduce him back into the Dagara culture and to

essentially make the transition from a boy to a man, since he was away when he was

supposed to do that. This is another type of ideological ritual, which again has the three
stages of separation, transition, and incorporation. The separation stage begins as

Malidoma and his fellow transitioners are whisked away from the village and from the

others and taken deep into the jungle. This is done in order to give them an opportunity to

repent and reconnect with their ancestors before the initiation continues. The next stage,

transition, begins with Malidoma being told to stare into the trunk of a tree indefinitely

until he sees something, but he isn't told what he is looking for. Eventually, a Malidoma

sees what he is supposed to see, a beautiful woman. In this transition stage, we also see

aspects of the concept of the womb=the tomb. As Malidoma is buried alive during the

initiation, he experiences the phenomena of being enclosed in a womb, except he was

obviously in his tomb. Another time in this initiation when womb=the tomb was clearly

evident in the final stage of the transition phase when Malidoma was told to enter a cave

which was curved like an egg. Inside this cave, he had to cross several obstacles such as

crossing a dangerous bridge of alligators. After this, Malidoma was snapped back to

reality, into manhood, and into the final stage of the initiation, incorporation. While inside

the cave, Malidoma was neither here nor there and he searched to find his way into the

next stage, manhood. The final stage of the initiation was incorporation. Malidoma

returned back to his village with a newfound pride and respect from his fellow tribe

members, elders included. Malidoma was once again a member of the Dagara tribe after

he completed this ideological ritual.

4. Unlike our culture, in the Dagara people, the parents of a newborn child do not

pick the name for him or her. Instead, they are summoned by their ancestors, who pick a

name for the child. When the ancestors pick a name for a child, they are putting upon that

child all the expectations and history which that name carries. Essentially, the ancestors

are setting the path for the newborn child. My name is Malidoma. It means to be friends
with the stranger/enemy, (p.1), we read at the very beginning of the story. Unbeknownst

to me at first, this was foreshadowing for the entire story. Malidomas ancestors picked

his name in order for him to be a bridge between his own Dagara people and the

outside world. I definitely believe that Malidoma fulfills his destiny in the fact that he

was educated by white men, and then after he returned home and was initiated, he went

back out into the outside world and continued where he left off. Malidoma carried

knowledge of two worlds, which made him very valuable in his Dagara tribe. Further on

in his life, Malidoma further fulfills the destiny of his name by graduating university with

honors as well as continuing to go all around the world to tell his story. When a new child

is being born, the ancestors all work together to figure out which name to choose and

who to essentially reincarnate. This is an important part of the ritual as they are choosing

the newborn childs entire destiny as they put the history of a name of him or her. By

choosing Malidoma, the ancestors are reincarnating a bridge to the outside world.

Malidoma certainly fulfills this destiny.