West Africa's Women of God

Robert M. Baum

Description

West Africa's Women of God examines the history of direct revelation from Emitai, the Supreme Being, which has been central to the Diola religion from before European colonization to the present day. Robert M. Baum charts the evolution of this movement from its origins as an exclusively male tradition to one that is largely female. He traces the response of Diola to the distinct challenges presented by conquest, colonial rule, and the post-colonial era. Looking specifically at the work of the most famous Diola woman prophet, Alinesitoué, Baum addresses the history of prophecy in West Africa and its impact on colonialism, the development of local religious traditions, and the role of women in religious communities.

Acknowledgments
1. Prophets, Gender, and Religious Change among the Diola of Senegambia
2. The Diola: An Ethnographic Introduction
3. Koonjaen, Felupe, and Diola Prophets in Precolonial Senegambia
4. Women Prophets, Colonization, and the Creation of Community Shrines of Emitai, 1890–1913
5. Prophetism at the Peak of Colonial Rule, 1914–1939
6. Alinesitoué Diatta and the Crisis of the War Years, 1939–1944
7. The Prophetic Teachings of Alinesitoué, Her Successors, and a Contested Diola Prophetic Tradition
Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• African Studies
• Pentecostal Charismatic
• Philosophie et théologie
• Pentecostalism
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 09 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253017918
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

WEST AFRICA S WOMEN OF GOD
WEST AFRICA S WOMEN of GOD
Alinesitou and the Diola Prophetic Tradition

ROBERT M. BAUM
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Robert M. Baum All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baum, Robert M., author.
West Africa s women of God : Alinesitou and the Diola prophetic tradition / Robert M. Baum.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01767-3 (cloth) - ISBN 978-0-253-01788-8 (pbk.) - ISBN 978-0-253-01791-8 (ebook) 1. Diatta, Aline Sitoe. 2. Diola (African people)-Religion. 3. Women prophets-Senegal. 4. Prophecy-Political aspects-Senegal. 5. Prophecy-Social aspects-Senegal. I. Title.
BL 2480. D 53 B 383 2015
299.6832-dc23
2015027314
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
To the people of the Casamance who welcomed me into their homes and families .
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
1. Prophets, Gender, and Religious Change among the Diola of Senegambia
2. The Diola: An Ethnographic Introduction
3. Koonjaen, Felupe, and Diola Prophets in Precolonial Senegambia
4. Women Prophets, Colonization, and the Creation of Community Shrines of Emitai, 1890-1913
5. Prophetism at the Peak of Colonial Rule, 1914-1939
6. Alinesitou Diatta and the Crisis of the War Years, 1939-1944
7. The Prophetic Teachings of Alinesitou , Her Successors, and a Contested Diola Prophetic Tradition
Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As I near the completion of this book, I would like to acknowledge a number of people who have made this possible. First, several thoughtful and determined women have helped to bring me to this occasion. I come from a line of powerful women, my grandmother Jessie Sachs and my mother, Beatrice Baum, and I had the good fortune to marry another powerful woman, Peggy Thompson Baum. Peggy has been a wonderful source of loving support and an excellent critic on this long journey, and she has facilitated both my frequent trips to Senegal and my long hours hiding in my study. Before their passing, my brother, Andy, and my father, Myron, exemplified a path of professional excellence and demonstrated their continued confidence in my abilities to see this through.
In Senegal, I could not have done this work without the extraordinary warmth and support of the people of Kadjinol, especially my adoptive family: Dionsal and Diongany Diedhiou, Elizabeth Sambou, Alphonse Diedhiou, as well as their children and grandchildren. Many of the people who helped me along the way are no longer with us. They include Dionsal, Diongany, Alphonse, and many of the elders who provided deep insights into Diola culture, religion, and history. Among those who have passed are Antoine Houmandrissah Diedhiou, Siopama Diedhiou, Adiabaloung Diedhiou, Kapooeh Diedhiou, Paponah Diatta, Boolai Senghor, Anto Manga, Andr Bankuul Senghor, Sikakucele Diatta, Badjaya Kila, Sawer Sambou, Pakum Bassin, Sooti Diatta, Agnak Baben, Fulgence Sagna, and Wuuli Diatta. I would be remiss not to thank those who I hope will see this book published, including Terence Galandiou Diouf Sambou, Gnapoli Diedhiou, Siliungimange Diatta, Sebikuan Sambou, Rosine Rokhaya Diatta, Rose Marie Khadi Diatta, and Atome Diatta, archivists at the Archives Nationales du S n gal, especially Saliou Mbaye and Babacar Ndiaye, who have shared their deep knowledge of this rich source of historical materials. I wish to thank the readers of this manuscript, Ramon Sarro and Bruce Lawrence, for their useful commentaries. The late Marilyn Waldman and the late Alan F. Segal played critical roles in mentoring me in the early stages of my career, and I wish that they had seen this project through to completion, but they were taken from us way too soon. I would also like to thank David Robinson, my dissertation advisor, who has provided constant friendship and advice through the ups and downs of my journey through academe.
All of this work could not have been conducted without the research support of the various institutions where I have worked, including Iowa State University, the University of Missouri, and Dartmouth College. I have also benefited from support from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Residential Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard University s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research; the American Academy of Religion, the American Philosophical Society, and Northwestern University s Institute for Advanced Study in the African Humanities. But it all began with a small summer study grant from Wesleyan University and then a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship that allowed me to spend the year after college living and conducting research in Senegal.
I would like to thank my editor, Dee Mortensen, who has been a supportive and insightful colleague. I would also like to thank Darja Malcolm-Clarke, my project editor, for her diligence and support. I would like to thank Jonathan Chipman, who drew the maps, and Lee Gable, who prepared the index. Finally, I would like to thank my copyeditor, Margaret Hogan, who has worked miracles with this manuscript. I am truly amazed by her thoroughness, insight, and, above all, patience.
It has been a long journey, full of interesting detours. I hope they have made this a better work.
NORWICH, VERMONT , 2015

Portions of the article Prophetess: Aline Sito as a Contested Icon, which appeared in Toyin Falola and Fallou Ngom, eds., Facts, Fiction, and African Creative Imaginations (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 45-59, are reprinted by permission of Routledge.
Photograph of Alinesitou courtesy of the Archives Nationales du S n gal.
All translations from Diola, French, and Portuguese have been done by the author except where noted.
WEST AFRICA S WOMEN OF GOD
ONE
Prophets, Gender, and Religious Change among the Diola of Senegambia
After finishing my doctoral dissertation on religious and social change in a pre-colonial Diola community in 1986, I returned to Esulalu, my research site and home base, in southwestern Senegal. I had planned to write a second book on Esulalu focusing on religious and social change in the colonial era, including the growth of Diola Christianity and the prophet Alinesitou Diatta. When I arrived, however, people insisted on talking about a new group of women who claimed that Emitai (the supreme being) had sent them to teach about rain rituals and the reform of Diola community life. These women said that their dreams, visions, and auditory experiences came directly from Emitai. They claimed their experiences were part of a tradition extending back to Alinesitou Diatta, a woman who had taught during the Second World War and been celebrated in Diola and Senegalese culture since her arrest and exile in 1943. These women came to revive local rain rituals directed toward Emitai so that It would end the recurrent droughts that plagued the region. I was already aware of male prophets who had been active before the French conquest, and Alinesitou Diatta, but had been unaware of other women prophets who preceded her or followed her, and the importance of this tradition for Diola communities. 1
In the mid-1980s, a woman named Todjai Diatta, from the Department of Oussouye, gained a substantial following in many Diola townships. She revived a ritual, known as Kasila, in which people gathered in a public ritual to ask Emitai for rain. Other people, mostly women but some men, claimed messenger status, insisting that they were sent by Emitai, just as Alinesitou Diatta had been in the midst of the Second World War. 2 Southern Diola gathered together to renew the Kasila ritual, which they performed in each sub-quarter of each township. They sacrificed a black bull, some pigs, and chickens, which the entire community consumed together for several days, accompanied by the singing of songs honoring the ancestors. Nothing of European origin could be used or worn at the ritual, as Diola asked Emitai to send rain to break the increasing frequency of drought and restore them to a position of self-sufficiency in the cultivation of rice. These prophets emphasized the importance of renewing the rituals of Alinesitou and claimed to be her spiritual successors. By the 1990s, prophetic movements had spread to many northern Diola communities, particularly in the area known as Buluf, which had experienced massive conversion to Islam in the period after the First World War. 3
My realization that Alinesitou was not an isolated individual but part of a longstanding tradition of prophets, labeled with the epithet Emitai dabognol (whom Emitai had sent), demanded to be studied. I knew of no other African religious tradition that had so many claimants to privileged communication from the supreme being. This long tradition of prophets fundamentally challenged the scholarly received wisdom on the nature of African religions, the role of the supreme being within them, and the nature of traditional societies. Furthermore, I had begun some collaborative work with the late Marilyn R. Waldman, comparing the prophetic careers of Muhammad and Alinesitou , which I wanted to develop in terms of this exceptionally rich tradition