Zarma - Songhay culture:
Hippopotamus hunt
(part 1)
Message: due to a dispute about
copyrights, this video (all four parts) is presently not
available. Excerpts of the movie can be viewed via two other
sites:
Baŋawi, Hippopotamus hunt, part 1
To hunt a
baŋa, the baŋawi
or bangawi in Zarma, is a dangerous adventure. An
animal of several tons may attack the hunters. Therefore the
hunters
(sorko)
built a big boat with thick sides that will resist
such an attack. They use wood of the
tokey or tokkay tree. Harpoons (harji) are
constructed with a float made of a bundle of light stalks.
To kill the hippo they use a spear (yaji or yagui)
Preparations take a long time and include a possession
ritual lasting for hours and devoted to Harakoy Dikko,
deity of the Niger River and mother of the
Tooru spirits. These are the nobles of the spirit
world, the deities of nature. The possession ritual finishes
with the
Hauka spirits, the spirits of colonization or spirits of
force.
Background information
This video is part 1 of
Jean Rouch and
Roger Rosfelder film titled "Bataille
sur le Grand Fleuve" (literally Battle on the Big
River) made in 1952. The other parts can be viewed as well. The film was shot on a mission of the
French Institute of Black Africa (L'
Institute Français d'Afrique Noire) near Ayorou
in 1950-1951. The length of the original film is 33
minutes, the video shows the first eight and a half minute.
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Bataille sur le
Grand Fleuve (part 1 to 4) |
|
Baŋawi, part 1 |
Baŋawi, part 2 |
Baŋawi, part 3 |
Baŋawi, part 4 |
About the film
The Sorko fishermen[a] hunt
hippopotamuses on the Niger river with harpoons. Before their
departure, a ceremony is held to question the spirit of the
river as to the success of the hunt, which results in the
capture of two hippopotamuses : a woman possessed by the spirit
of the river dances and the fishermen spray magic water on
her to stoke up their own courage. One female hippopotamus
is killed and a young one captured alive. But an old male,
solitary and fierce, despite his numerous harpoon wounds,
succeeds in escaping after damaging the hunters’ great
dug-out canoe. [source:
France Diplomatie].
|
|
The sorko are an ethnic group of fishers,
who are assumed to be descendants of
Faran Make Boto. They are praise-singers to the
spirits of the Songhay-Zarma world. |
More information
[1] Stoller, Paul (1997)
Fusion of the worlds. An ethnography of possession among
the Songhay of Niger.
University of Chicago Press, 268 pages.
[2] Rouch, Jean (2003)
Ciné-ethnography; edited and translated by Steven
Feld.