My quest for images to add to the Mampruli Dictionary recently had me hunting for a yiiya – a traditional wooden flute. I had see one a few months ago being played by an old, nearly blind man at a funeral. Asking around and describing the guy I’d seen to folks led me to his house on the southwest side of town.
When I arrived at his home, I immediately knew he was a serious practitioner of African Traditional Religion. He had about ten ancestral shrines scattered throughout the courtyard – each covered with eggs, fresh blood, and chicken feathers. I rarely see more than two in a home. This guy was a professional ba’abugra or soothsayer.
I was invited into a room where he was seated with another man who was there buying tiim or magic charms from him. They were just finishing the transaction and the soothsayer was spitting chewed bits of of kola nut on the small, leather-bound trinkets containing magical powers imbued by his ancestral spirits.
After going through standard greetings, I explained that I had come not in search of tiim but of his flute. The soothsayer was legally blind and his hearing seemed equally as impaired so his client had to repeat everything I said in a shouting voice. Once he understood my request, he went to another room and came out with the little flute. After I photographed it, he put it to his lips and started playing and dancing around the courtyard (video below).
Before leaving I asked if I could photograph some of the other items around his home. He had a old, traditional animal skin bag called a ba’akɔligu that I’ve been looking to photograph (they’ve been replaced by plastic and canvas bags for decades now) as well as some divination tools that were new to me. There was a gourd shaker called a ba’asiiyakka and a small stick that he uses when divining for the ancestors (ba’adibiga). As I asked about their purposes he and his client decided to demonstrate a divination for me.
The two sat down between two ancestral shrines in a corner of the courtyard and the soothsayer began rhythmically shaking the gourd shaker. The soothsayer held one end of his diviner’s stick and the client (aka. the one seeking answers from the spirits) held the other. The seeker would move his end of the stick from side to side alternating between touching the shrines, the soothsayer’s medicine bag, his heart and his mouth. You can watch the video below.
The idea is that the ancestral spirits work through the soothsayer’s body to provide resistance to the motion of the stick thus indicating to the seeker what his answer is. He determines in advance whether the left side is “yes” and the right is “no” or vice versa. Then if he feels some resistance preventing him from moving the stick in one direction or the other he can understand the ancestors’ answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBCEqJaRWHM