It is late evening in Joal, a Senegalese minor fishing harbour and second-rate holiday spot. We drink bouye (sweet baobab juice) in front of a tangana, a cheap local eatery. A hobo approaches. The man has no shoes (that itself is very unusual). He sits near us inside a metal bowl used to serve food (I have never seen people do that) and starts singing. “Is he drunk or drugged?” I ask Aisha and Samuel, who are with me.

“Ces choses n’existent pas a Senegal. C’est un marabouts qui fait ça aux gens”

[these things (alcohol and drugs) do not exist in Senegal. It is a marabout (a sorcerer) who does this to people]

“Tell me how this works” I say.

“A marabout is a wise man or woman. The famous marabouts from Touba and Kaolack are great religious leaders. They tell us how to live close to God. But in the villages, there are local marabouts who can do bad things to your enemies, if you pay them money. White people call them ‘sorcier‘ or ‘witch‘. The most dangerous marabouts live in Casamance. You bring them money and an object belonging to your enemy. They can make that person crazy and force him to kill himself. Aisha can tell you. She comes from a village near Fatick”, says Samuel.

Aisha begins her story: “One day I was washing my baby daughter, as usual. When I splashed water, the baby opened her eyes and mouth wide and stopped moving. My mother saw this and asked me what happened. I said I didn’t know, and I was paralysed with fear. I wanted to run to hospital. My aunt saw this too and said to first go to marabout woman, because hospital was far. I took the baby and run. When I showed the baby to the marabout, the witch laughed and said: ‘C’est moi qui a fait ça. Tu dois payer 500 francs‘ [It is myself who has done this to the baby. Now you will pay me 500 francs]

“I cried and gave her 500. She took the baby in her hands and did something, touching her spine. The girl started moving. Then she put gri-gri (a magic object) in the water. Then she gave me this water. She said that I now have to wash the baby in this magic water, not using soap. I did this and the baby was back to normal in a few days.”

After Aisha finished her story, I asked: “Are you not afraid to live near the witch? And what do other villagers think?”

Aisha said: “Later, we all threatened her and she stopped her magic. This is what happened.

“This marabout (witch, sorciére) has done harm to many people, and she always laughed and we had to pay her. Everyone paid because we were afraid of her and her husband who was also a marabout. But one day they went too far. The woman cast spell on one man’s baby girl, but the man did not know it was her. That man took the girl to hospital but no one could help. The child was crying and in pain for many weeks. His father did not know it was a spell.

“Finally the man turned to the marabout. The witch laughed a lot and said: ‘It is me who has done this to the baby. You need to pay so I heal the girl.’ He paid but it was too late. The marabout with all her magic could not heal the child, because the disease was too advanced. The baby girl was getting weaker every day and still suffering a lot.

“Then this man said to the marabout: ‘you have done too much evil in this village. If my baby girl dies, you will die too.’ Soon everyone in the village came on his side:

Tout le monde du village a venue a la maison des marabouts et on l’as menacées!

(Everyone in the village came to the house of the witch, and we threatened her!)

“Many people said to the witch and her husband: you have done evil to my child, and to my neighbor’s child, and now it is too much. If this child dies, you both will also die.’ The marabouts were very frightened.

“In the end, the girl did not die. But the marabout husband and wife promised to stop their magic forever. And they kept their promise. Since then, all the diseases stopped and children are well. The marabout woman still lives in the village with us, but she is now harmless.”

I listened to Aisha’s story with fear. I do not fear the witch. I fear the people.

Post Scriptum

Some comments: In common speach, a gri-gri means any object thought to contain magical powers. It is often worn as necklace. Casamance is the southernmost and most remote part of Senegal, where the Islam is still weak while old religious practices are most prevalent. The images are random, they do not represent people from the story. Names of people and places may have been modified.

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