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gon gon/I. Signs from God in the Life of an African Child

Question 1.3

1.3 Could you describe the ancient religious rituals of your ancestors, in particular the important rite of passage into adult life?

The Coniagui people are very religious and devoted to God, who is called Ounou. However, they can come into contact with him only through their ancestors.

The God of my ancestors is the Creator of the universe and of all that exists. He is the Supreme Being, ineffable, incomprehensible, invisible, and intangible. Yet he is at the center of our lives and permeates our entire existence. It is common in Coniagui culture to encounter theophoric names such as Mpooun (“God’s second”), Taoun (“God’s third”), Ounouted (“God is the one who knows”), and Ounoubayerou (“are you God?”).

Religious and ritual life is essentially divided into two spheres: funeral rites, on the one hand, and initiation rites, on the other.

The funeral rites consist of sacrificial offerings, consisting of libations of animal blood or of millet beer. These offerings are poured out on the ground or at the foot of a sacred tree, on an altar or on a wooden stele representing the village ancestors. The objective is to appease the spirits, to give thanks to God, and to ask supernatural forces for blessings. In fact, there are three rites or types of offerings. The rhavanhĂ« performed at funerals is an indispensable moment, for it opens the door of the village of ancestors to those who passed away at a certain age; they do not celebrate the rhavanhĂ« for those who have died at a very young age or as adolescents, probably because of their innocence, that is, their inability to do serious and deliberate evil-after their death, they are readmitted to the ancestors’ village without there being need for a sacrifice. Then there is the sadhĂ«kha, celebrated as a thank offering for blessings received, for example, on the occasion of a birth, or to ask for a blessing on important actions. Finally, the purpose of the tchĂ«va is to obtain the end of natural disasters such as drought and invading clouds of devastating crickets that devour the crops and the leaves and fruits of trees. It consists of a nocturnal procession through the fields and the village to ask for God’s protection over the farms and the work done there. This ritual resembles the rogation processions that were held in the Catholic Church until the Vatican II Council and that still exist in other countries, such as Mexico. It is celebrated by women and presided over by the loukoutha, represented by a special ceremonial mask; the loukoutha is a spirit in human form, dressed in natural fibers or leaves so as not to be seen or recognized by the women and non-initiated children.

Additionally, a young man’s initiation ceremony is a critical moment in the life of the Coniagui people. It is preceded by the circumcision ritual, designed as a test of physical endurance. Even though circumcision is performed around the age of twelve without anesthetics, the boy must not cry, no matter how much pain he experiences. This operation begins a two- to three-year transition period to prepare the boy for his initiation; the goal is to bring about a radical transformation of the boy from childhood to adulthood. The adolescent then becomes a man who is fully responsible for himself and for his community.

Folk dances start Saturday afternoon and last all night. Then the adolescents are led into the forest, where they stay for a week to be trained in suffering and to learn endurance, self-denial for the sake of the common good, and scrupulous respect for the elderly, older men and women. Initiation is an apprenticeship in the customs, traditions, and manners of the community. The adolescents also learn how to treat certain diseases with medicinal plants.

Initiation might appear to be a good thing; in reality, however, this ritual is a ruse, a hoax that uses lies, violence, and fear. The physical trials and humiliations are such that they do not lead to a real transformation or a free assimilation of the teachings, which ought to involve the intellect, the conscience, and the heart. The process instills servile submission to traditions, for fear of being cast out for not conforming to the rules. During the initiation rite, the keepers of the traditions lead the women to believe that the young adolescent dies and is reborn to a new life. According to animist beliefs, the initiate is eaten by a spirit, the nh’ëmba, and then restored to the community with a new spirit. The ceremony for the return to the village is especially solemn, because the young man appears for the first time before the community, physically pretending to be a different man endowed with new powers.

The initiation rite is an obsolete practice that is incapable of answering life’s most important questions or of showing a Guinean man how to be integrated properly into a world full of challenges.

Indeed, a culture that does not promote the ability to make progress and to be open to other social realities, so as to welcome its own transformation serenely, becomes closed in on itself. Yet an initiation rite makes us slaves to our milieu, walled up in fear and in the past.

The Spiritan missionaries enabled my people to understand that Jesus alone truly gives us the gift of being born again, born “of water and the Spirit”, as Christ says to Nicodemus (Jn 3:5).

Initiation has always been a secret rite that entails knowledge and customs reserved exclusively for the initiated. An esoteric education in a secret circle of initiates cannot help but give rise to doubts about its value, its substance, and its real ability to transform a man. The Church has always opposed this kind of gnosis. What is worse, with regard to the initiation of girls, some practices must be prohibited. Indeed, the ritual seriously violates the dignity of a woman: in a perverse way, the initiation rite ruins the most intimate aspect of her physical integrity.

For my part, I was brought into the forest by my uncle, Samuel MPouna Coline, who is still alive.

In fact, Father had agreed to let me be initiated, provided that the ceremony be brief. As a seminarian, it was unthinkable that I should miss Mass for a whole week. Father and I were already convinced that the Mass was the only moment that transforms man on this earth. My own initiation therefore lasted merely three days.