My sorcerous feat was that I was finally able to “smell” dulfana, the trace essence of magical operations. We took a walk out of town, because inside it’d be like trying to find a pickle blindfolded in a garlic factory. I found a little bag of fenti U. buried under an acacia, just like a truffle pig. Ridiculously pleased with myself. Now I realize the source of that itchy not-quite-odor I have been sensing for the past day or two.
On the way back, a guy steps out of some bushes and starts following us. I smell dulfana strongly off him, and I ask U. if he’s a sorcerer, too, and U. laughs and says no, just a paarolawats. This word means “destroyed person” in Olokan. When the wind shifted, we were bathed in the sour smell of dead meat. U. did not seem particularly concerned. I asked him why the thing was following us. He said it was Durakne Den, the witch, spying on us, riding in the paarolawats. It was, however, a very old one and falling apart, so we were in real danger. I asked was it dead, and he laughed. No, Jeanne, the dead sleep, they don’t walk. Only, the person who used to be inside is locked up, and the witch rides him like a horse. Never let them touch you?he’s very clear about that.
U.’s fairly limited French vocabulary won’t handle magical concepts to the requisite depth. Lucky me, I don’t have to know that stuff yet because we’re only working with komo, which is anti-sorcery stuff, both the substance and the methodology. I have to learn that first, because if I were to try any actual sorcery without being protected, I would be a sitting duck out there in m’doli, which is apparently a kind of Dodge City place.
In our spare time we do Ifa. I am supposed to memorize the verses like U. has done, but I cheat and write them down. U. does not throw Ifa for me. He says he already did, but won’t tell me what the oracle said.
I brought the subject around to this witch, Durakne. U. seems reluctant to use his name, calling him m’tadende (the “outside one”) or “our dontzeh. ” Apparently, Durakne is the only surviving dontzeh child now in Danolo. U. trained him, and he was a good pupil. Now a rival, it seems. Oedipus in the Sahel? Need to query U. on moral structure. Failed again to get him to discuss history: why did Olo leave Yorubaland? Also seems preoccupied, sometimes stops talking and falls into what seems to be a light trance. Making lots of komo, preparing little packets and burying and hanging them around the compound. The war is heating up, it seems. Durakne apparently behind it, with some of the other sorcerers, who should, according to U., know better. Our arrival associated with this in some way, but he’s mum on the details?changes the subject when I ask, pretends not to understand. He’s good at that.
A day in the life, Danolo
My period started today, and if I am as regular as I usually am, I estimate this is the 33rd day of our visit here. Henceforward, I will keep track. Moon full. U. is a little nervous of me, and I wonder why, until Sekli takes me aside and says it is my flux. All very well to make me an honorary man but the spirits are not fooled. She gives me elaborate instructions about what to do with my “cloths” so as to prevent witches and grelet from taking advantage of this vulnerability. I must spend next three days with the women, however, which I do not mind at all. I spend most of my time with Tourma. She seems, unlike most of the people here, to possess the sort of innocence much prized by anthropologists who go native and Rousseauian. I suspect that is a personal, rather than a cultural, detail; perhaps that sort of anthropologist picks out people in the native village that even the native villagers think are a little fruity. In any case, Tourma is happy, trilling all the day long. She weaves on the horizontal loom, long strips of multicolored cotton that she sews into bags, shawls, and sashes. It is quite thrilling to watch figures appear under her fingers.
While she works, I worm out of her some Olo info. Their cosmology is quite similar to that of the Yoruba, their psychology not so. Psychology, a funny word. We use it as a placeholder for talking about thinking and emotions, learning and dreaming, although as far as people are concerned there is not much in it. We don’t really (except for Jungians I suppose) believe in the reality of the psyche, that the psyche has the same reality as cobalt or North Dakota. The Olo do, and here they seem to be right in line with the Chenka. Ogga again, but here they are called grelet. The Olo think that grelet invade the mind and grow there like Guinea worms do under the skin. They grow by attracting your attention, making you worry about whether you are handsome enough, or sexy enough, or smart enough, or have sufficient cattle or children. You can starve them out by concentrating on the moment, on the unfolding m’fa. Or you can have a sorcerer remove them. A grel is an independent entity. The stronger ones can take people over, and work mischief.
Tourma asked me what kind of grelet there were in the land of the dik. I had to tell her that in my part of Diklandia they did not believe in the grelet at all. She thought this hilarious. Do they believe in colors? she asked. In water? In beans? A riot among the ladies amp; I laughed, too.
Day 34, Danolo
Took Tourma to my little house (my bon) to see my treasures, but she wasn’t that impressed. She wanted to know if I had made the Bic pens and lighter, the colored pencils, the various articles and implements, and was bored when I told her no, and even more at my halting attempts to explain late capitalism. Merchants do not have high status among the Olo. The visit ended badly, when I showed her my Olo artifact, which I did quite innocently. I saw it in my bag and asked her what it was. It is apparently an idubde. She cried that out, backed away, and ran like hell was chasing her back to the big bon.
Later I made up with her, but she would not tell me what an idubde was for. Sekli scolded me for showing it to Tourma?the worst possible thing to show to a pregnant woman? ch’andoultet.Didn’t I know anything? Not much.
Tourma sings to the child within her and talks to it. It’s a girl. She knows this. She hopes she will make sefune with this child. It occasionally happens and is considered a terrific omen. Tourma also sings to the birds, the clouds, the bushes and rocks. She says they sing back to her. Can’t you hear them, Gdezdikamai? No, I can’t.
Day 36, Danolo
Dreamed about Dad last night. Nothing Freudian, just floating peacefully over him as he went about his business, supervising Frank the groundsman at Sionnet and having lunch (tunafish on toast and bouillon) and working on the ‘29 Packard. Extremely peaceful, but lonely-making. Am out of contamination now, so I told U. about this dream and he scoffed that it wasn’t a dream at all, but merely bfuntatna, soul-travel, and not a message from the orishas. On the other hand, the fact that I could do it boded well for my magical career. He is in a talkative mood today, or rather a discursive one. He’s never surly, but often he speaks gnomically or in riddles. He missed me? Maybe he is bored, maybe he is tired of the sorcerers’ war that’s been brewing, and I offer some relief. Comic relief? An experiment, teach a woman ndol, like teaching a dog to talk?
His view of time. Every moment in time is accessible through the m’doli, which exists outside normal time and space. Ifa is the guardian of time, which is why we go to him for oracles, but he also guards the past. Why does the past have to be guarded? asks the novice. He gave me a pained look. Because it can be changed. But that is adonbana. An act that afflicts the world, he translated. The reason for our travels. He used the word ilidoni, literally “going down,” but that is also used as if capitalized to reference the hegira of the Olo from Ife of glorious memory to this place, Danolo, or Den ‘aan-Olo, “where the people have to stay.” I lit up, of course, because I thought he was going to let me in on the unspeakable secret, but he did not. He said, I will tell you when you require it. How will I know this? You will know, and he wouldn’t say anything else.