Déébaadééb (the rituals)

Some of my 9th graders are currently reading Leslie Silko’s Ceremony. This is a pretty difficult book for any 9th grader to tackle. I even taught this book to my 11/12 graders in World Literature a few months back, but a handful of my 9th graders are seriously sharp and I thought they deserved a challenge.

I don’t want to talk shop too much (talk shop = teacher talk) as I know that can be seriously boring to listen to and more so to read. Anyways, they’ve been having some trouble relating the struggles the protagonist experiences with their own life. To a high schooler this translates to mean that the book is dumb/mad boring. Long summary short: Ceremony is about a Native American WWII veteran who returns to life on the reservation. He struggles to exist with a secure peace of mind from his experiences in the Philippine-Japanese war and yearns to find a true sense of identity from his Laguna Pueblo heritage. Tayo finds he is able to get his life back on track by revisiting the ceremonies, the rituals that are important to his people.

I pressed my kids to think about ceremonies, rituals that may exist in their cultures and what they truly mean. The group is composed of a Malian, a Senegalese, a Senegalese-American, and an American of Indian decent. After some prodding and probing they discovered they had more in common with Tayo than they thought. One student told the group of how his mother kills a lamb before every time he (or any family member) travels out of town. Another talked of marabouts and seetkats whom some believe hold mysterious powers. I found their discussions intriguing as these kids are well traveled, highly bright, but a bit tainted as well by our American Western World of thought. None of them openly expressed belief or disbelief in these ceremonies or rituals, but all could agree that they were significant in some way, shape, or form.

A few weeks back I visited a Seetkat. Her name is Awa and she is of the Baye Fall brotherhood of the Mouride sect of Sufi Islam. Brothers (and sisters) of the Mouride sect follow the teachings of Cheikh Amadou Bamba. Awa throws sacred ocean shells and from the pattern in which they fall she is able to give insight to one’s life. Many Senegalese (and West Africans) regard highly the abilities and advice of these Seetkats, which is the Wolof word meaning, “person who can see the future”.

I’ve visited several psychics in the past – never for reassurance or a true fortune telling, but more so for the experience. I usually walk away with feelings of excitement, doubt, curiosity, and suspicion. There was something different about Awa, however. Perhaps it was the simplicity of the room in which we sat. There were neither dreamweavers hanging from the wall nor was there strong incense burning. Maybe it was the unassuming manner in which she interpreted and read the shells. She was not trying to convince me of her abilities; she merely used her abilities the way in which she understood them. Maybe even, it was her tone, her movements, her facial expressions, or a certain look that struck me as intense and very aware of the people in her presence.

After Awa finished, she advised me to make a sacrifice to acknowledge the powers that be and to fulfill the prophecy – as was explained to me through a translator. I was to give one red kola nut and one white kola nut to two different older women. I trekked to a local market with a friend and bought the most beautiful kola nuts I could find. I kept them in the fridge over night so that they would remain firm and not spoiled.

The following morning I delivered the red kola nut – wrapped in a small piece of newspaper – to the woman who runs a sheebeen just below our apartment. I took the wrapped nut and placed it in her two hands and said Yalla am na jox la Amen, which means something along the lines of, “from Allah this is a gift to you, Amen.” Sama Yaay graciously accepted the kola nut and repeated her own prayer, which I did not quite understand.

Next, I delivered the white kola nut to another Boroom butig, side street shopkeeper, who sells ndambe, a local bean-and-bread breakfast. She is a heavy-set woman with a loud voice. I approached her the same, gave her the wrapped white kola nut and said the same prayer. Again, she was very gracious and she repeated the same prayer that the first woman uttered.

What intrigued me about this was how they revered the gift and the process, the ritiaul of the giving of the sacrifice. This is a meaningful ritual in their lives, even if it is given to them from someone outside of their religion and their culture. While I wasn’t obligated to follow through with this sacrifice, I felt I needed to as respect to Awa, to her beliefs, to her abilities, and to her cultural rituals.

Ceremony
I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They aren’t just entertainment.
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
All we have to fight off
Illness and death.

You don’t have anything
If you don’t have the stories.

Their evil is mighty
But it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
Let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then.

He rubbed his belly.
I keep them here
[he said]
Here, put your hand on it
See, it is moving.
There is life here
For the people.

And in the belly of this story
The rituals and ceremony
Are still growing.

What she said:

The only cure
I know
Is a good ceremony,
That’s what she said.

-Leslie Silko