4.2.7. DJIMINI GIVES A CLOSE-UP OF THE STRUGGLE

MEMORIES THAT ILLUSTRATE A UNIVERSAL STORY

The narrators' most significant statements are in italics.

Aubin, p.431.

The villages are all on a trade route.

Background

Traders arrive from Kong toward 1700-1740. The luxuries they bring strengthen the elders, who use them for fines and dowries. 

When the traders become more numerous, stronger control appears. At a village on the trade route (Kondougou) a chief replaces the elders: His wives grow provisions for the newcomers and his sons bring the kola from the forest.

# # #

Fighting breaks out. Toward 1830-1840 (?*). 

*Peasant time is based on seasons, not series of years. So unless dates are connected with events, such as after traders come from Kong or before the advent of Samory (please read on), narrators do not know when they took place.

A document in the Dakar archives states that Gnapon's son (Nambolosse, whom we will come to) was killed in 1878, when he was "too old to fight." So one can place Gnapon's victory when he would have been been young and energetic, when there would have time for the evolution described here and that would correspond to deeper change in the north: Please read  on.

# # #

Tofanga is captured. His opponents take him to their village. But he has a friend, the warrior Gnapon. Gnapon hides behind a tree and signals his presence by singing a pagan song. Tofanga sings back. 

• The "pagan" song shows a fight between Muslims and animists. 

The details of the rescue change from village to village, but all mention the "pagan" song. So Tofanga and Gnapon were animists, their opponents Muslims, that is, traders. Their village would be a commercial center that was small but expanding. The casus belli must be economic.

• That reason must be that Tofango rejects the cowrie currency.

Narrators did not know when they came in, simply saying that they were widespread by Samory's time (please read on), the 1890's. Their appearance would coincide with the traders' arrival, and conflict breaking out once they were well established.

• Tofanga voluntarily cedes power to Gnapon, who as a warrior represents might.

Gnapon howls. When residents of the enemy village leave to see what is happening, Tofanga escapes. He tells Gnapon that he could give him a wife [the traditional reward] but as"a woman might come between us," he cedes power instead.

Here too the words are always the same: "A woman might come between us." The defeated Tofanga has no power to cede, but insisting on the voluntary transfer shows that the animist population approves the stronger authority.

Gnapon's village, Bokhala, becomes a market, which a marabout strengthens with his prayers.

The marabout sells beads and other articles of little value. So he is a Dyula, or petty local trader. The Soninke and Hausa have no importance yet.

# # #

Gnapon's coming to power gives merchants divisible currency and the stronger chief who can prevent boycotts, thefts, closing routes and ambushes. For the Senufo his power puts a brake on more disruption.

At about that time, Hausa are expelled from certain kingdoms and millenarian movements begin.

The upheaval in Djimini is part of wider transformation.

# # #

As well,

the region's primitiveness and obscurity 

means there are no distractions

 to a conflict that occurs

wherever comparable conditions exist.

End of this section.

*     *     *

The next section,

IV.3.

Cycles of growth, conflict and new power