A tale of two chiefs

 Traditionally in Burkina, each village or town has a chief. Back in the olden days, the chief had quite a bit of power, but nowadays with mayors, governors, and other government officials present, the chief holds mostly ceremonial duties (though in smaller villages, the chief is probably still the village VIP). Villagers might go to the chief to settle disputes among neighbors, or ask him to bless someone or something. The chiefdom is passed down through specific royal families in each town, though the manner of choosing the next chief varies from town to town.

In Diapaga, the Coulidiaty family holds the rights to chiefdom. However, there are many Coulidiatys here, which led to two groups entering in the election. The elderly men, we'll shorten their names to Al and Am, began their struggle for power.

According to one version of the story, an old chief, Al's father, was very sick. His children refused to help him get better, so his last decree before his death was that the chiefdom would pass from his family to the other Coulidiatys. And so it happened, and there was peace for years. However, then this chief passed away about 2 years ago. After an appropriate morning period, elections were planned and Al and Am both entered the race. (Side note: In voting for elections, people literally stand behind their choice. At the designated time, those eligible to vote show up and form a line. The candidate who has the most people behind him wins.)

In the election of May 2011, Al had the most votes. But then Am accused him of fraud, saying that Al had bussed in people from other towns to vote for him. The election was deemed invalid and no one was elected. Apparently there had been an election about a year before that, which had also ended in a stalemate.

Then in April 2012, Al decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to the Gourmatche king (yep, each ethnic group has a king) in Fada, the regional capital, and got himself declared chief of Diapaga. To retaliate, Am went to the chief of a neighboring town, who traditionally has the power to recognize the chief of Diapaga, and also was crowned chief. This meant that there were two chiefs in one village. According to the townspeople, this just is not acceptable, and only one can be considered chief. Most people recognize Am as the legitimate chief, and some say that if Al doesn't give up his claim to the throne and apologize, magic will end up killing him. Others believe the gods are unhappy with the situation and thus are withholding rain from Diapaga until things are settled. (side note: it has since rained a decent amount here so this is probably less of an issue now)

And that's a good segue into a larger discussion of the role of magic and traditional beliefs in Burkinabe society. An oft quoted statement about Burkina's religious beliefs is that the population is “50% Christian, 50% Muslim, and 100% animist.” While not strictly true, many do manage to be devout in their religion while not discounting the power of sorcery. One of the chief's duties is to perform animal sacrifices to ask for rain or other otherworldly bequests. Most families have what is called a 'totem', or something specific they aren't allowed to do, or face misfortune. Usually, this takes the form of food they aren't allowed to eat. For example, legend has it that in the olden days, a war took hold of the area. The Yonli family was fleeing the fighting when they came to a wide river. Crocodiles swam up to the shore and offered to carry them across. Ever since then, crocodiles have been the Yonli's 'totem' and forbidden food. People often also consult fortune-tellers to ask what they should do in certain situations.

A Gourmatche-specific fortune-telling technique is reading the sand. The process is as follows:

1. Think of a question you would like to ask the sand. Popular topics (with PCVs at least) are life after Peace Corps, future career paths, and of course, relationships.
2. Touch the sand while thinking of your question, but don't ask it out loud yet. And this part is important-you must ask it with your heart. Less than full concentration during this stage could yield unsatisfying results.
3. The sand-reader starts communicating with the sand, making marks in it and tallying the results.
4. You tell the sand-reader what your question was and he interprets what he read in the sand to give you an answer.

Like with all fortune-tellers, there are varying degrees of accuracy. Some PCVs have been told eerily accurate facts about their life from a sand reader, while other predictions have turned out not to come true. Burkinabe have told me stories of people who didn't heed the sand-reader's advice and were met with unfortunate circumstances. Of course though, everyone has to choose for themselves whether or not they believe in the power of the supernatural.