Is it appropriate to make Ndimba-Pimba, the branding of our country? In other words, can this famous baga mask which symbolizes the goddess of fertility serve as an identifier for the Republic of Guinea?
For my part and it goes without saying, I immediately answer yes. For two simple reasons: the Baga civilization is also founding, our secular constitution puts all icons, all rites, all beliefs on the same footing.
The Bagas are for the Guineans what the Nemetes are for the Germans, the Bretons for the British, the Gauls for the French, the Iberians for the Spaniards, and the Nabataeans for the Arabs. They are with the Nalous, the Coniaguis, the Bassaris, the Tyapis, the Badiarankés, the Lélés, the Kourankos, the indigenous peoples of this country. Everyone else came. This means that their iconography expresses better than any other the taste of this land and the soul of its people.
The controversy raised by an imam of the place and which, at this very moment, ignites the web, is therefore unhealthy, totally useless. It is a debate that does not add anything good to our political and religious life. It is even shocking and I fully understand the anger of our Baga compatriots who came out in droves to defend their culture as first nations (as it is said in North America and Australia). Because, behind the facade of this unfortunate controversy, hides a basic problem: the survival of our African heritage in the face of cultures and religions from elsewhere.
It’s unfortunate to say but the observation is there and it is more bitter than castor oil and aloe: strictly national values still only survive in Lower Guinea and Forest Guinea (but until when?). Everywhere else, they have disappeared under the devastating effect of a very misunderstood Islam. Especially among our Fulani compatriots where only Islam has been transmitted, where nothing remains of Fulani. Hence the heavy cultural handicap that this community drags behind and which alone explains all the problems it encounters today. And yet, the great Karamoko Alpha of Timbo, whom no one can suspect of idolatry, had said and repeated many times: “All our values which are not in flagrant contradiction with the five pillars of Islam must be saved, protected and promoted “. He added something else that it is urgent to remind the generations of today: “We are Fulanis who have become Muslims, we are not Muslims who have become Fulanis”.
Amadou Hampâté Ba was so aware of the depth of this crisis that, pious Muslim as he was, he spent his life trying to save as much as possible, the Fulani mythology in danger. Thanks to him, I learned that the Fulani pantheon had a creator god, Guéno, assisted by 27 lareedhis including Koumen, the god of pastures, Kaïdara, the god of Knowledge, Foroforordou, the goddess of milk, Kethiol, the god greenery etc. I learned that among my ancestors, Sheytane was not a devil but a she-devil with the well-indicated name of Inna Bassal (the Mother of Calamity). Without the great Malian scholar all this part of my ancestral heritage would have sunk into the bottomless pit of oblivion.
I envy my Baga compatriots for still having their Ndimba-Pimba, our Guerzé compatriots, their Niamou, our Tomas compatriots, their bird-god and our Kissis compatriots, Niâléwo, their rain goddess. Valuing our ancestral legacy is not offensive to Islam. Bagas masks, Coniagui figurines or Guerzé priests have all the right to appear in our public squares and on our coats of arms as, in the context, they should not be considered as objects of worship but as cultural emblems.
I urge our Ministers of Culture and Education to open an anthropological museum for each of our communities and to teach the Nalou, Tyapi, Peul, Mandinka, Guerzé, Kissi, etc. cosmogonies. to our children. We have the right to know how our ancestors lived, thought and prayed before the arrival of Islam and Christianity.
Do not confuse Islamization with cultural mutilation!
Tender Monenembo