Sentencias que resuelven las demandas de Hábeas Corpus presentadas por

The final category of local stories I want to discuss concerns those related to physical features of the environment, especially their origin. This includes landscape characteristics such as rivers, hills, specific trees or forests, and savannahs. Moreover, it deals with certain natural phenomena that can be regularly observed, such as the rainbow or dust clouds. In this section I will discuss some examples of these stories.

Many of these stories were an outcome of one of the methods used in each village during one of the beginning sessions: environmental mapping (see for methodology section 3.1). The drawings made by the villagers often reflect important elements of the environment. Questions could be asked about why a certain tree has been drawn, or why a certain place has been represented in a more prominent way than another. In Annex 2, an example of a drawing from Ndjolé is shown. A second way through which many of these stories were collected was walking around and asking questions about the environment.

In Central Province the most important environmental features found are connected to the origin of the village; they include trees, sacred savannahs and forests, and hills. Many of the stories about these features can be considered to fall in the category of historical stories that have already been discussed. Among others I refer to the story in Ndjolé about the tree that started growing on the site where the chief’s head was buried (see section 4.6).18 Furthermore, there is the story about a sacred tree that was originally in Nguila, which was finally cut by an employee of the logger Michael (see Box 5.14 for the whole story). The sacred forest of Nguila is right on the top of the sacred hill where the village once had its beginning.

Apart from being described in historical stories these sacred places, as well as other names of forests and trees can play a role in fiction stories. An example is Baliki. In Ndjolé, there are stories about a sacred savannah that is situated around Bissagne and Mbajana, an area of about 6 km that is purely savannah, called Whedome.

Apart from historical stories and fiction stories about special features in the environment there are also more mythological stories dealing with the landscape. In Zimado, a village in the floodplain in the Far North19 there is a typical landmark, a hill, about which the story presented in Box 5.15 was told. As we can see, this story has a rather mythical character in spite of the fact it deals with a very local situation in the past. Moreover, it could be considered as an end-of-the-world story, related to the stories dicussed in the former section.

18 _{This place is still a sacred place. It is right next to the old cemetery.}

Box 5.14: About witches and trees

Nguila: Visoe Martin, age 35, male, Babouti.

We left with a group of four, including my elder brother Adia, Sansaré and others. We went by bicycle to drink palm wine about two kilometres from here. We drank about 10 litres. It was about eight o’clock. We drove with two bicycles that had light in the front. When arriving at the hill of Yare, before getting at the top, we smelled something like perfume. That smell! They said it came from the Hausa that were walking in front of us. We did not know that it was from the bad spirit, you know. So we saw somebody who was very tall, tall, even taller than a person. We asked ourselves who could that tall person be? The two with the lights on their bicycle fled. They left us. I wanted to cycle very fast but my feet missed the pedals and I fell on the ground. When I stood up I looked and saw that type that was standing there in front of me, like that. I felt two times. I stood up and pushed my bike running on the ground. I could not get on to my cycle. After twenty metres I jumped on my cycle and I arrived. The other four said that really, we should not talk. If we did we were going to die. This experience made us afraid for our lives. The figure was about 6 metres tall. It is what we call Nkader. We were so afraid. There was fire, three flames on his head. He had no skin, it was like a cloth, completely white. It was only the fire point that we could see. The person, he still lives, is Abdoulai. There is a tree with prickles there, near to that house with several storeys. Well, the people did not know. They said you should not cut that tree because sometimes in the night there are sorcerers that stay there. If we cut that tree they will take revenge. But someone decided to cut that tree. He is there, he is still alive. He said that he would cut that tree, the one that was next to him. The people said: “No, don’t cut it.” He did. When he was busy with his saw, waahh, the people were there aside to watch and see the wood was already cut down. First there was an owl that came out of the tree itself. On the wood there were larva and scorpions crawling, lots of them. When the tree fell, the owl left and flew into the forest. The scorpions were crawling and said: “You see, we told you not to cut that tree. Now you see the mystic power.” He managed to cut the tree. He was supposed to die. The sorcerers watched over the tree. Among the people who die were also some of them but we do not know exactly who they are. It is not for sure the sorcerers even live in this village, but we can never know who is a sorcerer. It is only at night, they come together. The tree has been cut and they have left. The owl has not returned. There were I am sleeping there is an owl at Mr. Jean’s house. Nothing has happened yet. Before there were wild animals with chains. Now everything is over. Before the people transformed themselves into panthers, with chains, but they do not come here anymore. The sorcerers stay far away, they don’t come to the village now. They stay very far away. If you go hunting you can find the panther, the lion, the hyena, the buffalo but no elephants anymore.

Another rather mythological story, related to religion as well, is the story about the ‘inselberg’ in Mindif. Mindif, about 20 km from the provincial capital of Maroua can be easily recognized by the so-called ‘pique du Mindif’. This pique is known by villagers from

Mindif, as well as from the surrounding villages, including even Pette, to be the home of the so-called Dutal. This Dutal is described as an enormous vulture that lives in a hole on the top

of the pique, fettered to a big iron chain. According to the stories, God has put the Dutal there

a long time ago in order to guard the world. It has to stay there, because if it should break free, then on that day the world will end. The Dutal is continuously fed by other smaller

vultures that always bring the first part of their prey to the Dutal.

Villagers from Mindif (including Dide Chardi, an eighty-year old woman) remember how, about some fifty years ago, there was a group of Americans that wanted to see the vulture. During their two week stay, they organised a ceremony with drums and dances. The moment they finally started to climb the real pique, there was a sudden supernatural force

like a very strong wind that pushed them down. People in the village started playing faster on the drums, and then they could even see other people dancing on the mountain. The Americans never managed to reach the top.

Box 5.15: Story about Zimado

Zina: Noukouri Whabou, age 67, male, Kotoko.

A long time ago people settled in Zimado. There were always some vultures around, eating dead bodies. The villagers noticed this and started speculating about whether these vultures lived in the sky or whether they had their residence somewhere far away in the mountains. In order to find the answer, they decided to do an experiment. They started making a long rope out of millet twigs. They worked on it for years until the rope was long enough to reach the sky. At one end of the rope they made a trap to catch the bird. They put a dead body on the ground to attract the vultures. One vulture put his leg in the trap and was caught by the rope. He flew up and took the rope with him. The people watched the rope rolling off and they saw it going straight up. Finally it stopped and the people concluded that the vulture must have come home and that it was thus living in the sky. Since the people were sure a vulture must have a tree to rest on, they wanted to see a branch of this heaven tree.

They started pulling the rope in and the vulture resisted by holding a branch of the tree. Finally the branch broke and the vulture fell down to earth, together with the branch. That is how the villagers discovered the residence of the vulture. God, however, was not happy that people discovered this secret and in order to punish them he sent a heavy tornado that covered the whole village with sand. Years later, one could still pass the sandy hill and hear the people living in it. When the food was finished all the people died. Later on, other people came to settle down next to the hill and they founded the new Zimado. Until today the hill is still there.

Thus, nobody has ever physically seen the Dutal, and some people, especially younger

ones, doubt the real existence of the vulture. Others, however, are convinced it is there and they perceive it as a guardian of moral order. Like one villager said: if people behave badly, God will unchain the Dutal. It will come down and the world will be destroyed.

The Dutal is not the only animal that is living on the pique Mindif. In the past especially,

there were many other animals there, such as kobs and panthers. Boundi Maidougou (aged 85, Fulbe) from Mindiftold an interesting story about the origin of the ivory trade, including many animals. In the beginning it was very difficult to get the tusks of an elephant. One man was very intelligent. He had put some salt on the rocks of the pique Mindif. All the animals

from the brousse came eating the salt: antelopes, gazelles, hyenas and also the elephant came. But since the rocks are very hard, he broke his tusks. That is how people got the tusks of the elephant and the salesmen came to buy the ivory. That is why it is still widely sold until a law came into force that forbade the trade of ivory. But it is through the inventiveness of the locals that we got our ivory.

Most of the animals that originally were supposed to have lived in the area of the pique

have left for a special reason. For example, about 175 years ago, under the regime of a very fair chief Modibo, there were a lot of ducks on the mountain, locally called Bogodje. Modibo

always warned the villagers not to catch these ducks and to always treat them correctly. The day Modibo died, however, the people started catching the ducks. After some days the Bogodje all assembled, they flew three circles around the house of Modibo and finally left in the direction of the floodplain. They have never returned and since that day there is no justice anymore and many things have gone wrong in Mindif. I will come back to this in section 6.3.1.

In a final example of this category of stories I briefly want to discuss stories about a natural phenomenon that was often mentioned: the rainbow. In the Far North, the rainbow is closely related to features in the landscape since it is presumed that every rainbow starts and ends in a termite hill. In the Far North the termite hill is a place where many bad spirits live, and so the rainbow is considered to be evil. It is supposed to drink the water from the clouds and thus preventing heavy rainfalls. In Central Province, where rainfall is plentiful, the termite hill is perceived differently. Here, the termite hill is often a place where people transform themselves into an animal. Moreover, it contains powers that can help people. One story, for instance, tells about a girl receiving magical powers out of the termite hill with which she finally wins the war. In the Central Province there is no relation between termite hills and rainbows. Here stories about rainbows are related to snakes, often referring to the mythical snake Ohwoo and are based on the story about the character called Indom (see Box 5.16).

Box 5.16: The rainbow: Indom

Ndjolé: Noumana Augustine, age 60, female, Baveck.

Indom was someone who lived in higher places, I can even say that it was a snake. It is he who often makes the sound from above: Poemm! Nobody can see him.

Well, there was his wife, and her younger sister was very cussed. Indom was married but had never seen his wife. Indom lived in a room with a locked door. His family prepared food which they put in front of his door and nobody knew when he was eating. That is how they lived for a long time. His father did not see him, his mother did not see him, even his wife did not see him. He just stayed in his room.

One day his wife had gone to the field and the little sister said: “Why can’t we see the husband of my elder sister?” She started to take away the barrier in front of the door. Then Indom started to sing (song 1):

The pure and young traveller Indom, Indom

How can she live with someone she cannot see?

The pure and young traveller Indom, Indom

And he also started to sing another song (song 2)

Sister-in-law, oh sister-in-law draw back kabong le komkomkom Sister-in-law, draw back, I will get you kabong le komkomkom The father who put me on earth kabong le komkomkom Has never seen Indom kabong le komkomkom The mother who put me on earth kabong le komkomkom Has never seen Indom kabong le komkomkom

And while singing the sister-in-law sang: song 1 (repetition) And Indom sang: song 2 (repetition)

During that time the young girl removed the barrier from the door. Indom tried to push her back with the song but she continued: song 2 (repetition). And the sister sang: song 1 (repetition). The girl unlatched the door and opened it. When the door was open Indom pursued her and dragged her into the sky. That is when she took her machete and cut off a part of Indom. That part was the snake which became the rainbow. The other part took the little sister into the sky. That is why that when the rain snarls: poem! on the other side the sister-in-law answers: Ahoem!