Waiting for Mom and Sheryl and Fire Festival

I'm in Tamale now, waiting impatiently for tomorrow morning when my mom and sheryl get here. They arrived safely in Accra and called me from the hotel this morning. I hope they enjoyed their day in Accra and didn't get ripped off too many times for cabs and whatnot. They arrive in Tamale around 7:15 tomorrow morning and I will be at the airport waiting eagerly. Then in the afternoon we will leave for Mole National Park and see the animals. On Monday we'll make our way to my site and stay there for a while. Then we'll make our way south back to Accra, seeing Kumasi on the way. More details will come, I'm sure, but I've changed the plans too many times so far to think they won't change again.

As for my life recently, there was a great festival a couple of days after christmas, well named as the Fire Festival. The history of this festival is that a long time ago the chief's son was lost and the village all went out looking for him at night and carried torches for light. After a long time of searching, they found him up in a tree and they were so excited they had a celebration. So, now every year they have this celebration where the traditionalists sacrifice animals during the day to get "juju" from them that will protect them from any harm. At night, everyone dresses with their juju items and carries torches. They parade down the street with their torches, burning everything and everyone (not badly) on the way, and throw the torches into a tree outside the village. Somehow, the tree does not catch fire and all the grass that catches burns out without spreading to houses or anything. Then, they pick fresh branches from another tree and carry them to the cheif's house and other leaders houses. At those houses, people have made concoctions that they sprinkle/pour on the villagers while the villagers dance and people play the drums. The next day you are supposed to boil water with the leaves from the branch that got concoction on it and bath with that water so that you will be protected for the year. It was a ton of fun and dangerous at the same time.

Before the fire part of the festival, I watched some traditionalists sacrifice chickens for the juju. For the first chicken, they did a chant and cut its throat and dripped the blood onto they're juju items. For the second chicken, they did a chant, cut its throat, and let it flop around to see how it landed. Depending how it landed it may or may not give them juju. However, I think they told the chicken to get me before they killed it because when it was flopping, it kept landing on my feet and when I would hop out of the way it would turn towards me and land on my feet again. I couldn't get away from the thing. So, I had some chicken blood on my feet and leg and had a dying chicken flopping all over me. I think I must have extra juju for that.


Sorry it's a blurry picture, but its hard to get pics of people and fire at night while walking. But this is the parade of people about to throw the torches into the tree.


This is the traditionalists bleeding the chicken onto their juju items.