A story of discovery in West Africa

“Are you prospecting for oil?” asked the man sitting next to me on the flight to Timbuctoo. Being the only other Westerner on a plane of 12 passengers, and an oil prospector himself, he probably felt there was little else to explain my traveling to a place where the temperature at noon was 120ºF.

My visit to Timbuctoo was motivated by much more than the curiosity to experience a far-off and exotic place. Nonetheless, like all foreign visitors, I felt drawn into the mystery it evoked. I also knew that the scenes of Mali, among the 10 poorest countries in the world, would be a sharp contrast to New York, where I live. I traveled to Mali for an extended stay in the spring of 2006, 40 years after my father first arrived there.

Doctor in the Land of the Lion

My father, Dr. Pascal James Imperato, is a physician who specializes in tropical infectious diseases, epidemiology, and public health. When he arrived in Mali in 1966 at the age of 29, it was with a formidable task ahead of him. He was given responsibility for organizing and implementing a smallpox eradication and measles control program by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Having previously completed a medical fellowship in Kenya and Tanganyika Territory in East Africa in 1961, he was familiar with the challenges of healthcare delivery in an unforgiving part of the world. While the challenges of providing medical care to the peoples of Mali were great, my father was well prepared. His fluency in French was a great boon, and after only a short time in Mali, he became conversant in Bamana, the nation’s pervasively spoken tribal language. Following medical school and internal medicine residency training in New York, he completed specialty training in public health and tropical medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans. At Tulane’s renowned School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, my father was taught by the world’s leading parasitologists and tropicalists. Above all, however, was his unwavering sense of duty to help those in need, and his ability to do so with extraordinary compassion. As I discovered, this compassion left an indelible mark on the collective memory of the people of Mali. To work in Africa as a physician was the realization of a childhood dream for my father, as he had long been captivated by the adventures of those who had traveled and lived there. Among them was his maternal grandfather who was born and raised in French Colonial Africa.

After a period of six years of extraordinary experiences, including numerous brushes with illness, my father’s mission in Mali was completed. He and his 24 mobile medical teams had traveled throughout the entire country by truck, plane, canoe, and on horses, camels, donkeys, and on foot. They delivered preventive and curative medical care to millions of people —from the cliff-dwelling Dogon people to the nomadic Peul herdsmen. In order to do this, it was crucial for my father to understand the complexities of the indigenous cultures of Mali. He took an intense interest in this study which continued throughout his stay. The government of Mali was then Marxist and strongly anti-American, and foreign visitors were few. For a time, the government kept guards posted outside his home in the capital city of Bamako on suspicion that he was a CIA operative. As the only American physician in the country, my father was eventually given free rein to travel extensively throughout the country. He was thus able to study its rich cultures first-hand, and to document previously unrecorded cultural phenomena.

My father and his teams vaccinated the entire population of the country against smallpox, measles, yellow fever, cholera, and epidemic meningitis. His efforts leading to the eradication of smallpox were particularly significant. Smallpox has killed more people than any other infectious disease in history, and its global eradication is widely heralded as the greatest public health achievement of the twentieth century. For his extraordinary work, my father was awarded the Meritorious Honor Award and Medal by the U.S. Department of State. He later told of his many experiences in Mali in a book, A Wind in Africa (W.H. Green, 1975). Upon returning to the U.S., he became the Director of the Bureau of Infectious Disease Control of the New York City Department of Health, and later Commissioner of Health of New York City and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. Over the years, he has traveled to Mali several times to assist the Malians with a variety of health projects.

During the time he lived in Mali and in the decades since, my father completed exhaustive ethnographic and art historical studies, especially of traditional medical practices and masking traditions. Having published numerous scholarly articles and some 20 books on these subjects, he has for many years been considered a leading world authority on the history and arts of Mali. Over the years, my father has donated many art objects he collected in Mali to museums throughout the country, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Smithsonian. He serves on the board of the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute, Kansas, the hometown of famed wildlife photographers Martin and Osa Johnson, whose books and films thrilled American audiences from the 1920s through the 1950s. The museum, rated as the best in Kansas, features the Imperato African Hall, which contains over 350 pieces of African art donated by my father.

In 2003, he served as a curatorial advisor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the widely acclaimed exhibition “Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture.” His color films documenting dances with Bamana antelope headdresses and the music that he recorded in the bush on reel to reel tapes were a centerpiece of the exhibition. In fact, it was Dr. Alisa LaGamma, the Associate Curator of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan who first gave me an inkling of the reception that awaited me in Mali. Having recently conducted fieldwork there herself, Dr. LaGamma met many Malians who overwhelmingly praised my father and eagerly anticipated my arrival.

A Dream Reborn

Just as it had for my father, Africa lured me with its history as the land of gold and salt caravans, of scholars and mud mosques, of rich traditions and artistic masks. It was my father’s dream reborn. My imagination soared as I avidly read accounts of African exploration. However, it was through my father’s own stories that the continent’s unmitigated natural awe and fascinating cultures truly came to life. As a courageous explorer of the immediate post-colonial era, his exploits were worthy of emulation. He tucked me in one fall night when I had just turned five years old and told me what it was like to find his way through the dark rural countryside by moonlight. That night, I dreamt that I was in rural Africa, finding my way by the bright moonlight that once guided him.

My career as my father’s “little helper” in African art scholarship began at a very young age. Initially, it was simply the siren call of a foreign and magical place that drew me in. As I grew older, my fascinations evolved. I came to realize that in addition to being home to an array of natural wonders, it is the warmth of Mali’s people and their cultural richness that make the country so distinct. I met many of my father’s friends from Africa when they visited the U.S., helped him to photograph objects and prepare them for donation, and I accompanied him to gallery openings, lectures, and museum exhibits. Soon I was old enough to take on editorial duties, and I reveled in his scholarship. Being exposed to my father’s work allowed me to have intimate contact with the study of a place so fantastic and so different from anything I had ever experienced, that I would often wonder what it would actually feel like when I went to explore it for myself. When that day came, it was more amazing than I could have imagined. It was almost two decades after my career as his little helper began, that I felt the relentless midday sun beat down on me as I watched masked Dogon kanaga dancers leap into the air, and then swing their cumbersome masks down into the scorching sand in the village of Sangha.

Back to the Future

I arrived in Bamako in the dry season, when day temperatures in the cooler southern regions of the country reach as high as 105ºF, and in the northern regions exceed 110ºF. Mali is a landlocked country that shares borders with the nations of Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Algeria, and Mauritania. With a total land area of almost 500,000 square miles (roughly equivalent to the states of California, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska combined), Mali is one of the largest nations in West Africa. Most of the terrain is desert or semi-desert, and the country is inhabited by a diverse range of ethnic and tribal groups. Mali’s administrative divisions include eight regions which are subdivided into 49 cercles. The cercles are divided into some 288 arrondissements. My travels would take me from Bamako in the south, to Mopti, Djenné, and Dogon Country in the east, Timbuctoo in the north, and throughout Bamana Country, the wide swath of territory in the south inhabited by the country’s most populous ethnic group. I was afforded quite a few modern conveniences during my travels, including riding in an air-conditioned 4x4 and having access to bottled water in almost every major town I visited. Such things were unheard of in my father’s time.

My hosts, Madame Hawa Sow and her family, warmly welcomed me into their compound in Bamako, which would serve as the launching point for my travels. Dr. Ousmane Sow, the former Director of the Endemic Disease Service of Mali, and an advisor for the World Health Organization, worked very closely with my father. Dr. Sow, who had a degree in public health from Montreal, served in a number of countries in West Africa for many years. He and my father regularly corresponded until his death over two decades ago. Since that time, our family has remained in close contact with his widow, Madame Sow, and her children, Aida, Fatou, Moussa, and Cheikna, who were all incredibly helpful in organizing the logistics of my trip. Madame Sow currently lives in a large compound with her sons Moussa andCheikna nearby. Cheikna’s three-year-old son, also named Ousmane, was a great companion to me at the Sow compound, despite being unable to appreciate that my father and his grandfather had together saved the lives of millions of Malians nearly a half-century earlier.

On the first day of my arrival, I received a gift of a live sheep which was promptly tethered to a tree outside the house. I asked Ousmane what we should name it. “Le Mouton,” he replied (French for sheep). Thoughts of getting to know its habits, however, were promptly dashed when barely an hour later, I witnessed its slaughter and preparation for the welcome feast that evening. The gift of a sheep is a high honor, and custom dictated that there be feasting and sharing of the bounty with neighbors and friends.

Bamako’s street scene is one of chaos, with cars, pedestrians, sheep, donkeys, and boys with pushcarts all clamoring to reach their destinations. Amid this hustle and bustle, I was guided through the city by two extraordinary men. Throughout my entire life, the names “Amadou” and “Modibo” have had a mythic quality. I had known them through my father’s stories, and they had known me through my father’s frequent phone calls, letters, and photographs. During my visit to Mali, I spent considerable time with these men, who were and still are very close to my father. Amadou Sanogo was my father’s cook and assistant, and Modibo N’Faly Keita was his driver, mechanic, and interpreter. Beyond their work relationship, they were the best of friends. When Amadou and Modibo learned that I was planning to visit Mali, they were thrilled. Modibo had traveled through every district of the country with my father, and he announced to him that he would accompany me on my travels. “I traveled everywhere with you,” he told my father. “So I will travel everywhere with your son.”

Amadou comes from a large family of traders, and he is now the proprietor of a well known store in Bamako that sells indigenous crafts. His grandparents used to take donkeys from his village in Mali to the Ivory Coast, and trade cereals and gum Arabic for kola nuts. Knowing of his association with my father, many people refer to him as “Imperato” or “le docteur.” Amadou is now the head of his extended family in the District of Segou, and in the capital city of Bamako.

Modibo’s great grandfather was Togunta Keita who was the headman of Kita, a major town in Western Mali. He signed a treaty in 1881 with the French General Gallieni granting the French control of much of Western Mali. Modibo’s father, Mamadou Keita was an interpreter for the French Colonial Government. Modibo, who is descended from the ancient emperors of Mali, is now the head of his extended Keita family by reason of age and frequently travels to Kita to oversee family affairs.

Amadou’s and Modibo’s welcoming of me, as for all of my father’s friends, was overwhelming. Amadou greeted me at his family’s compound in Bamako. He immediately began to cry when he saw me, and kept telling me “Je suis très content” (I’m very happy). Modibo told me that he was so pleased to have me visit, and that it was a great honor for him to travel with me. Just as he had been for my father, Modibo was a steadfast and loyal partner. During the time he spent with my father, he became quite accustomed to his rigorous daily routine, and I think the time we spent traveling together allowed him to feel that the daily rhythms of a time long past had been restored. So close were he and my father as travel companions, that when Modibo now travels through the country alone, he is often asked “Ou est le toubabou?” (Where is the white man?)

At night, before going to bed, I would write in my journal. This was how Modibo had seen my father end each of his days. Modibo lay on his bed, across the room, and watched me quietly. He would ask what I was writing, and made sure that I did not neglect any of the day’s experiences or observations. Modibo was also quite accustomed to all the logistical challenges of ethnographic research in Mali’s harsh climate, and for him, copious photography and video shooting were not puzzling endeavors as they are for many Malians. Modibo had, after all, been present to witness legendary Life magazine photographer Eliot Elisofon in action. Elisofon, who was a founding trustee of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., had worked with my father in the bush producing a film called The Bend of the Niger.

As we toured Bamako, Amadou and Modibo reminisced about their experiences with my father. We visited the many places that were once fixtures in their daily lives, including my father’s home and the American Embassy. We visited the National Museum of Mali and I was guided on a private tour by the museum’s Deputy Director, Mr. Abdoulaye Sylla, an old friend of my father’s. Mr. Sylla took great pride in my visit, and made a point of informing each of the guards that I was an important visitor of the museum. With the temperature outside soaring to 110ºF, there were not too many visitors that day, important or not. The museum, which in my father’s time consisted of only one room, is now a sprawling modern structure, and is one of the city’s major attractions for foreign visitors. Mr. Sylla guided me through a hall dedicated to indigenous sculpture, and noted the various contributions made by scholars toward the understanding of the culture of each of the country’s ethnic groups. Toward the end of the tour, he joked about the seemingly endless number of times he said the name “Imperato.” “Your father has truly done many great things for our country,” he told me.

Land of the Blue Men

As I stood on the tarmac at the airport in Mopti on my way to Timbuctoo, I decided to check the ambient temperature on the thermometer I had brought along. I watched in disbelief as the mercury rose past its maximum of 120ºF and shot out of the glass. Upon arriving in Timbuctoo, I soon found out that I was the only foreign visitor there at the time, the oil prospector having gone on farther north. Timbuctoo is an ancient city with a rich history, and it has for centuries been a focal point in trans-Saharan trade. Its permanent residents are of a wide array of ethnic groups, as are the many nomadic traders for whom the city is a vital center of commerce amid vast stretches of completely uninhabited desert. The most colorful are the Tuareg, who are also known as the blue men of the Sahara, because the indigo with which their turbans and garments are dyed rubs off on their skin giving it a subtle blue hue.

My Tuareg guide Tabala was at the airport to greet me, as were dozens of other people claiming to be my guide. With the midday sun rising almost directly overhead, the brightness and heat were overpowering. I secured as much bottled water as I could, and began drinking, despite the water being hot enough to make tea. Along with Tabala and my several other Tuareg guides, we headed into the Sahara. They were all thrilled to welcome me to the far-off place whose inhabitants my father once vaccinated. While I was atop a camel, I decided to test out the international dialing capability of the cell phone I had purchased in Bamako. I called my sister Alison, who was by my calculations just arriving back in her SoHo apartment after work. I was able to connect with her, and told her I was on a camel in the Sahara. She was much less shocked than Tabala and the other guides, who looked up at me in utter disbelief when I told them I was speaking to my sister in New York. Tabala gave me a Tuareg bracelet to bring back for her.

Tabala and I sat on the side of a dune watching the sunset, and our cross-cultural exchange covered an array of topics. By this point in my travels, my facility with French had improved significantly. My six years of study in the language were certainly paying off. I was amazed by Tabala’s stories of being in the desert for weeks at a time on salt caravans. He, in turn, was fascinated by my descriptions of New York City. He was astounded by every feature of life in the city I described, particularly that cars flow steadily through the streets of Manhattan at all hours of the day and night. He was so shocked by my descriptions of the layout of the city’s streets, that I thought I would clarify by making a drawing in the sand. I never imagined that I would have such a captive audience while describing the five lanes of traffic that stream by on Third Avenue below my apartment.

For Tabala, New York seemed just as exotic as Timbuctoo was for me.

Dogon Cliff Dwellers

In sharp contrast to the desolate northern part of the country, the southeastern portion of Mali is home to the Bandiagara Cliffs, one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. The Bandiagara Escarpment, which runs parallel to the Niger River, is home to the Dogon people, whose elaborate customs and masking traditions were first described by renowned French ethnographer Marcel Griaule. Following the work of Griaule, and his collaborator Germaine Dieterlen, my father completed exhaustive studies of Dogon belief systems and masking traditions in order to understand why some refused vaccinations. When he vaccinated the population that lives on and below the 120 mile long cliff system, he was assisted by Ogobara Dolo, a distinguished figure in Dogon society. Prior to independence, Ogobara had been appointed the paramount chief of the Sangha district by the French. Today, Ogobara’s sons Sekou Ogobara Dolo and Aboubakar Ogobara Dolo have succeeded him in his many diverse administrative responsibilities. They also welcome a large number of international visitors who annually come to Sangha to trek throughout the cliff system where they are able to visit a number of villages and observe their customs and rituals. Both Sekou and Aboubakar were thrilled to meet me. They organized an elaborate dance ceremony in my honor, featuring a variety of the 78 different masks used by the Dogon. One of the most magnificent of all the Dogon masks is the sirige mask, whose vertical superstructure rises some 20 feet. I remember a summer afternoon when I was five years old helping my father to photograph and pack up a sirige mask that was given to him by Ogobara Dolo. He donated this mask to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. As a five-year-old, I could scarcely comprehend how anyone could balance such a mask on their head, much less dance while wearing it. When I observed sirige dancers in the noontime sun in Sangha with the Dolo brothers by my side, I was reminded of that afternoon twenty years earlier when I was awestruck upon seeing a sirige mask for the first time. I never imagined that I would one day see them danced in Sangha.

My visit to Dogon Country was special because I was able to observe and document Dogon masking traditions as they exist at the present time. It was also special because it was in Dogon Country where my father had worked something of a medical miracle decades earlier. At the end of a harrowing day of travel through near impossible terrain, my father and Modibo were approached in their truck by a frantic group of villagers in desperate need of help. Two Dogon farmers had gotten into a dispute regarding the boundary of their fields. A violent altercation ensued between them, and a small army of men soon gathered on either side wielding hoes, knives, and swords. During the altercation, one of the farmers, a man named Poundiougou, was severely injured. He was brought to my father in critical condition, amid the frenzy of his panicked family members. He was struck with a hoe in the back of the head, and the crushing blow fractured his skull into several pieces and macereated a section of brain tissue. To compound matters, his genitals had been lacerated as well. Poundiougou had been rescued in the nick of time, as his assailants would have surely castrated him. My father had to act immediately, knowing that Poundiogou’s fate would have been uncertain even if he were under the care of a neurosurgical team in a major hospital. There was no choice but to begin operating. Without a specially fitted plastic plate that would have been available to an operating room physician, my father had to file down the sharp edges of the skull where it had fractured. He sent someone off to a local blacksmith to obtain a file, and boiled it. He smoothed the broken pieces of bone, and sutured the scalp back together. He then repaired the laceration to Poundiogou’s genitals. Given the patrilineal nature of the society, the injury to his genitals was of more concern to his family members than the head wound. It was an odd reversal of clinical judgment in my father’s eyes, since the latter could have been rapidly fatal. Poundiogou was still unconscious the morning after the procedure, and his prospects for survival were slim.

Many months after the incident, a team of vaccinators arrived in a nearby village. There was great commotion, as the sight of the white Dodge trucks with red crosses on the front doors led the villagers to believe that it was my father returning. The vaccinators found that Poundiogou was miraculously alive and well, and that the doctor who had saved his life had become a legend on the cliff.

It was quite surreal to travel through the rural Malian countryside, in a land so foreign from my own, and have people come up to me and greet me like a long lost relative. Many people were dumbfounded that I had “come back.” For them, my visit embodied the spirit of all the work my father had done to improve the lives of millions of Malians. My presence made them feel that his love for Mali and its people had not been lost, and that it was alive and well across a half-century. Before my departure from Dogon Country, Sekou and Aboubakar presented me with a chief’s staff and a traditional Dogon basket that I was to give to my father upon my return to the United States.

Rivers and Mud Bricks

Following my visit to Dogon Country, I traveled to the famous port city of Mopti, which lies at the confluence of the Bani and Niger Rivers. Often referred to as the “Venice of Mali,” Mopti is situated on three islands which teem with commercial activity. The maritime feel of the city is quite unusual in a landlocked country. While visiting Mopti, Modibo and I stayed in the neighboring town of Sevare at “Mac’s Refuge,” a small rest house owned by my father’s close friend John “Mac” McKinney. Mac’s parents, Reverend Francis J. McKinney and his wife Laura, were American missionaries who set up in the village of Sangha in 1930. Mac was born in Mopti and raised in Dogon Country, and speaks fluent Dogon. While in Sevare, I met the extended family of the late Gani Diallo. Gani was my father’s Peul interpreter, and worked with him when my father vaccinated the nomad camps in the region. The Peul were greatly afflicted by smallpox because of their nomadic lifestyle. This lifestyle also made it difficult for my father to vaccinate them. Gani helped my father study their nomadic routes so that an effective vaccination plan could be developed. I visited a Peul nomad camp on the parched flood plain of the Niger River. As soon as I stepped out of the truck, a horde of children came rushing toward me yelling “Toubabou! Toubabou!” For many of the children, I was the first white person they had seen. One young girl rubbed my arm, and then looked at her hand as if she were expecting my white skin to come off.

Before I left Mopti, Gouro Diallo, one of Gani’s sons, asked that I take an envelope to the United States to mail for him. (Despite improvements since my father’s time, internationally bound mail is occasionally pilfered before leaving the country). The letter was addressed to Dr. Kristina Van Dyke, Associate Curator of the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. I recognized the name immediately, and told Gouro that I knew Dr. Van Dyke personally. She had met the Diallo family while doing fieldwork in Mali, and we were both surprised to make such a connection. I assured him that the letter would be delivered safely.

A few hours by road from Sevare lies one of the most fabled cities in all of West Africa. Djenné has long been a major center for education and commerce in Mali. It is perhaps best known for being home to the Great Mosque, the largest mud brick structure in the world. Constructed almost a century ago, the mosque is widely viewed as one of the most impressive architectural achievements in all of Africa. Modibo and I visited Djenné on the day of the weekly market, and witnessed the convergence and exchange of goods from all over the region – from fish to textiles – in addition to enjoying the city’s rich history.

Agricultural Gods

In 1970, my father published a seminal article in African Arts magazine titled “The Dance of the Tyi Wara.” From a very young age, tyi wara was a very familiar phrase to me and my siblings. The tyi wara is an intricately sculpted antelope headpiece which symbolizes tyi wara, a mythic figure in Bamanaya, the traditional religion of the Bamana people. A supernatural being who is half man and half animal, tyi wara taught the agriculturalist Bamana people how to farm. The dance is ancient, and its meanings are rooted in a highly complex belief system and worldview. As with many of the traditional practices of Bamanaya, the dance of the tyi wara is an increasingly rare occurrence, and so it was a very powerful experience for me to document its performance in the modern day. It was performed in my honor along with a variety of other traditional dances in Western Bamana Country. Just as in Dogon Country, the Bamana dances brought to life the magic of a culture I have known all my life.

Mud Cloths Then and Now

One day in 1967, while accompanying Modibo on a visit to his family’s compound in a section of Bamako called Lafiabougou, my father happened to notice a woman across the street in the process of creating traditional mud cloth. Gneli Traoré, who would soon become a very close friend of my father, was hard at work on one of the most celebrated textile traditions in the world. Bogolanfini is a patterned cloth whose designs are made with mud. These designs represent historical events, morality tales, social situations, and encrypted symbolic knowledge. My father studied Gneli’s art for almost 35 years until her death in 2002. Recently, he authored a book, African Mud Cloth: The Bogolanfini Art Tradition of Gneli Traoré of Mali, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers in Tenafly, New Jersey. The exhibition, which showcases the full range of Gneli’s artistic talent, comprises the only known collection of her work in existence. In the spring of 2006, I assisted museum director Robert Koenig with the installation of the exhibition. Only days later, I was in Gneli’s family compound in Bamako, observing the creation of traditional cloths firsthand. Gneli’s relatives were very pleased that I was with them in Mali on the day that the exhibition of her magnificent and historically important works opened in the United States. I was also able to meet the next generation of artists in Gneli’s workshop, who were hard at work on modern derivative bogolan cloths each day I visited. The bogolan style of cloth has been commercialized, and I was able to collect many examples of its use in items of modern living, including wallets, bags, and hats. Several of these items are now featured as part of the exhibition at the SMA Father’s Museum.

A Village Unspoiled by Time

One of the more memorable experiences of my journey to Mali was the time I spent in Amadou’s rural village a few hundred miles from Bamako. The visit enabled me to experience an isolated place where there is no electricity and no running water, and where life is much the same as it was in my father’s time. Amadou’s relatives greeted me as if I were a celebrity. Soon after my arrival, I was given a sheep and then seated in front of a display of food while more than 100 villagers watched me eat in silence. All the while, a handful of young children fanned me to cool me off from the mid-afternoon heat. I went on walks with the village elders in the early evening, and again at sunrise. Each time we were accompanied by a throng of boys from ages five to 15. Having learned some Bamana from Amadou, I tried to strike up a conversation with them. They wouldn’t respond to me, but rather stared at me with admiration. Amadou told me that they had such respect for me that they wouldn’t dare speak to me in front of their older brothers or fathers. After returning from our evening walks, I would sit with the village elders in Amadou’s compound. The young boys of the village gathered around, and sat in complete silence as they listened to their elders speak. They stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, that I began to wonder when they would become bored. “They are so happy that you are here,” Amadou said. I went over to my backpack, and took out several boxes of cookies that I had purchased before leaving Bamako. “They will never forget you for the rest of their lives,” said Amadou, as I placed a cookie in each of their hands. When it was time to leave Amadou’s village, there was a great sense of sadness among everyone. As Modibo, Amadou, and I began to pack our things in the truck, Amadou’s extended family gathered around us. Several of the children I had befriended stood closely by my side and began to cry. I looked up at Amadou and I could see tears in his eyes.

Twin Research

One of the research projects that my father undertook while in Mali was a study of the culture of twins among the Bamana and Malinke, two of the country’s major ethnic groups. While I was in Mali, I was able to document the continued adherence to many of the cultural customs regarding twins. The Bamana and Malinke greatly value twins, and have elaborated a range of cultural beliefs and practices to assure their survival. Rates of twinning among these two groups average from 15.2 per 1,000 births to 17.9 per1,000 births, compared to 10.5 per 1,000 births (without assisted reproduction) in the United States and Great Britain. Twins (flaniw) are regarded as extraordinary beings with unusual powers, and as a gift from the supreme deity. A small altar (sinzin) is maintained in the home of twins, and periodic sacrifices of chicken blood, kola nuts, millet paste, and millet beer are regularly made to assure their protection. Albinos (yefuge) and true and pseudo-hermaphrodites (tyétémousotéw) are also considered twin beings. However, they are believed to be the result of aberrant parental social behavior.

The Bamana and Malinke believe that all four groups—twins, albinos, hermaphrodites, and pseudo-hermaphrodites — are closely linked to Faro, an androgynous supernatural being who provides equilibrium in the world. Faro is the original albino and hermaphrodite who gave birth to the first pair of twins after self-impregnation. Whenever a twin dies, a small wooden statue is sculpted called a flanitokélé (twin that remains). This commemorative figure is kept close to the surviving twin, reflecting the belief in the inseparability of twins. Eventually, the surviving twin takes responsibility for the figure. When a surviving twin marries, another figure is often sculpted in the opposite sex from the deceased twin, and placed with the original sculpture. Such commemorative sculptures are not created upon the death of those who are albinos, hermaphrodites, or pseudo-hermaphrodites.

In recent years, transformational belief patterns have evolved as increasing numbers of Bamana and Malinke embrace Islam. Traditional beliefs are often given Islamic myths of origin. However, even in this Islamic context, many practices that assure twin survival are maintained. I was able to document the continued use of twin dolls among the Bamana, and photographed a Bamana woman with a young son whose twin is deceased. My father and I recently co-authored an article on the subject, titled “Beliefs and Practices Concerning Twins, Hermaphrodites, and Albinos Among the Bamana and Malinke of Mali” in the Journal of Community Health.

Like Father, Like Son

For a society that is strongly patrilineal, my visit to Mali had great importance to many people. It spoke volumes to those of Amadou’s and Modibo’s generation who deeply value a son’s admiration for his father. My final departure from Bamako was bittersweet. I felt a great sense of happiness at having met so many of the people who shaped my father’s time there. Yet, it was so hard to say goodbye, especially to little Ousmane Sow. Despite his young age, he was able to deduce from my packed luggage and emptied room that something was afoot. “Tu vas ou?” he asked. I told him that I had to travel. He replied, “Je viens avec toi.” (I’m coming with you). I boarded the plane in Bamako remembering Tabala’s urgings for me to join his salt caravan in Timbuctoo. I thought of the children in Amadou’s village, the Bamana dancers, the Dogon villagers, Amadou, Modibo, and the Sow Family. I felt sad at leaving all the people throughout the country who embraced me as part of their families, and considered me a Malian.

After arriving back in the United States, I went to visit with Madame Sow’s daughter Aida at the United Nations Headquarters where she is an assistant to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Aida mentioned that little Ousmane had been asking about me every day since my departure. I smiled as I remembered him, and all the people in Mali who filled my days there with warmth and kindness. Aida countered my profuse thanks for her family’s hospitality with simplicity and grace. “We would have done nothing less for you. You’re part of the Sow family,” she said, “Part of the Malian family.”

Acknowledgement

The author would like to extend thanks to Leonard Kahan for his assistance in reproducing several of the photographs.

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