Kossi-Komla-Ebri
LA SPOSA DEGLI DEI
NELL'AFRICA DEGLI ANTICHI RITI
Prima edizione
Ottobre 2006
"LA SPOSA DEGLI DEI" Nell'africa degli antichi riti - Edizioni dell'Arco
Seconda edizione
Ottobre 2009
"LA SPOSA DEGLI DEI" Nell'africa degli antichi riti - Edizioni dell'Arco.Marna
TOUBA CULTURALE ITALY srl
via Cesare Battisti 1b 20854 Vedano al Lambro (MB)
toubaculturaleitaly@libero.it
+39 3804788847
Progetto grafico, copertina e impaginazione: Alessandra Carcano
Foto di copertina: Aldo Bianchi
Stampato in Italia 2019
proprietà letteraria riservata
© Touba Culturale Italy srl
www.toubaculturaleitaly.wordpress.com
È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata, compresa la fotocopia, anche ad uso interno o didattico, non autorizzata.
A Marcella
Davide Sélom Komi
Sarah Séyénam Adjoa
Without the favor of the gods,
man is nothing
Omero (Odissea)
The spirit of the Adédjé
Leaving the asphalted road, the road leading to the village of Dugà unrolls like a red snake that slowly slips through the dense and brilliant green of the forest, bending to climb the mountains.
The road that reaches Dugà has its soul carved out by deep wounds inflicted by the overflowing waters of the Adédjé, a small river that crosses it higher up.
During the rainy season, when the cloudy and sulky sky rips open to overturn its lukewarm cascade of water rejoining the sky to the earth, from the bank of the Adédjé, the red, silty water, pregnant with logs, twigs and corpses of animals, it swells as much as I can. The flooded Adédjé, rolling down towards the valley, invades the road like a horde of barbarians, devastating, dragging everything along its path. Those who are unaware of the phenomenon find it difficult to recognize the cheerful and crystalline stream in that blood wave, muddy and threatening.
Up there in the village of Dugà, the elders say of a rebellious boy that the spirit of the Adédjé swept over him.
Kossivi, son of Mambono (mother of Mambo), brother of Mambo and Gbédé, grandson of the hunò1 Briyawo, was already possessed by the spirit of the Adédjé at the age of seven.
Today, walking through the stony and uneven streets of Dugà, we happen to meet a man of short stature, arched legs, unkempt gray beard, hollowed out face and dull eyes. The children of Dugà know him well. They call it Ñonli2 with that sparkling mix of fear and challenge that feeds the fervent imagination of childhood.
The invisible weaver who makes up the plots of our lives has many threads on its loom. No one would have thought that Kossivi, son of Mambono, grandson of the hunò Briyawo, would have ended up as a silent shadow, lugubrious, wandering prey and target of the merciless games of the children of Dugà.
The gossips say that she is a victim of her uncle's voodoo: the hunò Briyawo. Others claim that he wanted to see beyond the night.
1 Priest of divinity (voodoo)
2 Evil spirit, ghost.
