Women, Rain and Religion: Diola Prophets in Post-War Senegal

About

This talk examines the history of a Diola prophetic tradition which was exclusively male before the colonial conquest, but has become predominantly female in the 20th and 21st centuries. Using a term "Emitai dabornol," which means "God sent him/her." Robert M. Baum has uncovered oral traditions concerning more than 75 indigenous leaders who claimed direct revelation from the supreme being and commanded them to teach. Baum focussed on three of them: Alinesitoué̄ Diatta, who emphasized a week-long rain ritual while rejecting French Colonial agricultural development schemes, only to be exiled to Timbuctou where she died at age 23; Berthe Alinesitoué̄ Diatta, who played the earlier prophetess in a 1960s local theater and who in the 1980s had visions of her own from Emitai; and Todjai Manga, who was the most successful post-colonial prophet, launching a revival of rain rituals and new teachings about Diola agriculture in a time of frequent drought and climate change. This video was made possible through the generous support of the Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative at the Lilly Endowment.

Archive

Library of Congress, in Library of Congress

Licence or status

Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.

Credit

Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed