Kemerida's Kabiye Whipping Fete

On October 26^th, the village of Kemerida had its annual Kabiye Whipping Fete.

And it was one of the coolest cultural experiences I could ever hope to be a part of.

Since I first arrived at post back in August, people in my community have been asking me if I was going to be in village for the fete on October 26^th. Fresh out of stage (training), I was still wide-eyed and severely disoriented from the transition to village life. I pretty much said yes to any question I was asked.. mostly because I couldn’t understand what was being asked. When I heard “vingt-seis Octobre” and “fete”, I just nodded and assured them I’d be present. At the time, I couldn’t comprehend just how important this tradition was to my village and how critical it was for me, as their personal Peace Corps volunteer, to be there.  Guess I’m glad I automatically said yes to everything in the beginning instead of no. (Probably not the best idea though.. who knows, I could be married and not even know it.)

Once October hit, the fete was THE topic of discussion. People asked more frequently if I’d be there and I began to pose more questions to learn about exactly what it was..

The conversations were obviously in French, so give or take a few details to account for human error, this is what I learned:

For boys from traditional Kabiye families to be initiated into manhood, they must take part in this huge celebration that involves, essentially, whipping duels. Yes. Actual whipping. But it’s not as barbaric as it sounds. (At least I didn’t think so..)

Boys can start participating from age 6 and continue to do it every year until they are 22. If you decide to participate in the duels, you are matched with someone your own age/size. Even if you don’t participate in the duels, you can still come decked out with your own traditional outfit and strut/dance around the designated performance area. Every boy brings his own whip and stick-shield (?) thing used for defense. (This was recently implemented in response to the increasing awareness of HIV/AIDS and its prevention. I believe they used to use the same two whips for every duel.)

The morning of the fete, starting at 7am, each quartier (neighborhood) has it’s own mini fete prior to the main event.  This is where boys of any age who are paired up can participate. After the quartier celebrations, there is one large arena that everyone migrates to around 8am. The boys that are designated to duel here can be identified by their attire. They usually have more elaborate outfits, wear headdresses of feathers and rhino horns (I KNOW! RHINO HORNS!), have more legitimate whips and shields, and are blowing whistles. I believe they’re the boys who are near the conclusion of their initiation and maybe in their last years of eligibility.

During the duel, they each take turns lashing each other. After each has landed a few good licks, older men serving as “referees” will break up the duel. Each boy will retreat and be rushed by his friends and family. They will shower him with chants and bowing while he assumes a masculine stance and blasts long breaths of air into the whistle gripped between his teeth. During the quartier duels, this can happen several times. However, once they transition to the large arena, each boy gets one chance to publicly demonstrate his masculinity.

Some of the scars that they earn will last for life. Forever a Kabiye man. (In my earliest days at post, my homologue’s oldest son once showed me the two or three massive, raised scars down his left arm while beaming with pride. I didn’t really get it until I learned more about the fete..)

Also, the whipping fete is a custom unique to Kabiye. Villages in my area with a significant Kabiye population usually celebrate this tradition on some scale. However, the fetes in Kemerida and Pagouda are the only one’s that involve the entire village. People come from all over to see it and (though I’m not sure how it’s possible) it’s even televised.

So that’s what it is and how it works. Now for a little on my own personal experience:

The entire week leading up to the fete, I was asked if I was having a special outfit made, invited to pre-fete dinners, and repeatedly asked if I’d be present.  Any meetings I wanted to schedule or work I tried to do was postponed until after the fete. Every one was gearing up for their biggest event of the year.

A few days beforehand, my friend Judith invited me to celebrate the night before the fete at her house with her family. She told me to come at 20h and be ready for food, drink, and dancing. Iain and Alicia, other Peace Corps volunteers, decided to visit my village to see the fete, so I asked her if they could come along to. She was absolutely thrilled to be the one hosting us.

The night before, Judith showed up at my house an hour early. She said her younger brother was getting whipped tonight, so instead we were going to go to her mother’s house to watch it happen.

After at ten-minute walk through cornfields in the pitch-black night, we arrived at a compound. There were a few people already sitting outside in the courtyard that you could only make out by the light of a dim fire. There was a young man coming in and out of the gap in the wall being followed by others as they helped him assemble his outfit. They were wrapping his forearms and shins in torn white rags. Iain said he heard they had anaesthetizing properties to help minimize the pain. Turns out they were just to attach more things to for ornamentation. While all of this was going on, the three of us were served unfermented Tchouk. I secretly poured mine out behind me because it tasted terrible, but it’d be impolite for me to return a full calabash. Throughout the preparations, people continuously arrived – mostly other young men carrying whips, but not wearing any traditional clothes. After his headdress was in place, the final touch, the ceremony began! Or so we thought..

The family members, including Judith, stood and rushed the young man while screaming chants at him. He started blowing his whistle and violently pounded his feet on the concrete with the other men. The congregation worked their way around the courtyard and eventually migrated to outside the gate. In my mind, this must be it! He’s going to go outside and the other men are going to hit him with their whips. The shouting and whistling continued, but the shift outside turned into another ten-minute walk through the cornfield.

As we drew in closer from the outskirts of the village, we could here more whistling and shouting in the distance. Approaching the main road, the distance shouts began to merge into the hum of a large crowd. It was clear we weren’t the only ones celebrating tonight.

We ended up in a clearing underneath a street lamp outside the chief’s compound. There were already hundreds of people gathered there forming a huge circle. In the middle were many more young men with whistles and headdresses. Turns out that the entire fete includes the night before the official matches. The night before is more personal to the village since the main event in the morning is broadcasted and brings in a ton of visitors. I was proud to have the opportunity to be a part of it as a resident of the village and not as a tourist.

Once it seemed like most of the participants had arrived, drums were brought into the middle of the circle and the celebration began. Young women formed a long line that moved within the circle, walking and dancing simultaneously. Shortly after we’d arrived, a little girl became attached to me. Holding my hand, she dragged me to the back of the dance line and we moved with the crowd around the circle.  After one rotation, Judith pulled us out and said it was about to be dangerous for us to be in the circle. Sure enough, a few minutes later, you heard the crack of a whip. Two of the young men had rushed each other to start the duels. Pairs of young men took turns initiating their battles. One pair would go at a time and the crowd would rush to encircle each one. When the whips got too close to the spectators, everyone would run away while older men broke it up and tried to coerce the heated young men back towards the middle.  The crowd would return and quickly fill in the gaps created during the scatter. This cycle of events would repeat itself for over an hour.  Crack of the whip. Rushing. Whip. Dueling. Whip. Whip. Whip. Drums. Whip. Fear. Whip. Retreating. Returning. Crack of the whip.

After watching for an hour, tired from all the excitement and hungry from skipping dinner with the expectation of being fed, we finally headed to Judith’s.  And then got sidetracked to another quartier’s night celebration. We thought we were going to have to watch the same thing all over again. We ended up not staying long. We met up with Judith’s husband and went back to their compound. Where we actually did watch everything all over again. On video. From the year before.  There was no food because Judith didn’t have time to cook before going to see her brother. The Tchouk was all gone because all the drinking took place before the evening festivities. Wish we’d known that… So all there was for us to do was a little bit of dancing. Like most things here, things don’t usually turn out like you’d expect. I think the three of us were too tired to be good company for long, but the night was already so full of so many unexpected events that none of us were too disappointed by the lack of an after party at their place. After hanging around for almost an hour, we decided to call it a night to save some energy for tomorrow.

We headed to bed around 1am. And were expected to meet at Judith’s for breakfast at 6am..

Woke up at late. 5:50am. Perfectly on schedule, Roman, Judith’s son, showed up at my door at 6am. He actually brought breakfast to us. Bean beignets with pimante. One of my favorites. We dressed in a hurry and walked with him back to their house. Once we arrived, we were actually redirected to the neighboring compound. There were several males of all ages there getting their attire assembled just like the previous night. I recognized my homologue’s son to be one of the main participants as another man helped secure his headdress. He had on a bottle cap skirt, leather straps lay over his chest, and shin guards made of folded palm frauds. Others were wearing normal clothes and covered with baby powder. These were the men that were too older to participate in the duel, but could be a part of literally, every other aspect. Then there were a couple of younger boys wearing grass skirts with smaller whips who would just get the chance to dance around the main area. While watching the preparations, one of the older men jumped in from of us and showered us in baby powder. He got the back of Iain’s neck and Alicia and I were lucky enough to have our entire fronts covered. It’s custom for the female dancers and all male participants, no matter what age, to wear baby powder. Basically if you were going to be in the arena at any point, you were marked by white powder. We weren’t included in any of these groups, but I guess being a yovo (foreigner) was good enough to earn us the distinction.

After everyone was ready, we moved out of the compound to a large crowd under a tree. They formed a large circle with the young men in the middle, just like the night before. This quartier’s first battle of the day was about to be underway. Judith’s husband Ayim was in the center playing the drums and my homologue’s son was part of the first pair to initiate their duel. Being able to identify people in the action made this particular part of the fete even more memorable for me. I wasn’t just an American visiting Africa who got to see a cool tradition take place. I was a member of a community getting to watch her friends perform in one of the most important traditions of their culture.

The fete proceeded just like the previous evening. Duels. Break ups. Drums. Dancing. Scattering. Whips. We left halfway through this quartier’s duel to revisit the quartier from last night. Again, same thing. Just daylight. We left a little prior to 8am to make our way to the large arena for good seats.  Iain and Alicia stopped on the way for Tchouk, but because this was my village, I felt it was necessary for me to be able to see the action. I wanted to have a full understanding of the fete since it was so crucial to the culture of my village. I didn’t have to go alone though. The little girl from the day before found me again and accompanied me there.

The arena was set up behind the elementary school just off the main road. All the tables and desks from inside the school had been pulled out early that morning and arranged into a huge circle in the cleared field behind the school buildings. I kept thinking it looked like a West African version of gladiator. It crossed my mind to look for lions in cages situated around the perimeter. The seats were all already filled upon our arrival. In the back of the circle though, there was still a little space left for standing room just behind the people seated. The perfect place for two short people to get a good view. We took our places just in time for another large wave of people to fill in behind us.

We waited about 20 minutes until the crowds of men from the quartier battles began to trickle into the arena. As it began to fill up, the drums from each quartier collected in the middle. They started a beat and the crowd within the desks began to move. They danced laps around the circle. Stopping briefly in front of various groups to do a mock duel or strike a pose. Baby powder was being thrown around left and right, covering anyone that stepped through the barrier. Being at the front of the standing crowd, we were shoved forward more and more until we were hovering over the people seated in the desks. I could smell the breath of the old lady underneath me.

The pre-ceremonial dancing took about 30 minutes. Eventually, the men in the middle segregated themselves into different groups around the arena and took a seat. Each group represented a different quartier. The drums continued. A man with a chalkboard walked out into the center and circled the perimeter. This was the way to announce which two young men would be participating in the next duel.  After he completed a revolution, two young men would emerge from the crowds and take their place just off the center of the circle. They were to duel between the drums and the shaded pavilion set up for the chief and other important figures in the village. The young men stood facing each other, whips and shield raised. The old man refereeing would call for it to begin. Lash for lash the boys would duel - trying to strategically land a hit on the other while using their shield to defend themselves. Each individual match lasted only a few minutes. The ref would blow his whistle and the crowds of men bordering the arena would rush the participant belonging to them. After things settled down and people returned to their places, the chalkboard would come back around and another duel would begin. It took about 30 minutes for all the main duels to take place.

The fete finished by 9am. Well, the whipping part anyway. The drinking, dancing, and celebrating would continue for the remainder of the day. I met up with Iain and Alicia around the front of the school. We wandered through the dispersing crowds so that I could find my homologue’s son for a picture. I got my picture and we settled in for some Tchouk and bean beignets.  We found my homologue soon after and he invited us to his place to continue the celebrations. After some saluering (greeting) and Tchouk, we decided it was time to reposer (rest). My homologue’s wife, Marie, told us to come back a 23h for fufu and cake.

This was by far one of my favorite things to have experienced since being in Togo. I have a new appreciation for the Kabiye culture and feel proud to be a part of the village of Kemerida.

I’ve always wanted to travel the world, but in a way that allows me to experiences places. Not just see them. That’s exactly what I’m getting to do here.

Go experience something.

Koumealo.