The Senoufo village of Niofoin

We are in the Ivory Coast and this morning we left Korhogo, where we were able to get to know the culture of the Senoufo; we stopped at the village of Koni, where we met a family of blacksmiths who showed us their work.

Once we left the village of the smiths we drove to Boundiali, to the West, where we will sleep tonight.

Along the way we stopped to visit the village of Niofoin; this is also a Senoufo village, but its structure is a bit different from the villages we have seen so far.

At the center of a group of huts there is a round building with a very high straw roof; here is the feticheur or sorcerer.

The people of the village go to the feticheur when they need to make requests, such as a good harvest or the arrival of the rains; usually they bring with them a chicken or another animal that is slaughtered, while the feticheur performs its rituals.

Both inside the hut and on the outside wall there are a series of fetishes depicting animals, people or initiates; furthermore, all around the building, just under the roof, there is the representation of the snake that comes from the forest, it is black with red and white dots.

At the end of the rainy season, before renovating the roof of the village huts, it is necessary to complete the repair of the roof of the feticheur hut, each year a new layer of straw is laid out; if you start to repair a hut, before the end of the works at the feticheur hut, the villagers believe that the "incriminated" hut will catch fire.

The feticheur speaks with the spirits, to do so he falls into a trance and, when he recovers his senses, he climbs on a very tall pole, that is next to his hut, and transmits the message of the spirits to the villagers.

The village is very wide and, for each group of houses, there is a feticheur hut; they also tell us that not far away they are celebrating a funeral, we try to ask if we can participate but they do not seem very much of the opinion and therefore we decide to let it go.

We walk around the village and see a strange hut, too small to be the home of some inhabitant and then it has a strange round hole at the base; we discover that this is the chicken coop and the hens are free to enter and exit from the round hole.

There are also many barns, they are very beautiful, tall and narrow with a straw cone roof; to take the grains contained inside it is necessary to climb a ladder up to the edge, remove the thatched roof and reach inside.

From what we understand the Senoufo have different subgroups and some differ from the others for certain characteristics, uses and customs; when we go back home we have to study because they cannot tell us much more.

For the moment we say goodbye to our friends, who welcomed us with a smile, get on our car and set off again towards Boundiali.