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WORLD ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNION

CONGRESS 2024​

Paper

Ferege fani, Senufo sacrificial cloth and its more-than-human entanglements. Ritual textile practices of knotting and attaching in an interconnected cosmology.

presenters

    Anja Veirman

    Nationality: Belgium

    Residence: Belgium

    LUCA School of Arts - KU Leuven

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

My presentation will address the more-than-human entanglements that are vital to the use of fèrègè fani textiles, mudcloth of the Senufo communities in Mali and Burkina Faso. Mudcloth is made of locally spun and woven cotton, that is dyed with plant decoctions and mud (earth) and is worn at ritual, ceremonial or festive occasions, in visible or invisible ways (Veirman 2023). Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork over the last 3 decades I will focus on ‘sacrificial’ cloth that is prescribed in intimate contexts of divination, healing and the search for well-being. Sacrificial cloth is related to the plant-animal-realm and connects the wearer with a wide range of spiritual entities, such as ancestors and collective and personal (guiding) spirits inhabiting the earth, water, trees, and mountains. Individual and collective well-being are the result of ongoing negotiations and problematic situations can be cleared out by consulting divination specialists or knowledge holders of the more-than-human realm (Veirman 2005). The sacrificial cloths are part of a cult with regulations on food, behavior and ‘resting’-day’s. Worn close to the body, in the intimacy of people’s private life, they often escaped from observation, ethnographic enquiries and scholarly attention, while in Mali and Burkina Faso they are widespread and essential for a person’s wellbeing. To do right to the multiple dimensions of these and connected interdependent practices and onto-epistemologies we are in need of more critical decolonial methodologies, conceptual frameworks and terminologies that correspond to their relational aspects and might also broaden our understandings of health and well-being in a globally entangled and interdependent way. Veirman, A. (2023). Négocier son bien-être et attacher son bonheur. Pratiques rituelles et textiles Sénufo. In: Entrelacs. Textiles Rituels., Chapt. 6, (57-76). Binche. Veirman, A. (2005). Les sadobee, intermédiaires entre l'homme et le monde spirituel. Journal of Mande Studies, 7, (133-146).

Keywords:

onto-epistemology, textile studies, plant-animal-human relationships