The dankun network: the donso hunters of Burkina Faso between ecological change and new associations

ABSTRACT

In this text I look at processes of transformation involving an initiatory society of hunters known in parts of West Africa as donsoya. In countries like Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso restrictive environmental policies drew donso hunters into state-recognised associations, a phenomenon that has massively transformed donsoya in the past 25 years. Ecological change implied the disappearance of the big animals that gave master hunters their prestige and role of meat providers. I take the example of western Burkina Faso to look at the complex interactions between ecology, the internal structures of donsoya and the diffusion of a cult imported from neighbouring countries. Through a reflexive account of my own initiation to donsoya I show how hunters, in parallel with the emergence of associations, adopted ritual forms that emphasise relationships with other hunters, and argue how these changes show the interrelatedness of ecology, ritual and politics in today’s donsoya.

KEYWORDS:

• Burkina Faso
• ecology
• hunting
• networks
• ritual

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Lorenzo Ferrarini is Lecturer in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology. He has conducted research on apprenticeship and ways of knowing among donso hunters in Burkina Faso, with a focus on skills, embodiment and perception. He is author of an award-winning documentary on the same subject, Kalanda - The Knowledge of the Bush (http://kalandafilm.com). He can be contacted at: [email protected]

ORCiD

Lorenzo Ferrarini http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7165-1749

Notes

1. I have reflected in more detail on such an approach to fieldwork as applied to my previous research on Egyptian migrants in Italy (Ferrarini 2008).

2. There are many dynamics at play in the history of West African cotton, involving also the role of women, debt, neoliberal policies and colonialism, so I refer to Bassett’s work on the region of Korhogo for an analysis that mixes history, geography, economics and ethnography (2001).

3. According to a retired colonel of the Waters and Forests police I interviewed in 2012, and despite the existence of ‘participatory’ programmes to let local populations exploit hunting tourism like the PAGEN – formerly GEPRENAF, now Partenariat pour l'Amélioration de la Gestion des Ecosystèmes Naturels (Roulet 2004).

4. Some donso hunters, especially if they can afford it, can choose to travel abroad or go considerable distances to reach areas that are richer in game.

5. Benkadi is a compound of bèn – agreement – ka – the copula – and di – good – a name that can be given to all sorts of associations in contexts where Bamana–Mandinka–Jula languages are spoken.

6. André Sanou died on 24 January 2015.

7. I narrate my apprenticeship in the documentary Kalanda – The Knowledge of the Bush. http://kalandafilm.com. Footage from that day is part of the film.

8. Literally to ‘put the hand in’, this term is often used to refer to initiation rituals tout court.

9. On hunting as a relational activity involving human and non-human persons (see Kohn 2013; Nadasdy 2007; Scott 1989; Willerslev 2007).

10. Fetishes among Mande peoples are a complex category, but in an article in preparation I argue that their use is eminently relational (for an introduction to Mande fetishes or power objects, see Brett-Smith 1983; Colleyn 1985, 2004; Coquet 1985; Dacher 1985; Kedzierska-Manzon 2013; McNaughton 1988a; Royer 1996).