Under the Cover of the Way: A Feminist Reading of Hampate Ba's Kaidara

In 1983, I published "A Sufi Interpretation of Le regard du roi," in Research in African Literatures, an article in which I challenged the hitherto Eurocentric interpretations of Laye's novel. The narrative had been treated as a Christian allegory, despite the fact that the author was Muslim, and the pattern of the narrative fit a Sufi Muslim mold. In general, Muslim approaches to African literature were rarely taken. My interpretation was based on the view that Regard was structured around the journey of an initiate, or pilgrim, under the tutelage of a guide, who would lead him to the ultimate goal, union with the divine. As I had little to orient me in this approach, I followed Martin Lings and other Sufi scholars, who described the beliefs associated with the Sufi Way, with its stages, the roles of knowledge, truth, and love, and the series of obstacles on the pilgrim's path. In short, I presented the keys to a hermeneutic that would explain the symbolism of the text, as a guide would reveal the meaning of the mysteries of the Way. When I was done, I felt I had unraveled the symbolism of the text, with all its various parts elucidated and joined in one comprehensible pattern.

Yet within a short number of years, I began to grow uneasy over the interpretation. Reading Barthes, it occurred to me that I had transformed Regard into a readerly text in which the free play of meaning had been held down and reduced to the level of a mechanical explanation. Perhaps I had been blinded by the beauty of the Way, the devotion of the seeker, and the glory and stature of the guide. I had been seduced by the path of initiation, and found it natural to join the sociological fact of Laye's upbringing in Kouroussa with that of the Sufi traditions that had permeated some of the Muslim orders, like the Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya, and that had been active around Kankan and Kouroussa.

Some years later I came across Hampaté Bâ's Tierno Bokar: le sage de Badiagara (1957) where Hampaté Bâ portrays a figure of devotion and spirituality comparable to the Sufi figures in the works of Laye (Le regard du roi, 1954), Cheikh Hamidou Kane (L'aventure ambiguë, 1961), and Tayeb Salih (The Wedding of Zein, 1968). Cast in autobiographical form, Hampaté Bâ represents himself as Tierno's disciple; Hampaté Bâ's personality, style, and values all exerted the same seductive force as did Laye's Regard or Salih's Zein, building upon the beauty of the Way, the path of truth.

This reading of Kaïdara could then be termed the end of the affair.

Hampaté Bâ terms Kaïdara a "récit initiatique peul," and the pattern of initiation is not difficult to discern. Yet the sense of satisfaction in tracing its lines along the trajectory of a Sufi model can no longer be sustained, and in pondering the basis for that unease, I now question the fundamental project of all of Hampaté Bâ's work.

Kaïdara begins with the famous lines: "Conte, Conté, à raconter . . . ."

Tale told, tale to tell . . .
--Will you be truthful?
--For the little ones, who play at night by the light of the moon,
my tale is merely a fantastic story.
When the nights of the cool season stretch and lengthen,
at the late hour when the spinners grow weary,
my account is more: a pleasant story to listen to.
Yet for the hairy-chins and rough-heels who have traveled far,
it is a truthful story that has much to teach.
Thus I am futile, useful, instructive.
--Unfold it then, on with it . . . . (47) ²

Three travelers, Hammadi, Hamtoudo, and Dembourou, take the road to Kaïdara, a mystical god-like being. A voice speaks to them...