Women's Songs from West Africa

1 - Wolof Women Break the Taboo of Sex through Songs

1 j Wolof Women Break the Taboo of Sex through Songs Marame Gueye One of the most important but often neglected subjects in the preparation of children for adulthood is sex education, a topic that seems to preoccupy parents in a variety of cultures around the world. In many African societies, sex education is more a collective activity than an individual parental duty, and the medium is song. The question is just how this ubiquitous genre can serve to inform youths about such a private topic. The example of Wolof society offers a variety of insights into how the community employs song for teaching about sex and sexuality. In Wolof culture, sex education occurs during weddings, where one hears a variety of songs. One particular sub-ceremony within Wolof weddings is laabaan , reserved exclusively for women and conducted by them. The purpose is to celebrate the bride’s virginity. Laabaan is the term both for the ceremony and for the genre of songs sung at this event. For the researcher, however, even one who comes from Wolof society, the songs marking the laabaan ceremony are the most difficult not only to understand but also to record. In my case, although I began research on wedding songs in 1996, I did not record a single laabaan song or performance until 1998. My paternal aunts, who are performing guewel, the Wolof term for griots of both sexes, sang laabaan songs, but they refused to let me enter the space where these songs are sung because it is reserved exclusively for married or divorced women. The result was that I had to enlist the help of neenyo1 who were not family members and who were much younger than my aunts. Before turning to the lyrics of the songs, it is important to explain the circumstances of the recordings. As an unmarried graduate student conducting 10 Marame Gueye research for a doctoral dissertation, I had to rely on someone my own age. Although I had attended several laabaan ceremonies in the past, including one with Adji Diara, I did not record those songs in the field because the public circumstances of the ceremonies were in general not conducive or appropriate to field recording. There was too much noise and movement during the event. Also, while the bride’s friends are invited, they are asked to cover their ears because of the sexual nature of the songs. These conditions differ markedly from those in which epics are often recorded. In many cases, the epics are recorded in private venues such as the home of the performer. Although I did manage to record some songs in poor audio conditions at public events for the corpus collected for the women’s songs project, I was most interested in those sung by Adji Diara because they were the most poignant. That is why I asked her to sing them again for me in a private context. The 1998 recording of songs by the neenyo took place at my apartment in Dakar. Both of the singers were, like me, in their twenties. Although they felt at ease in discussions with me about sex, they insisted that the door of the apartment be closed because they did not want other people to attend the performance . In the case of songs analyzed here, three women—Adji Diara as well as two neenyo from Dakar, Amy Thiam and Khady Thiam—allowed me to make my first recordings. I was introduced to these neenyo by one of my neighbors in Medina, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Dakar. Once I had recorded songs from them, I was able to interview my mother (Diouf 2003a and 2003b), who gave me other laabaan songs and sayings. But our interaction illustrates the delicate nature of the subject. I should explain that we conducted these conversations on the phone, she in Senegal and I in the United States, thus creating some distance between the two of us. She would not have been comfortable with me in a discussion face-to-face in our home, where we had never had a conversation about sex. She was amazed, in fact, that I was interested in this subject and that I came all the way from the United States to conduct research on it. During the phone interview, she emphasized to me the importance of virginity for a woman. She told me that nowadays women tend to believe that virginity is not important for the success of their marriage. But...