Questions and Answers

Most object of the Senufo can be grouped into two big categories according to their function: Private and Public.
The first category includes small figures, often equestrian, which personify minor entities. The function of these Baneguele or Tugubele or Syonfolo are essentially mediatory. Their message must be interpreted by a professional diviner or by a senior member of the family.
These figures are kept on private altars to the Nyinguefolo, the notion of moral conscience.
The Tugubele are the helpful spirits of the diviner, the Sando’o which is also the name of the secret society which safeguards the “ purity” of the lineage by imposing strict rules and regulations.
The Tugubele are friends of humans and animals, and therefore able to mediate between them. They live on the edges of fields and the forest, favoring special trees. If a human cuts such a tree and therefore destroys the habitat of these spirits, they will not only follow him home, but will demand amendments in the form of two wooden sculptures which must bare resemblance to the now homeless spirits. They appear to him in his dreams to make it easy for him to replicate their image. A man who is followed by these spirits has often no other choice then to become a diviner.
The Tugubele communicate by hand-signs, which are not understood by humans, and must therefore be interpreted usually by the Sando’o, who will ask questions which are answered by the Tugubele with “yes” or “no” through hand signs.
The diviner holds the hand of the council seeker: if the answer is “yes” the hand will be forced downward and if the answer is “no“ the hand remains suspended in mid-air
The diviner keeps these figures in a cotton bag and takes them only out in the morning before the first council seeker appears. He dresses them up in kauri-shells and glass-pearls which are taken off in the evening after the last client leaves.

There are two interconnected structures of leadership and authority within the Senufo village: one is based on the matrilineal kinship organization called nerege, and the other on the age-grade Poro society. Poro society membership cuts across kinship lines and household ties, and forms the stabilizing and unifying force within the community. The society functions as a religious and educational institution, which disciplines, guides and protects initiates of both sexes. The teachings and ceremonies of the Poro are meant to create respect for ancestral and cultural heritage, the authority of the elders, the value of cooperative group efforts, and obedience to the ancestors, and worldly and spiritual forces which control the lives of the people.