SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This chapter explores the religious thought and practice of Gɛdɛgbe, a chief diviner in the royal court of the Kingdom of Dahomey during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Gɛdɛgbe, born of Yorùbá-speaking parents possibly brought to the Dahomean capital of Abomey as captives of war, was a practitioner of Fa, the Fon language system of divination derived from the Yorùbá language system of Ifá. Abomey was the residence of specialists from various religious traditions, many of whom came regularly to the compound of Gɛdɛgbe’s family to visit his maternal uncle, a respected religious specialist and Fa diviner. Gɛdɛgbe grew up in this ambience where from a young age he began to acquire knowledge of Fa and of other religious traditions, and where his intellectual curiosity may have first been stimulated. What is known of Gɛdɛgbe is due almost entirely to Bernard Maupoil, a French colonial administrator who wrote what remains the definitive study of Fa divination. Maupoil considered Gɛdɛgbe an unrivalled religious authority, and he quoted him extensively in describing the constellation of ideas and practices relating to Fa and other local religious traditions. Gɛdɛgbe’s account of his own religious itinerary reveals how the formal acquisition of specialised religious knowledge proceeded in initiatory stages, and how its content was modified at each successive stage. In this chapter I argue that Gɛdɛgbe’s remarks were more than descriptive; he shared many of his personal views with Maupoil. For Gɛdɛgbe, the initiatory path of Fa not only qualified him as a diviner, it also required him to reflect on his own life, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between what is objective description and what is personal reflection in his comments.