Suriname folk-lore

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9. Fiofio

In the concept of fiofio the Paramaribo Negroes manifest a fundamental African attitude toward relationships between people and the effect of the interplay of personalities on the unconscious, which, in the ideology of the people we are studying, is one of the attributes of the akra.¹ It concerns the belief that repressed bitterness or hatred harms both the one who had caused it, and the one who experienced it, and that the harm is to the soul.

Fiofio, as envisaged in this belief, is the name of an insect² and also of a spirit which, taking the shape of this insect, enters human bodies, causing illness and sometimes death. It comes as a result of family quarrelling which does not end in reconciliation. Strictly speaking, it is the extending of gestures of friendship or intimacy at a later date, when the bitterness of the quarrel has either passed or is masked, which brings on the illness. Such gestures of intimacy or friendship include accepting food that is offered, or a caress, or borrowing some kind of wearing apparel, or asking and receiving any other favor, and the resulting illness comes to either one or both of the persons who had participated in the quarrel. These situations can arise only between those who meet on intimate ground, and thus fiofio might come as a result of these gestures between persons of the same family who had quarrelled, or between intimate friends, or lovers, or between a mistress and a servant who has been associated with her for many years. If an illness that arises from such a cause is not promptly diagnosed by the diviner, and the necessary ceremonial retraction is not made, the disease is steadily aggravated until it brings death, or at the least, misfortune of some sort to harass the family of the persons involved.

We may illustrate the working of fiofio with some examples. Let us consider the case of a woman who had been living with a man for some years.

One day the man formed an attachment for the younger sister of his wife, and there was a bitter quarrel between the two women. For a long time they did not speak to each other. After some years had elapsed, and the man had passed out of the lives of both of them, and out of their memories as well, the younger sister, who was going to attend a lɔbi-sɩ̨ŋgi and wished to be especially well dressed for the occasion, borrowed a koto-yaki from the older

1 The similarity of the concept of fiofio to one which lies at the base of the Ashanti apo ceremony, described by Rattray (II, ch. XV) becomes at once apparent. The Freudian character of the ceremony of retraction and the belief in fiofio, - namely, that of the ‘festering soul’, which, only when the thing that troubles it is brought into the light of consciousness is the evil remedied, - is noteworthy. That a similar concept is held in Haiti seems apparent from a ceremony described by Seabrook (The Magic Island, pp. 225-226), though one cannot be sure of the reliability of the material in this work. If the ceremony was as it is described, then a failure to understand the principle underlying fiofio accounts for Seabrook's astonishment that those who accept a man's hospitality would revile him.

2 Of the order Rhynchota; cf. Encyc., p. 608.

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one. Shortly after this, the younger sister fell ill and died before it occurred to anyone that she had been stricken by fiofio. Our informant, who had himself been at the deathbed of this woman saw the fiofio insect come out of the nostril of the woman as she died. When this occurred, all recalled the quarrel that had taken place so many years ago.

Another instance of the working of fiofio is that of a servant who was dismissed after a quarrel with her mistress.

The mistress was angry, and, though the servant had been with the family for many years, she was not permitted to say goodbye to a child whom she had nursed, and who was a great favorite of hers. A few years later, when all had forgotten the incident, the servant met the child, caressed it, and gave it a piece of cake. The child ate the cake, and that night fell ill. A few days later, after several remedies had been tried, it was suggested to the mother that she consult a diviner. The diagnosis was that the illness was due to fiofio, and the mother of the child and the servant promptly went through a ceremonial retraction.

A third example is drawn from the case of the death of a child caused by fiofio, that was brought about by the quarrelling of the parents.

During the pregnancy of the mother, she quarrelled with her husband about his penuriousness. He, in turn, reproached her with sexual looseness, disclaimed responsibility for having made her pregnant, and said that the child in her womb was not his. When the child was born, it was sickly, and this was held to have been caused by the fact that in his anger the father had withdrawn the support of his soul from the child¹. The neighbors, knowing of these quarrels, (which, incidentally, grew steadily worse after the baby was born), cautioned the mother not to accept any money from the man for the support of the child if the father was to see the baby, this measure being considered necessary to save him from being attacked by fiofio. The mother, who was young and not willing to place too much credence in the old beliefs, did not heed the warning. When the baby was three months old, he died. The mother, discussing this, said that a girl might have survived, because of the support of her own soul, but that boys get their strength from their fathers.

Generally speaking, if the members of a family suffer a series of misfortunes, - when the crops of one brother are poor, another brother has repeated illnesses in his home, a third loses his job, a sister's children die shortly after birth, and another sister is unable to live for any length of time with the men with whom she forms alliances - the townspeople say, ‘It's fiofio. Don't you remember how they quarrelled when their uncle died? They never made up the quarrel, and they became friendly again. It's fiofio!’ The friends of such a family counsel a visit to a diviner, and if the diagnosis is indeed that it is fiofio, the ceremony of retraction known as puru mɔfo,² (literally, ‘whithdraw from the mouth’), is performed. Those in-

1 In the Saramacca bush during the period of gestation the husband sleeps with his wife nightly in order to ‘feed the child.’ Should the husband die during his wife's pregnancy, she not only does not go into mourning for him, but that very night the man's brother, or a cousin in the maternal line, or the dead man's sister's son, if old enough, must go to her hammock, and will share it with her until the child is born.

2 Rattray (V, p. 180) states ‘po̱ṅ (mpo̱ṅ) means literally to pull off, or strip off, hence to remove, take back...’

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volved in the quarrel gather, and the one who has wronged the other calls on the soul of the wronged one, saying ‘Akra Kwami (if it is a man, born on Saturday), I did not mean to offend you. I was hasty. Do not revenge yourself upon me, or upon my wife, or our children. I beg you, overlook what I said and do not bear me any ill will.’ He then takes some water into his mouth, and spurts it out before his own doorway, repeating this formula three times. If there has been reciprocal wrong done, then each in his turn will call on the soul of the other, begging pardon for himself and for his family.

The ceremony of retraction is preceded and followed by washing, and the idiom for this is ‘Mi go was' fiofio watra, - I am going to wash in fiofio water.’ Cold water is used, to which the skin of a large plantain, dried in smoke, some egg-shells, seven pieces of white chalk, nɛŋgɛre kɔndre pɛpre, - African pepper,¹ - and s'ibi wiri, - sweet broom - are added. The washing may take place early in the morning, or at mid-day, or in the evening, but if a person is undergoing a cure he washes three times a day. The invocation for the washing is ‘Sisibi dɩsi di sibi 'ɛbi gowe, a so den 'ɛbi di dɛ na yu mu gowe tu. So lei̯ki fa ma-foru tyari ɛ̨ŋ pikin a de broko dɛn, na so ala sąn' di yu tyari mu broko kɔ̨m na krįŋ. - Just as this broom sweeps heaviness away, so, too, must your heaviness go away. Just as the mother hen carries her child until it breaks the egg, so everything that you carry must break and come out in the open.’²

For an understanding of the concept of fiofio, it must be recognised that enmity in itself does not bring this spiritual recrimination, even when that enmity exists between those who, as neighbors or blood-relations, are thrown into close contact. It is only when conscious or unconscious hypocrisy enters that the souls become resentful and bring on illness.

1 Aframomum melegueta K. Sch. Fam. Zingiberaceae. ‘De plant is uit Afrika afkomstig.’ Encyc. p. 34.

2 In explaining this invocation, our informant said, ‘Just as the chick comes out of the egg-shell, so the sickness must come out of the person who is ill.’ The meaning of the figure ‘just as the mother hen carries her child’ is obviously ‘just as the mother hen cares for her child.’