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To the sound of tam-tams and bells, a dozen young girls dressed in white, body coated with flour, dance in a courtyard of the Ivory Coast: they are called to become "komians", healers and fortune tellers.
Only one school has been teaching this art for a quarter of a century and today, it prays for its own survival.
In the Akan culture, practiced by 25 million people, mainly in the East Coast of Ivory and in neighboring Ghana, located in the famous Ashanti Kingdom, the Komians are consulted for their knowledge of medicinal plants but also for their "power" to ward off evil and predict the future. Without their intervention, no enthronement of a king or a leader can take place.
"The Komians have a sanctifying role, they contribute to the cohesion and stability of our regions," said Pascal Abinan Kouakou, Ivorian Minister of Modernization of Employment and grandson of the famous former Komian, Akua Mandjouadja.
Thousands of women in Ivory Coast and Ghana work as healers, a profession that is neither hereditary nor improvised: you train to become one.
There is also a school for this purpose: the Aniansué Adjoua Messouma Kômians initiation center (CIKAMA), founded in 1992 and recognized by a ministerial decree since 2014.
He takes about twenty students each year and trains them for three to seven years to study medicinal plants, the resolution of family conflicts, but also to traditional dances or housework in particular.
But this school, which receives no public aid and does not require any financial participation from students, is struggling to survive today and hopes to find a sponsor to continue – or even develop.
"We are told that we will be helped. But until now, since 1992, no one has helped me. That's why I want to stop, because I sometimes host more than 22 students, all entrusted to my care, "laments Adjoua Messouma, said the founder of the school.
Husbands jealous
Built on 1,600 square meters, the school has two sanctuaries where many sculptures are exhibited. In the center of its large courtyard surrounded by houses is a large mango tree.
But the walls have not been repainted for a long time and most of the facilities have deteriorated over time.
In addition to students in training, who usually live on site, the school hosts many patients with cancer, infertility, mental disorders, epilepsy … who come to seek treatment by komians.
Jealous husbands "also come to see them" for the stability of their relationship ", or women for a" good husband, "says Ms. Messouma.
After a consultation, a shopkeeper, Yvonne Ezan, explains, "I've been diagnosed with appendicitis that I want to deal with plants."
"Help us! Help us! We sleep under the stars, we do not have dormitories while we receive dozens of patients every month …", said Adjoua Messouma, dressed in her multicolored loincloth.
Once trained, qualified badists can move to and work in their villages, while sometimes retaining another activity as market sellers.
"Without the komians, without our medicinal leaves, some would be nothing," says the school's founder, who figures prominently in the book of Spanish writer and photographer Jordi Esteva, entitled "Viaje Al Pais de las Almas ». souls), dedicated to the animist world in Africa.
Watch the extinction
However, the place of Komians in modern society is questioned by their opponents, especially the evangelical churches, who denounce more and more obscure ancestral practices.
"Today, we are seen as the devil incarnate," laments Léonie Kouamé, 22, who suspended his university studies to "study and commune with geniuses" and become a Komian.
In the subprefecture of Amélékia, between the big city of Abengourou and Aniansué, about twenty healers sound the alarm.
They lost one of their main supporters, the Ivorian writer Jean-Marie Adiaffi, who won the Black African Grand Prix in 1981, who died in 1999.
"Since his death, we have no more lawyers," says Komian Eba Kouakou, in his sixties, whose body is decorated with dozens of gray paintings.
Adiaffi, attached to the modernization of African religions, had coined the word "bossonism" to describe the Komi religion. The "bosson" (genius) is a deity incarnated by statuettes, rivers, mountains or so-called sacred forests. The people like it in most African villages.
For Minister Pascal Abinan Kouakou, who has just become president of the Regional Council of India (East), where there are many Komians, "if we are not careful, the Komians, this culture inherent in our society , may disappear.
He lamented the "lack of national policy for the promotion of this cultural heritage" and promised to include the school of Aniansué in "a tourist circuit that would allow the school to benefit (economic) advantages and to develop ".
In the midst of the disciples, the Komian Eba Kouakou affirms, determined: "We are not afraid (…) and we are not ready to give up". The Komians will "never disappear".
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