Rendre compte de l'insaisissable
Abstract
Agriculture in Senegal is predominantly rain-fed and depends heavily on meteorological services. Any information on future rainfall is therefore important for farmers to anticipate the delayed arrivals of rains or particularly dry years. In Sereer countryside (Fatick region), the Saltigui (diviners) take part in this work of anticipating the rainy season through divination practices that enable them to predict the course of the coming rainy season. Through their annual ceremonies named Xooy, the Saltigui share the knowledge they have obtained both from the spirits and from their own knowledge of the land and its signs. Through an analysis of the Saltigui’s discourse and practices, this article adresses the assembly work on which the Saltigui’s ‘meteorological prediction’ is based. We demonstrate the Saltigui’s role as intermediary between the spirit world, the living world and the nature. Through their Xooy, the Saltigui convey and share a local knowledge, linked to a specific territory and stemming from a set of beliefs and practices rooted in history. This particular case allows us to consider ‘local ecological knowledge’ as a form of situated totality. On one hand, rain is perceived positioned as a facet of collective life, and not as a field of knowledge isolated from the rest of the village’s concerns. On the other hand, in addition to announcing the onset of the rainy season, the Saltigui also purify the physical and symbolic space prior to the rainy season, and then make proposals to ward off any harmful predictions. The predictive act must therefore be understood as part of a larger whole in which it takes on its full meaning. These observations prompt us to take a cautious approach to the contemporary project of integrating ‘local knowledge’ into modern forms of scientific forecasting.
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