"Ténéga, the village I come from, is situated seven kilometres from the town of Niamtougou, in a valley in the Atakora hills. To the north is Défalé, to the south Niamtougou, on the east is Siou and on the west is Baga. The village was founded by a man called Ti'a Nadada. There are two rivers that flow through Ténéga, one on the north side and one on the south. When Ti'a Nadada first came to the village he saw the river on the north side and he made his home beside it and called it by his own name.

"Ténéga is made up of five separate neighbourhoods - Balley, Bidigou, Natoun, Djofaga, and Djérégou. Balley is between the two rivers, next to the river Nadada. Balley is the oldest part of Ténéga. As you walk alongside the Nadada you hear all sorts of sounds -- the noise of a mill working, people arguing, other people chatting to one another, -- when you can't even tell what might be making the noise. Only a clairvoyant could tell. There is a primary school in the neighbourhood. There are round huts, a lot of clay houses, and some brick-built houses where the chiefs live and the government officials. The name Balley means riverbank.

"Bidigou is the part of Ténéga where the ceremonies take place. There are still some of the traditional-style round huts with small doorways. You can still see the ceremonial huts with the straw roof and no doors. When there's no wind the very old people go and lift up the straw of the roofs of the huts and then the wind starts to blow. There is a Catholic church in this part of the village, near the village cemetery. There is a primary school in Bidigou too. There are medicine-men and quack doctors living there as well. In the Losso language (Naoudoume) Bidigou means "the place of ceremonies". Naoudoume is the language spoken in Ténéga.

"When the war was on Nadada sent his son to the frontier between Niamtougou and Ténéga. At night he slept in a tree, which is how Djofaga, the third neighbourhood, acquired its name. Djofaga is where the present village headman lives, it is the built-up centre of the village. This is where the Ténéga secondary school and the clinic are, and there is a small market every Saturday and Sunday. At Christmas time all the inhabitants gather together in front of the village headman's house to dance the Kamou dance, which is one of the traditional dances. Djofaga, where the headman lives, is a neighbourhood of brick-built houses, with two storeys, where the rich people live. Djofaga means to sleep upstairs.

"Natoum is where the buffaloes used to live. This was where Ti'a had a farm. He used to send his second son out to chase the wild animals away. Whenever he went there it rained and he used to say that it was buffalo rain, but he never left his post and that was how Natoum got its name, which means the place where the buffaloes are. At Natoum you used to be able to see a wood which the people living there considered to be sacred. Over towards the hill known as Mont Défalé there is a weather station which is often visited by outsiders. There is a primary school here as well.

"The last neighbourhood is Djérégou, which used to be occupied by refugees from Benin. At Djérégou there is a sacred wood called Tikpoume Ragou, or the wood of the rains. When there hasn't been any rain in Ténéga the old people who chant sacred songs go into the wood to ask what's wrong and they immediately sort out what's wrong and then it begins to rain, even before they have got back home.

"Ténéga is a village with lots of ceremonies. So when someone dies the local people put the body in a casket -- each neighbourhood has its own casket -- and transport it. The casket is carried by two people. The oldest member of the family asks the person who has died who was the person responsible for their death. The dead person directs the two people carrying them towards the person responsible for their death, so that they are positioned in front of the person. The person who originally asked the question repeats it. "Was this really the person who caused your death?" The dead person instructs the people carrying them to take three steps forward. Then everybody knows what has happened. After the burial on the third day is the ceremony, on the fourth day there is the second ceremony and then one year later the final ceremony takes place.

"The people who live in Ténéga are farmers, craftspeople and traders. They often grow maize, millet, sorghum and groundnuts. During the rainy season crops like millet cover the whole of the village. The village is completely green. The village can only be seen in the dry season after the millet stalks have been cut down. Every family has seven or eight fields including at least one orchard of oil palms, which is the village's main tree. The Europeans insisted that our forefathers should plant mango trees, which is why we have mango trees in my village.

"The people of Ténéga are great craftspeople. They weave baskets and sieves which the white people find attractive. The oil palm is the most important tree in the village because it can be used to make a lot of different things. The long stem provides timber for building while the branches can be used for sieves and baskets. There are clusters of fruit which are used to make palm oil and palm-kernel oil.

"The people of Ténéga are traders as well. The women still go in for bartering. Men and women sell sieves, baskets and agricultural produce in the markets at Niamtougou on Sundays, at Siou on Tuesdays, at Kpayala on Fridays and at Gnamtè on Mondays. The women barter red oil and sieves in exchange for rice, millet, etc. They buy chicken, goats and sheep for the ceremonies.

"Before the boys can become adults there are ceremonies they have to undergo, they dance the Essikpa and then five years later the Sintime. The local drink is Tchoukoutou which is prepared from ground millet. That is the reason why so much millet is grown.

"The best known people in the village are the village headmen. The head of the village, Mister Makote 1er, is very strict. Mgbawena is a very well known figure among the inhabitants of Ténéga, he beats the children who go swimming in the river. The quack doctors are well known too.

"Because the market at Niamtougou is held on a Sunday the people from Défalé who are known as the Lamba, used to go and stay with the people of Kouna, in the village of Baga, on the Saturday night and they used to eat with them and finish off all their food. So the people of Kouna decided that they wouldn't prepare a meal on Saturdays and would go to bed hungry, so if you are in a house in Ténéga and they say they are going to sleep like the people of Kouna that means that they are going to sleep on an empty stomach."

Amana Kadira Christophe
Eg Cacavelli
Translation by Owen Beith