A Talisman Removed
I don’t really believe in juju…but I fully believe in the power of symbols
Sampa is a border town, which makes market day each week especially lively. Goods and sellers cross into Ghana from Cote d’Ivoire, and travelers pass through the border or come in from neighboring towns. I could always get a car from Kabile into Sampa on market day.
My Ghanaian counterpart could spot visiting Ivorians immediately. “Those women are from Cote d’Ivoire,” he’d tell me casually. Eventually, I could pick it up a little, too, though it was easier with the rare Nigerian who might be passing through. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was; it seemed like something just below the surface. Maybe it was a different cut of cloth, a variance in expression, or the way a headscarf was tied.
But it was the leopard skin that made me gasp and stop in my tracks that day. Then I noticed the other skins and artifacts laid out on cloth on the ground…the dried monkey heads and cobra skeletons; strangely bundled birds, tortoise shells: hooves and bones and crocodile snouts. Bits of animals to buy for magic potions to cure any problem. I understand the attraction. Magic talismans to adopt the thick skin of the elephant, the power in a lion’s snarl, the sensuous strength of a leopard hauling a gazelle up into a tree.
