African Power

I was skeptical when I heard rumors about Black Magic ruining cameras if any pictures were taken of this tribal dance. Don’t worry nothing happened to my camera and there will be many more photos to come. But Black Magic is not the reason why there will not be any photos of African Power. No, there will be no photos of this because I was told that the dancers can become very aggressive if they see a camera (so much so that some of the monks have witnessed cameras getting taken and smashed against rocks). I wasn’t willing to take the chance, not until I knew it was going to be worth it.

But it is very easy to see how something like that can come to pass. This dance would be equivalent to something straight out of a nightmare for anyone who is unfamiliar with Togolese culture (me included). The dance essentially included every male person including young boys wishing to secure their power (this dance happened to be performed in front of the president of the country, so naturally there were a lot of them). And every single participant had a black painted face, a shirtless back, and a combination of an antler helmet, knives, spears, machetes, arrows, metal noisemakers, maraca-like instruments, and frogs.

As I said - African Power. The dancers were huddled together in a large circle and jumping up and down to the beat of the overwhelming drums. Not only that, but they were brandishing their weapons as well. Those with knives and machetes either cut themselves or mad large cutting motions all over their bodies. Those with arrows either pierced themselves and let the arrows hang or continued to make the piercing motion on either their arms or necks. All of this, again, is being done to the beat and rhythm of the drums. If you weren’t doing one of the previously mentioned actions, you most likely had a half-dead frog (not the nice little green kind like Kermit, the large, ugly, fat, lumpy one that you see on the NatGeo channel) hanging from your mouth and probably another one or two skewered on your spear. Hanging from your mouth is a little vague so please allow me to go into further detail. Upon arriving most of the frogs were hanging with a leg or two in the mouth. By the end of the dance, there was no frog. The little critter was generally pulled (between the teeth and one hand) apart into roughly 4 or 5 pieces with each one subsequently being placed next to the others in the mouth. The parts looked like long slimy teeth. And then yes, the frog would be eaten throughout the course of the dance.

So imagine this image…a college aged, black guy with black face paint, a double or quadruple 3 ft (apiece) long antler helmet, a serrated spear, and a quartered frog hanging from his mouth. Multiply that by about 60 and vary the age range by about 15 years on either side, through in some deafening drums and a mosh pit. Voila. African Power.

There were also men climbing trees and jumping on the branches to the beat of the drums which created a powerful scene of the shimmering leaves moving to the beat of the dance. These trees were roughly 3 stories high and hung over a mosh pit of people with spiked antler helmets and every other crude weapon imaginable.

Can you imagine stumbling upon something like that while on a nice little stroll through the African bush? Holy Shit it was intense. And I couldn’t get enough. The German priest who was with us was actually challenged by one of the dancers (he speared the ground leaving the end with the semi-dead frogs up in front of our faces). He was waiting to see if we had as much power as him and could take a frog. Luckily it wasn’t me who was directly challenged because I probably would have done it and deeply regretted it tomorrow as I later found out that most of the dancers take a local medication that allows them to eat the frogs without getting sick. But omg, it was hard not to get swept up in it all, and part of me wishes that I had jumped in and taken the challenge from the priest (who politely declined to accept and waited for the dancer to move on).

Did I mention that the Togolese president was in attendance? As president it is his job to preserve the culture and attending a dance is a great way to do that. I caught a glimpse of him, and I didn’t have to wait in line for 2 hours to go through a metal detector to do it. Nope, I think he figured that having a regiment of specially trained soldiers with M50s loaded onto the back of military jeeps would deter just about anything. I think he was right.