Jean-Louis Bourgeois - David Rifkind

enveloped on all sides by narrow alleys
and earthen walls," Prussin (1986:185)
argues that the Great Mosque's eastern
or "marketplace facade and the expan-
sive vista which the marketplace affords
reflect the preference and influence of
French colonial military administrators."
But the "expansive vista" in question
long antedates both the arrival of the
French and the creation of the mar-
ketplace. It resulted from the fact that,
until the French drained it, a pond lay
immediately to the east of the mosque
(Dubois 1896:146; Prussin 1986:185). From
the neighborhood of Konofia the princi-
pal facade of the ancient mosque was
highly visible across the pond, as is the
present mosque across the marketplace,
in a wide and dramatic view. If, as is
quite possible, these views did in some
way inspire the monumentality of the
facade, they did so independently of the
French. Perhaps the occurrence of
pointed arches in the mosque's interior
reflects French influence. But it is impor-
tant to note that a pointed arch appeared
in the minaret of Timbuktu's Sidi Yahya
mosque (Landor 1907, vol. 2:opp. 406)
and another apparently in a tower in the
ruins of Koi Konboro's mosque itself
(Fig. 4).
The mosque's design is, in my opin-
ion, much less French than Sahelian. Its
most prominent features reflect local
political iconography. They are declara-
tions of interethnic rivalry - and victory
- in architectural form. Sanfo's
indigenous-Djenne alliance repudiated
Sekou Amadou's memory and ex-
pressed its own triumph by incorporat-
ing three key features. The first was the
mosque's towers. As we have seen,
Amadou was strongly against towers.
But for centuries they had been a key fea-
ture of the architectural image of Tim-
buktu, a city long dominated by anti-
Peul lineages of the Qadria Islamic
brotherhood (see Saad 1983:219-23) and
the home of Oumar Sanfo's anti-Peul
mentor, Ahmad al-Bakkai. At the turn of
the century, the principal towers of all
three major mosques in Timbuktu were
quite similar (Dubois 1896:279, 300, 311).
From a rectangular ground-plan four
tapering sides rose to a summit crowned
by a small, central, bullet-shaped orna-
ment. Most of the sides were studded
with toron occurring in regularly spaced
rows.43 The towers of the new Great
Mosque of Djenne displayed all these
elements.
Two other important features of the re-
construction embodied a shift in at-
titude. The ceiling's height was raised
from Sekou Amadou's low seven cubits
to magisterial proportions - about 12
meters. And a women's gallery was in-
cluded. In Amadou's mosque women,
whose status was low at the time, did not
pray - either in the building or in its
open courtyard44 (Fofana, interview),
62
which was bounded on the west by a
simple wall pierced by two doors (Fig.
5). In the new mosque the wall was re-
placed by a narrow, single-story struc-
ture reserved for women (Prussin
1974:22). Towers, high ceilings, and
women's gallery - all dramatized indi-
genous Djenne's turning away from
Peul spiritual and political leadership.45
The mosque's cover story hid complex
strategies behind a simple account. As
time went on, history rewritten probably
shifted from conscious deception to un-
conscious self-deception - from Afri-
cans' saying that the French built the
mosque to their believing that they did.
In the process, the stereotypes of the
helpless Africans and the strong, gener-
ous French have been reinforced. Better
to break the covenant of silence and re-
veal the mosque for what it is - a basi-
cally African monument with a past
marked by intrigue - than to let it re-
main a gratuitous gift, more a chapter in
colonial than local history.
It is clear that the French played a role.
Beginning in 1893 they imposed peace on
an area torn for thirty years by war and
mass deportations. Without this pax Gal-
lica the mosque could never have been
built. The French also cooperated with
local requests to arrange for forced labor,
and they contributed money - what
fraction remains uncertain. Neverthe-
less, in its politics, design, technology,
and grandeur, the mosque is largely local
in origin - glorious evidence of an an-
cient tradition vital in the modern world.
Every spring Djenne's mosque is re-
plastered (Fig. 8). This is a festival at
once awesome, messy, meticulous, and
fun. For weeks beforehand, mud is
cured. Low vats of the sticky mixture are
periodically churned by barefoot boys.
The night before the plastering, moonlit
streets echo with chants, switch-pitch
drums, and lilting flutes. Not far from
the mosque, a crowd of boys and men
huddle in a dense mass, each bearing on
his head a small, shallow basket. A high
whistle blows three short beats. On the
fourth, perfectly cued, a hundred voices
roar, and the throng sets off on a massive
mud-fetch. By dawn the actual replaster-
ing has been underway for some time.
Crowds of young women, heads erect
under the burden of buckets brimming
with water, approach at a walk. Other
teams, bringing mud, charge shouting
through the huge main square and
swarm across the mosque's terrace,
where they dump their load. Elegant in
flowing robes, elders - including many
marabouts - sit on the terrace wall and
smile on the mayhem. Mud-stained men
yell directions, warnings, and encour-
agement. Mixing work and play, young
boys dash everywhere, some caked with
mud from head to toe. Against the
mosque's facade lean twelve-meter-long
ladders, so wide that two men can easily
stand on the same rung. Many pairs do,
slapping on and smoothing mud with
their bare hands. Above them, others
perch on toron.46 Should a plasterer fall
while working on high, it is said occult
spells will keep him uninjured. Quick as
a wink he will change into a lizard and
scamper down the wall. On the ground
and unharmed, he regains his human
form (Gaba, Y. Nientao, interviews).
Over the years Djenne's inhabitants
have resisted attempts to change the
character of their extraordinary mosque.
They rejected a purist's demand to sup-
press the use of drums during replaster-
ing (B. Diete, interview). In the 1930s, a
French administrator decided he would
"improve" the mosque; he had it painted
red (D. Cisse, Fofana, A.D. Yarro, inter-
views). The people of Djenne thought he
was crazy.47 After one rainy season, the
mosque resumed its normal color. When
offers were made by the Saudis to re-
build the mosque in concrete and later by
the Libyans to tile its sand floor, Djenne
declined (Kontao, interview).48 Other
mosques in the region daily use public
address systems. But not Djenne. Five
times a day a robed muezzin stands on
the northeast corner of the mosque's ter-
race and calls the town to prayer. Just be-
fore dawn, two muezzins are used. Their
intertwining songs flow over hundreds
of hushed roof-terraces. The mosque's
facade looms dark against a pale sky. At
this special moment, Djenne's devotion
to her heritage seems particularly sweet,
haunting, and strong.
Establishing that Djenne's first Great
Mosque stood for some six centuries and
that the third is a genuinely African
monument may help influence attitudes
toward Black African civilization.49 At
last the extraordinary sophistication of
African artistic and oral-epic traditions is
being generally recognized. Architec-
tural monuments and writing are no
longer needed to honor a culture as
"great." But the crude equivalence of
monuments with civilization has been
merely shaken, not abandoned. Con-
sequently both Africans and Westerners
tend to celebrate with special urgency
those rare African buildings whose im-
pressive longevity or scale inspires awe.
The corrected history of Djenne's Great
Mosques helps restore to Africans not
only two architectural treasures but im-
pressive chapters in a proud past. OD
Notes, page 90
8. THE MOSQUE'S EAST FACADE BEING REPLASTERED.
EVERY SPRING IN DJENNE, THE DATE OF THE GREAT
MOSQUE'S REPLASTERING IS THE SUBJECT OF DEBATE.
ELDERS FROM DIFFERENT QUARTERS DISCUSS THE
MATTER WITH SENIOR MASONS WHO HAVE SUPERVISED
THE CURING OF NEEDED MUD. THE DATE OF THE FESTI-
VAL IS SET ONLY A FEW WEEKS BEFORE IT OCCURS. THE
ACTUAL REPLASTERING TAKES PLACE IN TWO STAGES A
WEEK OR SO APART, WITH EACH HALF OF THE TOWN
RESPONSIBLE FOR HALF THE MOSQUE. IT IS A CONTEST;
THE GROUPS ARE TIMED AND ONE WINS.