44 african appropriations
“I don’t care about the Hauka. Sometimes I say that the Hauka do not
exist and that I am not part of them!” A sacrifice of a chicken and a ram,
whose blood is poured over the Governor’s Palace, is meant to appease the
spirits. The culprits promise to better themselves: “We ask our Hauka to
kill us should we relapse!” Guards armed with wooden rifles and whips
ensure that the misdemeanants are taken away into the bush where they
are made to remain until their spirits possess them.
The second part of the ritual begins when the mediums start to walk in
a circle to the tune of a monochord violin until their spirits take possession
of them. Some are thrown violently to the ground while mounted by their
spir its, ot hers seem to have less d i fficu lt y undergoing t he transfor mation.
Gasping for breath, saliva dripping from their mouths, the possessed speak
a mélange of broken French and pidgin English in staccato style. Depend-
ing on their spirits, some mediums wear pit helmets and red sashes, others
women’s dresses. The Wicked Major is among the arriving spirits. The
General orders him to use a big burning torch to prove his truth: “Burn
yourself like the others! Show them that you truly are the Wicked Major!”
The Governor and other military spirits, such as Capitaine, Caporal de
Garde, and Private Tiémoko, take possession of their mediums, too. But
there are also spirits who represent the immigrants’ urban experience:
Mai Mota, the Truck Driver; Hanga Beri, the Locomotive, who forces its
medium to writhe back and forth continuously across the dance floor; and
Madame Lokotoro, the Doctor’s Wife. The sacrifice of a dog marks the
culmination of the ritual. Rouch (1978: 1007) interprets this breaking of an
Islamic food taboo as being symbolic of the colonial Europeans’ alterity:
“Europeans are not supposed to be afraid of anything. They don’t care,
they break taboos, they do what they want, and I think that the Hauka
represent the same behavior.” In the film, when the spirits start to quarrel
over their share, some already sucking the blood from the dead dog’s body,
the Governor calls a “roundtable conference” to decide whether the dog is
to be eaten raw or cooked. The Wicked Major and Capitaine argue that it
needs to be cooked so that those who had to stay back in Accra may also
get their share. As the meat boils in the pot, the possessed grab their share
with their bare hands and start to chew away on the half-cooked pieces.
Soon after, the spirits leave their mounts. Only the Locomotive refuses
to go. He calls for Moukayla Kiri, the informal leader of Accra’s Hauka