A land of impenetrable forests, green Gabon has been inhabited since the dawn of time by peoples who managed to adapt to living in symbiosis with the potentially hostile and inhospitable surrounding nature, but who were able to transform it into an ally for their own survival and subsistence, learning to know its deepest secrets, dangers and potential, in a perfect balance of integration, defence, respect and exploitation of resources.
Among the earliest peoples to move into the remotest areas of Gabon were the Babongo pygmies and the Bantu-derived groups of the Fang and Mitsogo.
Ancient peoples of hunters, fishermen and gatherers developed a particular nature-centred spirituality, revolving around the mastery of the nutritional and therapeutic properties of plants, particularly the ‘sacred wood’, the hallucinogenic plant endemic to the iboga.
Today particularly widespread among the Fang, the ceremonial called Bwiti originates from the in-depth knowledge of the quintessential forest people, the Babongo pygmies, who were most likely the first to migrate to the foreign central Gabon. Subsequently, the use and properties of iboga were shared and passed on to the neighbouring Bantu peoples.
Bwiti is a complex initiatory ritual rooted in animism, the veneration of forest spirits and the realm of the dead, combining in syncretism, in relatively recent times, with elements of Christian liturgy.
The architectural subdivision of the interior spaces of the traditional Bwiti temple is also very complex, as are the ceremonies, which involve different levels of knowledge in the use of the plant and different degrees of experience with its effects.
Used in rites of passage from childhood to adulthood, in healing practices similar to shamanism and in the investiture of anyone wishing to become a nganga (priest/healer), its power centres on its hallucinogenic effects, as a key to accessing the extra-sensory doors of the psyche. Initiated followers or the sick, are literally sent into an overdose controlled by the priests, with more or less massive doses of iboga and for several days, depending on the purpose of the bwiti. A real trance of hallucination, a physical pre-coma, as a cathartic purifying act and communication with one’s unconscious, in search of the “breaking point” that generated the malaise, or as an asceticism to the “light”, to the otherworldly truths of the realm of the invisible.
Attending a bwiti, at the edge of the forest, in a traditional village enveloped in darkness and the sounds of wild nature, with only the light of the fire illuminating the small convent and the faces painted in white kaolin of the followers, is one of the most evocative experiences that Gabon can offer. A strong and particularly moving encounter with ancient ancestral traditions and “other” rituals, whose ultimate goal is common to all humanity, the search for goodness and supreme truth.
Absolutely not to be missed.
