Spoon Ritual

The spoon is not like in the West an utensil intended for eating or cooking. Most traditional African dishes are eaten with their fingers around a common container, especially if there are guests, as usually the boss or the parent eats alone.

Decorated spoons are prestigious objects. They denote the rank and quality of their owners, usually women and, especially, the wives of clan leaders. Its use is ceremonial, whether religious or playful ceremonies. In addition to the dances they also use them in some magical rituals to collect the remains of the slaughtered animal and in some regions, they are used in the great feast of rice, which is celebrated at the return of young people recently initiated and usually circumcised.

In some festivities the ladies of higher rank rival in the beauty of their spoons, true works of art, which they will use to distribute cereals to the most disadvantaged. Sometimes, spoon capacity measures the generosity of its owner. In some villages they are the exclusive property of the most hospitable woman.

These spoons, in many ethnic groups, are called reward spoons because they receive them as a reward for their generosity or for their culinary gifts. Women keep and care for these spoons as if they were statues, and display them as true trophies. They are also the “weapons” of the representatives of the women’s associations who display them in ritual ceremonies or popular celebrations.

The spoon, along with personal ornamentation, dresses and jewels, is the symbol that best defines the rank of the African woman. Some spoons are particularly beautiful. These prestigious objects have given rise to very original artistic creations. Generally the end of the mango is finished off by a reproduction of the traditional statues of the ethnic group, by an animal head, which is usually the totemic animal or by a hand that refers to the generous distribution of rice by its owner. In this case it is a crocodile, a powerful aquatic animal very present in many African cosmogonies and very present in the so-called water villages, such as the Bidjogo people.

In some ethnic groups, spoons may also belong to men, usually older men, who wear spoons hung with a sneeze during rites.