Senegal’s Dakar: remembering the dead, in the shadow of a thousand-year old baobab tree

Have you ever stood under a giant tree and wondered how many (thousands) of years it must have overshadowed that particular piece of land? This is exactly what I wondered while standing under a thousand-year young African baobab tree, which also incidentally doubles as a cemetery for griots from the Serer people of Senegambia.  

Griots (pronounced gri-ohs) were traditional West African storytellers, singers, musicians, and oral historians. They trained to excel as orators, lyricists, and musicians. In Senegambia, griots were part of the traditional caste structure and often kept records of all the births, deaths, and marriages through the generations of a village or family. Even today, griots exist and performing is a key function they uphold.

Interestingly, as a result of their consciousness-raising lyrics addressing history, resistance against systemic oppression, and push for pan-African solidarity, artists in West Africa are often referred to as modern day griots. Senegalese rap artists, such as Xuman (who created the Journal Rappé) write and perform songs that strike against injustices, centring the voices of those pushed on the margins, and inspire calls to action among their audience to create change

In July, a work opportunity brought me to Senegal for a week, my first time on continental Africa . I visited Dakar which is truly Dak’art!, and Saly, a small beach resort town on the beautiful Atlantic coast. The streets of Dakar were filled with colourful street art - everything from sports, political commentary, and feminism.

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Whether it was a visit to Goree Islands, or a perfect golden sunset from atop Les Mamelles lighthouse, my travels in Senegal felt like a pilgrimage from day one. I was eager to get a taste of the African savanna, of which the African baobab is a crucial part. Both the baobab and the history of griots were central to my immersion into the history of the land I was fortunate enough to travel through.

Standing tall inside the Bandia Reserve, is Tombeau De Griots, a thousand year old baobab tree which was selected by Serer people hundreds of years ago to bury the griots from their community. When I found out about this cemetery baobab situated inside the reserve - a twenty-five year old man made forest reserve where many herbivores likes giraffe, zebras, and the famed white rhinoceros peacefully coexist - I was so excited that I felt if there was ONE thing I had to witness on my travels, it had to be this tree with such a rooted history to the land I was walking on.

I felt the excitement of a child who had discovered on her own, something I assumed everyone else must already know. I soon started telling everyone I spoke with at the conference I was attending, which included many participants from West Africa. I was surprised to find that no one knew what I was talking about. This further piqued my curiosity.

On the last day of my stay, I set out early in the morning with the only other person who was convinced to undertake an expedition after a long work week. We left our hotel in Saly, two women sprawled in an eight seater safari jeep, headed 25 kms to Bandia eager to hug a thousand-year old tree that houses the carnal remains of the oral historians who lived hundreds of years ago on that land. Did I say it felt like a pilgrimage?

On our way, baobabs were everywhere, autonomously shaped and claiming space in unimaginable forms. Also known as the “tree of life” baobab trees are found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and are the national symbol of Senegal for all the right reasons. It made me think of the lone 500-year-old baobab tree in my neighbourhood in Mumbai, India, that was brought over by early Portuguese settler-colonists, under which today a cold sugarcane juice sometimes quenches my thirst on a humid day in the subcontinent.

The African baobab is one of those trees (like neem trees in India) which has a value in each of its parts - bark, seed, leaves, flowers. They are some of the oldest and biggest angiosperm trees in the world, some of them living up to 6,000 years! Imagine having witnessed thousands of years of civilisations, transitions, interpersonal bonds, the cruellest of oppressions, and the fiercest of resistances with a quiet resilience and towering presence. No wonder they are revered for their historical and cultural value, and this is exactly what pulled me from the very first time I started researching about Senegal.

As we entered through the gates of the reserve, I told our local guide from a nearby village who had knowledge of the land about the baobab tree in Mumbai, and he was fascinated by its travel history. He educated us about “bouye”, the baobab juice which has many health benefits and is abundantly available and consumed regularly in Senegal. Every part of the tree, he said, has medicinal value. The key reason why baobabs can live that long, he emphasised, is because it makes bad firewood, so people tend to leave it alone.

Tombeau De Griots was our last stop on the safari. I think I would have enjoyed the sight of the zebras and giraffes a lot more had I seen them after witnessing the tree. The excitement was building and I couldn’t wait. Sensing my interest, our guide told us more about the tree. Not every baobab could be a cemetery. It had to be a special tree selected by the elders of a tribe, who would then perform a ritual before nominating it as a cemetery. The tree would then house the remains of griots who left their bodies, but even in mortality, their voice was so important that it could not be buried.

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I have been sitting with this thought ever since my witnessing of this extraordinary place: the power of a voice, so grounded and rooted in the lived realities and collective journeys of ancestors, can have such value that it cannot be lost even when bodies return to soil. For losing it, is losing a part of collective history.

This is especially poignant today as histories are contested in a world fraught with occupation of land and erasure of cultures. The importance of stories tied to land, told intergenerationally, can embody myths and legends that have a powerful cultural and environmental preservative impact (albeit temporarily given today’s extractive-capitalist global economy). My mind went to the sacred groves in my birth land of Rajasthan - a desert state with serious land degradation and rising desertification levels owing to mining in large parts. Located in and around the Aravalli mountain ranges, which are older than the Himalayas, sacred groves, corridors, and gardens are often sites of shrines and temples with cultural and folklore importance.

Our guide shared a myth that if a griot was buried under ground, there would be no rain. He recounted that in the 1960s, soon after Senegalese independence, the government imposed egalitarianism, banning ethnic practices of burial, which forced Serer people to bury griots underground. The same year there was a drought. Although I found no exact information on this, there is a history of droughts causing major famines in the region throughout the 1960s.  

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To the Serer people of Senegal, who were the third largest ethnic group at the time of independence in 1960, griots were a key part of oral histories told intergenerationally, including those of their resistance against centuries of religious, cultural impositions, and French colonisation. When there were problems within the community, griots would facilitate resolution, reorienting towards collective values. They were considered repositories of knowledge. This is why they would be buried inside a baobab, the tree of life, so that history would live on just like the baobab.

When we reached Tombeau de Griots, a gentle giant of a baobab tree stood there humbly. I could not take my eyes off of it. I stood under it. I undertook a parikrama, a Hindu and Buddhist ritual of moving clockwise around an object of devotion as an indication of reverence. I gave it a long hug, eyes closed, remembering those who came before me separated by continents and lineage, yet rooted in land and community, and driven by life-affirming values.

Don’t we need more voices using storytelling, music, and beats to steer our wayward world towards alternatives that are rooted in community and nurturing, not the destruction of our earth? A pilgrimage in the simplest of sense is an individual’s journey through life. Witnessing a piece of this Senegalese history reassured me to continue using my voice to fight against today’s global authoritarianism, rooted in the neoliberal capitalism, that is killing both people and the planet. I feel fortunate to have found grounding shade under a tree of such significance.

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