The Mystery of Gabon

This is a new short post for you! Something I wanted to share with you. The mystery I want to discuss here is the traditional belief of my country. I recently wrote three posts about my country when it comes to culture, Art and tradition. I hope you like it. I am not practicing some of the traditional beliefs but I respect my culture a lot. I respect the way people see things. That's their opinion and I am not here to judge. I am just trying to understand. It can be sometimes difficult but it s the tradition period. The knowledge of the Good and Bad (the evil) is in us. Nobody can never say I do not know what is good or what is wrong (bad). As you can see here in this old video song of the early 90's, the artist try to explain something interesting. He tried to share to the world the mystery of Gabon, a part of our traditional belief when it comes to the spiritual realm. People in our traditional beliefs know it. People who are intiated understand it. So not everyone is supposed to do it and not everyone should try it. Just remember one thing:Fight the evil, fight the bad. Be good. Be in good terms with God. The Almighty. Usually people who believe in tradition will tell you that they are guided by the spirits and the ancestors. Like I said earlier, I do not practice it at all. It cannot work for me and with me... The story is this one: In a little village away from life in the city, away from town, people (the villagers) are going about their daily activities. They don't care about anything else. Just their lives. Some of them know the mystery some of them do not. In that life in the village, they are going to work in the farm, others taking care of their place, some are going fishing and so on. But in this little world, in this movement, there is a small group of four young men with their spiritual traditional teacher sitting in the forest away from the people. They are young men who recently got initiated into the traditional belief (the reason why they have some leaves in their mouth) They must discover now the spiritual realm, the spiritual tradition. Their eyes will be now opened to things they were not aware of. They will discover the mystery of Gabon. Maybe they have already heard about it from the elders but they have never experienced it on their own. This is the day. The very day they will see things that their eyes have never seen before.

The traditional teacher lead them in the deep forest for that encounter and the experience. to Learn how to fight the evil and to connect with the good spirits. On their way to their spiritual encounter, they are stopped by a surprising fire burning the grass. That fire was made by two evil spirits (you will see them in the video song) They didn't show up on the first stage. They only saw some strange animals looking like monkeys on the trees agitating the trees to scare them. But as they are moving forward those two evil creatures physically appear to them. Does it happen in the real life? yes. Do people know that experience? yes, but they do not talk about it. And that's why the singer is sharing it in his song. The first encounter with the bad spirits in the woods the young initiated men run away because they were afraid. The spiritual teacher was left alone facing them. But when the fire happened, those evil spirits threat to hurt them but all of the sudden a woman with a white face and white clothes appears and chase them away. She obviously has some super power and she keeps a wild animal's tail in her mouth to symbolize it (some people describe her as the mother of twins. In some tradition, woman who carried more than one child at a time in her womb. it has to be something or someone special even more. Others would say they have super power because every women do not carry more than one child at a time. Anyway that's the traditional belief) They thank her and they keep moving and they are going further in their spiritual experience in the forest but again the evil spirits are back and this time they want to stop them and hurt them but unfortunately for them ( the evil spirits), the group of young men are now stronger than when they first started the spiritual journey. They know now how to dominate them and make them submissive to them. The evil spirits give up because they know they no longer have this power so they join them at the end. People have been doing that generation after generation. It is passed on the new ones. Sorry the video clip is old (from early 90's meaning not high thechnology) but just look and observe the story and what to understand from it. I think we are not all called to do such spiritual experiences but it is quite interesting to see that humankind understand the same meaning of life: Fight the evil. This troop is very talented and as you can see the traditional dances are very athletic. The lead singer's name is Vickoss Ekondo. A well known artist in Gabon but he has retired now from music industry. People have always been amazed by his live performances with his troop. They have been invited to perform in many countries in the world to represent culture and tradition of Gabon.They are very talented and people have never been disappointed by their live performances. That was one of the mysteries of Gabon. That was the traditional belief.

Thank you for reading. I end here with old memories of my country. Culture and everything. As I explained in my previous posts there are many ethnic groups in Gabon with many traditional dances. You can visit my other blog. www.poshenvogue.com