Cawyaŋ Zarma Sanni

• reviews
  • Proverbs
  • Songhay-Kaado
  • Sorcery's shadow
  • Speak Zarma
  • Story teller
• Dance
  • Dance 1
  • Dance 2
  • Dance 3
  • Dance 4
• Music
  • Traditional
    • Marcanda
    • Lutte traditionelle
    • Chaibou Aerou
    • Festival 1980s
    • Griotte
  • Hip hop
    • Berey koy
    • Cool maïga
    • Ismo one
    • Kaidan Kaskia
    • Wass wong
  • Popular
    • Boureima Disko
    • Djoumassi
    • Idi Sarki
    • Mali Yaro
    • Moussa Poussi
• Traditions
  • Slide shows
    • building a hut
    • casting a pan
    • growing millet
    • harvesting millet
    • mining salt
    • parade
    • wrestling
  • Hippo hunt
  • Marcanda
  • Rain dance
  • Riddles
  • waffa braiding

Group of women : Marcanda

No information is provided, but this setting resembles the ritual of the Marcanda as described by Sandra Bornand. The woman in the white dress is probably the woman that is due to be married.

Marcande in short

In the Zarma area of the Niger river, a woman whose husband gets married organizes a ceremony in which she asks married women of the village to come and spend the day at her home. At nightfall, just before the newly-wed couple arrives, all the women form a half-circle : those who were taken as first wives start to insult those who were taken as second wives and vice-versa.

Ritual injuries the Marcanda (French), research and text by Sandra Bornand (ethnographiques.org n°7, April 2005). Full text and transcription are available.