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Ogotommeli - Kinndou-kinndou, soul soul
Identifier
013486
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Conversations with Ogotommeli (An Introduction to Dogon Religious ideas) – Professor Marcel Griaule
It had always seemed surprising to the European that the word for ‘soul’ – to use the traditional European term – was a repetition of a single word kinndou-kinndou, which should really be translated ‘soul-soul’.
The Nummo has previously drawn on the ground the outlines of two souls shown in human form. The first outline is female and the second male. As the new born child touches the outlines, the two souls take possession of him. His body is one; but the spiritual part of him is two.
The infant then arrives in the world endowed with two principles of different sexes, and in theory belongs as much to one as to the other; his personal sex is undifferentiated. In practise society recognises in him by anticipation the sex which he has in appearance. Symbolically however, his spiritual androgyny is still present.