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Techniques & culture January 1, 2022 Marc-Emmanuel Grandgeorge
Bwiti in Gabon is a complex of secret, mainly male initiation societies that function as a religion, ancestor cult, and therapeutic/divinatory ritual based on the ritualized ingestion of iboga root bark scrapings. Its initiates, nganga, are diviners and healers holding knowledge in ethnomedicine, ethnobotany, and ethnozoology. This article examines a previously unstudied aspect of the misökö branch, assenguedia sub-branch, in Moyen-Ogooué province, where human skull scrapings are prohibited in rituals and replaced by plant elements. It presents the complete operational chain for making the 'serpent,' the central element of the therapeutic 'cord-cutting' ritual specific to this branch.