Nature, culture, and the supernatural among the Susu

Abstract

All cultures deal with the fundamental categories of nature and culture in the formation of their world views, which are inevitably cast in religious terms and categories. The Susu, a Muslim people of the Guinea Coast of West Africa, make unusually strict distinctions between the realms of culture and nature, revealed in their attitude and actions toward animals, the bush and the forest, agriculture, women, and children. The Susu strongly deprecate the natural, highlighted by the remoteness or hostility of the spiritual [sacred] world vis-à-vis these natural (profane) categories and by the absence of ritual manipulation of the natural world. God and the spirits are remote from the natural world, and Susu Islam focuses on, sacralizes, and indeed defines the only realm of the cultural. As human beings transcend their natural state, they become more fully human and more perfect Muslims. [religion, world view, Islam, preliterate classification, West Africa]