‘When I was born,” says Germaine Acogny, speaking from her home in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal, “people said I was the reincarnation of my grandmother.” A Yoruba priestess, her grandmother Aloopho was said to possess powers that would be passed down the matrilineal line. But she only had one child – Acogny’s father, Togoun – so Aloopho made an exception. “She told my dad, ‘I’ll transmit my powers to you, but you must transmit them to your oldest daughter in turn.’”
Acogny gives a megawatt smile and begins to chuckle heartily. “I don’t necessarily feel that my father passed on all the power he could have done,” she says, eyes glinting. Nonetheless, the 79-year-old firmly believes that “the dead are not dead”, and thanks her grandmother for bestowing upon her an ease of movement and reverence for the natural world.
