Sacre impronte e oggetti - Università degli Studi di Torino

Traces of the Invisible in Africa
A priori, it is possible and plausible to construct at least three specific
models of generic nomadism and then proceed a posteriori to relate
ethnographic instances to them.
In all three cases, movement, represented by the arrows, is of the
essence. The first type corresponds to the annual migrations of the
southern Tunisian Bedouins I encountered in mid-1969. They spent the
summer months in the low lying desert and the winter months close to
the granaries (ghorofa) on higher ground. Though such peoples are often
presented in western media as genuine nomads it would be more exact
to designate them as transhumant agro-pastoralists. I came across
the second kind of nomadism while working in Mauritania. A chief
would decide that it was time for his dependents to fold their tents and
move on in caravan style to the next watering place. But as these de- and
relocations took place within a fixed albeit extensive territory, the group
would eventually end up back where it had started from. At least during
the time I knew them, the WaKonongo embodied the third possibility.
The elders were aware of where (the grey circle) they had been some
years prior to the all important present (the black circle) and adults,
when pressed to think about it, acknowledged the fact that they were
not destined to stay permanently put on the spot. The awareness, however,
of past locations was purely pragmatic and the acknowledgment
of future a mere matter of fact. Mindful of the nostalgia many migrants
feel towards their initial homeland and their aspirations to return
home when and if possible, I asked my authoritative Konongo informants
whether they too regretted their clans having been obliged to up-
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