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An Introduction to the Dagara Medicine Wheel

This essay is an edited excerpt from a speech given by Malidoma Some in 1995. Malidoma is an initiated Elder into the Dagara Tribe of West Central Africa. He is also the holder of a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Sorbonne, and a second Ph.D. in English Literature from Brandeis. Author of many books, including Of Water and the Spirit and The Healing Wisdom of Africa he now travels the world providing workshops to share the traditional wisdom and spirit of Africa.

The Dagara tribe of West Central Africa successfully categorize their people into five different categories: fire, water, mineral, earth and nature. These are shown above on the African Wheel with the colors the Dagara normally associate with each type. Each of the five types of people play a very specific role. Every person born into this world comes from one of these categories in order to help fulfill the kind of function that that category of people is supposed to fulfill in order to keep the community together.

There are certain people that are referred to as "fire" people and these people are connected with the element named fire. Symbolically these people are supposed to be the link between the village and the world of the ancestors. They are supposed to be the ones that function as conduits through whom ancestral energy is passed on to the village. Therefore, more often than not, the kind of perception that they are linked to is dreaming. Their dream world is, so to say, very enriched. Their so called "intuition" is also very rich, and so is their perceptiveness.

It is not difficult to tell whether you have fire energy or not. If you don't dream, be careful. If you dream, still be careful, :) because either way something has happened. The important thing is to be very alert to the detailed images that are coming to you (in dreams). This is why you need fire people with an ability to help other people who encounter these images to be able to know how to deal with them. The Dagara do not encounter a strange dream experience, and then wake up acting as if it had been a spectacle, a movie. Instead they take action. If you do not know what action to take, then you go find somebody who can help you find out. It is a participant attitude. A lot of times when you don't know what to do, you are advised to tell Spirit that you would like to do something, but you don't know what to do. This is considered acting on it. But it is not acting on it to think about it as some kind of interesting view. It is not supposed to be interesting, it is supposed to be effective. It is supposed to be something real.

We also have people that are called the "water" people. These people are usually considered the peacemakers. They are the ones with the ability to reconcile differences, both differences within the self and differences with one another. Therefore, when there is conflict, they say "Well, is there a water person around?" Not that a water person is supposed to come and hose the people :), but because there is a general understanding that if you have a conflict with someone, and a water person shows up, you have got to take that into account. You have got to postpone shooting one another! :) So a water person may be referred to as a reconciler, one that brings peace back, and the one that also helps maintain the serene nature of village life.

To these people you add what are called the "earth" people, who are directly a reflection of earth energy search. There function is to empower people, to nurture people, to make them feel at home. One of the challenges of existence is to constantly have a way to tell that we are welcome. Another one is to be able to be seen the way we are. If the world around us truly sees us, we have an opportunity to build hope. Otherwise, we tend to draw a circle. So therefore earth people are expected to be the ones that bring the best out of others, give them a sense of belonging, a sense of home.

To these three categories we add another one which is referred to as "mineral." Mineral is what I was basically referring to when I talked earlier about memory existing in the bone. Mineral people are referred to in English slang as "real story tellers." In a non-literate culture these people are equipped with a baffling memory, a powerful memory. They have all of the stories. Not just generic kinds of stories that are easy and mythological, but also genealogic stories, mechanic stories, stories of the kind that address the issue of creation.

Certain things have the power to produce healing within us provided that we remember them. Just like certain kinds of illness can only grow inside of us if we maintain silence around them. The same way the ability to remember something releases that thing into an energy form capable of making a lot of difference in our lives. That's what mineral people do, and what mineral energy as such is capable of producing within individuals.

The last one we call "nature." The nature people are also referred to as the "witches." I know the Western world doesn't like the word witches. They have killed a few of them over time. :) Probably they intend to kill some more. :) But the point is, a witch is really a great thing to have, because this is what we call nature energy in its purest form. In my village for instance, the tree that we see is not a fixed thing that stays there for several hundred years. The tree is probably the most mobile consciousness that we can tap into. There is no real clear English way of demonstrating a,b,c why . . . why the tree can be the most mobile thing. But believe it or not, this is the way it is. The Dagara people believe in a certain hierarchy in consciousness. The highest consciousness is the vegetable world, the nature world, trees. The second is the animal world, and the third one is us. :) So we are trailing behind. :)

Therefore a nature person is considered to be extremely important. That person knows the book of nature in such a way that they have the key to the evolution of our consciousness. The jungle is itself a decipherable book. When you look at nature it appears to be chaos, but you can perceive patterns in the chaos. If you only see chaos in nature it is a reflection of the chaos inside yourself. There is a very perfect order in nature. Understanding this kind of order is understanding the cosmic phenomenon. This is why, more often than not, indigenous people want to keep nature the way it is. Modification of it deletes an opportunity to decipher a very potent hieroglyphics. Perhaps this is why the modern world looks upon the indigenous as people who are not evolved, people who are primitive. In this context primitive is a reductionist word which does not depict the reality as it is, only the importance of being called primitive.

Nature itself, and the people associated with it, are supposed to be ones to bring the best out of a place. They makes us understand what change, transformation and adaptation means. Humans have a great chance of avoiding being caught in the hell of illness if they improve their ability to change this time, if they improve their ability to transform, just like nature does: when spring comes, everything comes to life, whereas before it was winter and everything looked like it was dead. Those changes allow for the kind of validity that our psyche needs in order to expand. I am just saying that illness, some of the causes of illness, comes from resisting something . . . . . maybe either resisting change, or resisting ourselves. These concepts are not all that alien. It is just that somehow we need to give them a new stamp, a brand new state of approval, so that they can become more participant in day to day life, in our work.

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