ABSTRACT
This article focuses on some representations of the origin of AIDS and Ebola in Burkina Faso, against a new background of Covid-19 which began in early 2020 in connection with two animals: the spider and the bat. These are also, if not first and foremost, heroes of oral literature (from tales to myths) from this region of West Africa. It is up to anthropologists to explore the meandering symbolism and imagination of these liminal animals that move back and forth between the worlds inhabited by humans and the "bush" worlds of non-humans. Here arises a mythological anamnesis. These "trickster" animals challenge categories and understanding of both virologists and anthropologists.
Cet article porte sur quelques représentations de l'origine du sida et d'Ebola en pays lobi burkinabè, avec la Covid-19 en nouvel arrière-plan depuis le début de l'année 2020, en lien avec deux animaux : l'araignée et la chauve-souris. Ce sont aussi, voire d'abord, des héros de la littérature orale (des contes aux mythes) de cette région d'Afrique de l'Ouest. Des anthropologues ont exploré les méandres des symboliques et des imaginaires de ces animaux liminaires qui vont et viennent entre les mondes habités par les humains et les univers de « brousse ¼ des non-humains. Une anamnèse mythologique est mise à jour. Ces animaux rusés se jouent de nos catégories et de notre entendement, virologues et anthropologues ici confondus.
Subject(s)
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome , COVID-19 , Chiroptera/virology , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola , Spiders/virology , Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/epidemiology , Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/history , Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/transmission , Africa, Western/epidemiology , Animals , Burkina Faso/epidemiology , COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/history , COVID-19/transmission , Communicable Diseases, Emerging/epidemiology , Communicable Diseases, Emerging/history , Congresses as Topic , Disease Vectors , Epidemics , HIV/physiology , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola/epidemiology , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola/history , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola/transmission , History, 21st Century , Host-Pathogen Interactions/physiology , Humans , Museums , SARS-CoV-2/physiologyABSTRACT
In this Photo Essay, photographs are combined with drawings collected in Burkina Faso in the years following the 2014 - 2016 Ebola outbreak. Portraits of bats are shown. The blacklisting of these animals following the recommendations of health authorities collides with local realities, where it is not possible to talk about bats in a 'general' sense. The same is true today in the period of COVID - 19, when chiropterans are once again in the etiological hot seat: bats are behind th e pandemic, according to Ridley's shock phrase (2020). In Burkina Faso's Lobi country, between the red and black fruit - eaters (which have always been eaten) and the small insectivores (which have never been eaten as such, but are very useful to animist healers), there is a chasm of representation that is unveiled by these images.