Cameroon/Chad, Africa - Putchu Guinadji

The Putchu Guinadji are small, metal statues of a horse and rider, originating from the Kotoko people of Cameroon and Chad, near the Logone and Chari rivers and the Lake Chad basin. It is believed that, if properly activated by special ritual, these statues help relieve or diminish “madness” by fighting the demons they believed to cause it. In the Kotoko language, the word putchu means horse, and guinadji means demons. The Kotoko people themselves were not a horse society, and thus the horse and rider statues are actually based off of the Peul warriors. 

The rituals performed to activate the statues would start when a person believed to be "mad" would be diagnosed by a marabout, a Muslim holy man. If the patient was indeed found to have a condition, they would then bring medicine to a caster, someone who creates objects from metal. It is unclear what exactly the medicine in this case is, however, two plants found in Kotoko land, the gwouabi and tidih whoume, are used to “deactivate” and “reactivate” the statues, making them likely candidates. After receiving the medicine from the patient, the caster creates the horse and rider from metal, usually either bronze, brass, silver, or copper, and the marabout puts it into boiling water containing the medicine. Finally, a chicken is sacrificed over the Putchu Guinadji, as the blood is required to fully activate it. It’s uncertain as to why a chicken sacrifice was needed, but it was perhaps seen as an offering to the horse and rider as a symbol of gratitude for fighting off the madness-inducing demons.

There is very little written about the Putchu Guinadji and Kotoko people, other than in the article “The Secret of the Putchu Guinadji'' by Henning Christoph, who travelled to the Lake Chad basin to learn the statues’ history from the Kotoko descendents themselves. Christoph learned much of the history behind these healing statues from a marabout named Bakoura, and one of the last remaining casters, Magana. The casting of the Putchu Guinadji has long been forbidden by Islam, which most of the Kotoko people converted to in the nineteenth century, which is why very few are still willing to create the statues and perform the ritual. Bakoura and Magana showed Christoph how they created and activated the statues and how to handle them with care. Magana also showed him many of the old statues he had regained after patients had died, and even had a boy come to call who was thought to be very ill, and wore an especially powerful Putchu Guinadji.

The statues are treated as a sort of talisman, an object of magic power, and typically worn around the neck. Depending how ill the patient was considered to be, the statue would sometimes be more detailed, be covered with leather, or have leather attachments. These attachments could contain powder of the plants previously mentioned and other metal pieces or statues that pertain to the particular “madness” with which the patient is afflicted. It’s uncertain what these other metal pieces or statues might have been, but we could speculate that they were possibly different types of Putchu Guinadji horse and rider figures, or perhaps symbols significant to the Kotoko.

It isn’t known for sure who or what the Kotoko people considered "mad," but presumably it was people with mental illnesses or disabilities, or possibly physical disabilities. It’s also unknown how such patients were treated by society, with or without a Putchu Guinadji. They did, however, seem to believe that "madness" was caused by demons, and that such madness could be transferred from person to person or object to object. Thus, a Putchu Guinadji that had been possessed by someone could not be safely handled by anyone else until a marabout deactivated it (presumably disabling it from “fighting” madness) using gwouabi leaves, otherwise they could risk catching whatever the patient had. The statues could also be reactivated to their madness-relieving state, once again using the blood of a chicken, or possibly a larger animal like a goat if more power was needed. This was typically done if it was believed that the Putchu Guinadji was beginning to lose its power, likely if the patient began displaying symptoms again, or if the symptoms became worse. When a patient died, the statue would either be sold, given back to the marabout, or buried with them.

The history behind the Putchu Guinadji gives an interesting look at how the Kotoko people viewed mental or possibly physical illnesses or disabilities. Although they did see them in a negative light, they also believed that such illnesses or disabilities could be treated. This raises the questions of just how those considered "mad" were treated in society when in possession of a Putchu Guinadji, and what characteristics led people to be considered "mad" in the first place. It also begs the question of how other, similar peoples in different areas viewed disabilities or illnesses and how they may have tried to treat or cure them. Perhaps, in a way, the creation of the Putchu Guinadji was an early step in trying to help those with disabilities or illnesses assimilate into a society built by those without. For that reason, and simply the intriguing history behind them, the Putchu Guinadji makes a fascinating and informative addition to the exhibition.