Akele is the language of the Akele people, from Gabon. It’s a Bantu language, whose speakers are scattered around various parts the country. The Akele are fishermen and farmers living along the Ogooué and Ngounie rivers, and in the lake region around Lambaréné.

A tale (Apiret, in Akele) is an oral genre used as an educational tool. The Tale of the Upstream God and the Downstream God raises God as the source of knowledge and wisdom. It is decyphered for us by Hugues-André Awanhet Ntawanga, PhD student in Anthropology, graduate in political science and international relations.

Linguist: Jean-Marie Hombert
Camera and sound: Luc-Henri Fage
Translation: Hugues Awanhet
Editing : Caroline Laurent

Two Gods. One very far, the other very close.

The axis corresponding to the terms nkèlô (downstream) and mbékô (upstream) translates a vertical religious imagery among the Akele. At the top, upstream, there’s a distant God, predominant and timeless. He has no direct relation to Man. At the bottom is the downstream God, existing within temporality. This God is no other than Man himself.

Therefore, God, Ndjambiet, father and head of a family, symbolizes the knowledge and wisdom useful to the forming of conscience and managing of the family cell. Ndjambiet also represents the keeper of memory. About the image that bear his wives: Ngwépasset and Langorelet actually correspond to characteristics and values both incarnated and defended by Ndjambiet. The first wife, Ngwépasset, symbolizes the keeperess of memory, the one who runs the household and guards the village. The second wife, Langorelet, symbolizes the one who never begrudges or gets cross, and who’s always in a good mood.

Besides these values and qualities, there’re a whole range of know-hows and knowledge that are useful to life, represented by the gamebag.

Ndjambiet does symbolize wisdom and knowledge, but his family faces the curses of human society: exclusion, selfishness, rejection and contempt. Kotakiaein, Ndjambiet’s eldest son, symbol of the rejects of society, is the very expression of these curses mouldering over Ndjambiet’s family. Why such decay of values and conduct?

Because God is dead. God’s death brought a lack of boundaries and orientation in life. God’s death, signifying contempt for knowledge, made God unreachable for those of this family who did not receive his teachings. Introspection, thus the ability of the youngest son to examine himself, to reflect upon the circumstances, as well as the relationship between the two brothers… many elements hint towards the importance of human relationships and social cohesion between family members: such relationships bear solutions, solidarity, sharing, teachings, which are essential to social life. Yet that is only possible through education, thanks to which one may take one’s own decisions and directions in life.

Kotakiaein symbolizes he who is despised, but bears the teachings of God. He’s an accomplished man, for he has received teachings, he’s a gatherer and he brings warmth into relationships because he ate God’s flesh, which means he continues to bear the teachings of his father, the ones that are useful to life.

(This tale was shot at Lake Onangué in the Moyen-Ogooué province, Gabon, in 2009).