Of Water and the Spirit—Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman

Malidoma Patrice Somé, was born in a village in Burkina Faso in the early 1950s when it was still a French colony called Upper Volta. The book covers Burkina both pre- and post-independence. What makes this interesting is that he was schooled by French missionaries but returned to his village and became a shaman. He is a part of two worlds: the traditional Burkinabe one and the Western ones; the world of the supernatural and the one of rational thinking.

The author writes about his childhood and coming of age. As a child he is taken from his village to a Jesuit mission school and indoctrinated by French missionaries to the European ways of thought, life and religion. When he returns to his village as a young adult, he struggles to fit until he is initiated into the Dagara culture. He spends his life sharing his wisdom and the way of life of the Dagara to the rest of the world, in the hope that it is respected and protected.