‘’ The birth of the Fa, the child who speaks in his mother's womb " : A work by Mahougnon Kakpo

The birth of the Fa, the child who speaks in the womb of his mother of Professor Mahougnon Kakpo is at the heart of a futile controversy. Far from initiating learners to the Fa, this book in the program for the 3rd year, is a collection of eleven fabulous tales that reveals the literary dimensions, scientific and cosmic African geomancy.

"When a large animal disappears, it is from the pot that it should be sought ". This Fa motto already announces the framework of the work : The birth of the Fa, the child who speaks in his mother's womb "by Professor Mahougnon Kakpo, published in Laha Editions. This collection of eleven tales on the Fa, in the 3rd year program of high schools and colleges, allows learners and Beninese in general to get a precise idea of ​​the Fa, this popular divinatory art in the Gulf of Guinea and particularly in the South of Benin, and better understand your system.

 This book immerses the reader in the environment of this geomancy of African origin considered - wrongly - by some as a diabolical practice..

"Eleven stories reveal, in the form of paintings or sketches, a dimension of Beninese wisdom, that is to say the meaning, the meaning, the why of things, the invisible origin of their visibility ", underlines the preface Father Kodjo Jacob Agossou, rector of the Catholic University of West Africa (Ucao). He emphasizes the pedagogical character of the Fa. " Since then, the whole story organizes the heuristic reflection, from this sentence, to demonstrate the truth or, at least, the moral veracity of this de Fa aidegun ”. For him, "This modest work by Mahougnon Kakpo is an excellent contribution to the search for meaning through reflective activity ; act by which a man makes his mind revert to himself to look at himself looking ". The reader is transported to Tata's stories, an old man full of wisdom, who tells the children of his village, the fabulous origins of the Fa, its signs and declensions. These stories, each as interesting as the next, help strengthen the knowledge of young pubescent, of the human being in the space of the visible and the invisible, of the sacred and the profane, day and night. The author builds the reader on the value of the Fa in our heritage and cultural richness, touching its literary dimensions, scientific and cosmic.

The book reveals the different wisdoms of this divinity, its truth and its poetry. The reader is built on 256 combinations from 16 fundamental signs. It is a part of the rich and diverse African culture which is subtly declined. The work is not intended to initiate the reader to the Fa but it has the merit of proving to Africans and Beninese in particular that they can appropriate their own culture doomed to gemonies by pseudo-religious who find the devil behind all ancestral practices. The birth of the Fa, the child who speaks in his mother's womb sounds like a call to safeguard and promote African cultural values. A way for Mahougnon Kakpo to say : Africans, back to our roots for our own happiness !

Freddy AGBOTON (Coll)