Kaïdara, Deity of Gold and Hidden Knowledge

Kaïdara is the deity of gold and of esoteric knowledge in the initiatory literature of the pastoral Fulɓe of the Massina (Mali) and the Ferlo (Senegal). Styled 'the distant and very near', he dwells in a subterranean country of dwarf spirits, and his name is connected by the tradition with the idea of 'limit' or 'finality', so that he embodies the terminus of human understanding. The eponymous récit, transmitted and set down by Amadou Hampâté Bâ, follows three companions, a freeman and two serfs, who descend into a magic underworld strewn with symbolic encounters, a chameleon, a bat, a scorpion, a pool guarded by twin serpents, on a quest toward Kaïdara's dwelling. Only the seeker who, out of pure love of knowledge, retains none of the gold he is given returns victorious, so that gold and wisdom are revealed as the two faces of the god.

Domains

• gold and wealth
• esoteric knowledge

Powers

• to bestow gold and the fullness of esoteric knowledge
• to test seekers through a path of symbolic encounters

Epithets

• Kaydara woɗɗuɗo-ɓaɗɗiiɗo

Sources

• Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Kaïdara: récit initiatique peul, transcribed and translated by A. H. Bâ and Lilyan Kesteloot (Paris: Julliard / Classiques africains, 1969).
• Amadou Hampaté Bâ, Kaidara: A Fulani Cosmological Epic from Mali, trans. Daniel Whitman, introduction by Lilyan Kesteloot (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1988).