“There are evil spirits down there,” Boucary Sagara said. “They take people and their motorbikes, and suck them into the river.”
Sagara was quite certain, saying that he would prefer to make a lengthy detour rather than cross one of the three bridges that span the Niger River at Bamako.
In Mali, the structure is known as the “third bridge” or the “Chinese bridge” — it is the capital’s third and most recent crossing of the great river, built and financed by a Chinese company 11 years ago.
An old popular and animist belief holds that water djinns — supernatural creatures who can be benevolent or malicious — have always gathered at this precise spot, Souta Dounou, one of the holy places that line the river.
For worshipers, the djinns are still there, lurking beneath the imposing concrete span.
While the place is sacred to believers, to others it is a place of malevolence.
Like many Bamako residents, Sagara prefers to go 30 minutes out of his way and take another bridge rather than approach this “non-Muslim place.”
However, the banks under the “Chinese bridge” are far from deserted.
In the dry season, black sandstone rocks smoothed by strong currents poke up above the water level. They are turned red almost every day by the blood of animals sacrificed there: goats, chickens, sheep and sometimes oxen.
Many people find good reason to come to Souta Dounou, asking the djinns for help solving family, work or relationship problems, while others simply need a morale boost.
Some claim to have seen a siren, others speak of a submerged village, or the immense hand of a djinn that snatches motorbike riders down under the water to their doom.
“This is just a myth. The reality was brought to light when the Chinese built the bridge,” said Belco Ouologem, director of the Confucius Institute in Bamako, who also served as a translator for Chinese company CGGC during the construction.
“The company made studies in the river with a robot device. They discovered the presence of a large hole leading down to a water table. The hole makes a whirlpool and sucks down what falls into it,” he said. “It is a classic phenomenon.”
Large signs were displayed during the construction of the bridge to explain the geology of the site.
Chinese engineers “have built bridges over the sea — it’s not Malian djinns who are going to stop them,” Oulogem added.
“The Chinese are like everyone else, they made sacrifices in order to build their bridge,” said Aliou Diarra, a spare-parts trader who goes every two weeks to make a sacrifice.
“It cannot be explained. That’s how it is,” he said. “We must not stir things up too much, otherwise the djinns will get angry.”
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