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The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal
RACHEL MUELLER
Summary This article by Rachel Mueller details the unique coexistence and cooperation in modern Senegal of the Sufi sect of Islam, and Lbou, a religious cult that attributes inexplicable behavior, health issues, and adversity to troublesome spirits (rab) who intentionally interact and sometimes possess girls and women.
According to Mueller, Senegal is a growing, cosmopolitan country filled with history and a tradition of great hospitality, or terenga. By all appearancesprayer mats in office buildings, posters and photos of Islamic holy men in the cities' taxis, and people in prayer five times a daySenegal, and in particular, Dakar, is filled with people who practice Islam. Sprinkled among the followers of Muhammad are individuals who adhere to a religious tradition that involves invisible spirits roaming the earth and interacting with humans, sometimes in an unpleasant and troublesome manner.
Mueller details the reasons these spirits are unhappy, and relates tales of their efforts to possess young women who are beautiful and well dressed. Women and girls are encouraged to cover their knees in public (these are a particular weakness of the faru rab, the "boyfriend spirits" who possess and preoccupy girls and women) and dress conservatively, even while sleeping. Islam and Lbou intersect at times, namely when Islamic holy men are called upon to communicate with the spirits who bother women. Significantly, however, female healers and priestesses (called an ndeppkat) also play an important role in liaising with the spirit world. Both the Islamic holy men and the ndeppkat, Mueller explains, learn about the rab and determine what can be done to discourage or drive him away. The remedies may include bathing in holy water, making animal sacrifices, and dressing in a color unpleasant to the rab. Unfortunately, these efforts do not always work, and an elaborate ritual called an ndepp may be necessary to exorcise the rab entirely.
Mueller elaborates on the intersection of Islam and Lbou, as well as the effect that modernization, globalization, and the Internet might have on the future of the Lbou beliefs and traditions. Although Senegalese with financial means now turn to Western doctors for solutions to what they believe is rab spirit control, and some of the effects are cured, many continue to turn to healers because the rab spirit world is so strongly engrained in the Lbou culture.
According to Mueller in "The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal," the people of the Lbou district of Dakar believe that faru rab have the power to, among other things, prevent women from speaking, give them sexual dreams, and trigger infertility.

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