Katja Werthmann: Local Religion or Cult-Shopping? A Sacrificial Site in Burkina Faso 399-409

Abstract. – Dafra is a sacrificial site near Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Fasos’s second-largest and predominantly Muslim city. Dafra has the reputation of being a powerful place where wishes made and confirmed by vows will be fulfilled. People come to Dafra because of illness, infertility, lack of money, failure in school, or business, or nightmares. Although at first sight Dafra appears to be an archetypical African shrine, pilgrims are adherents to different religions and come from all over Burkina Faso, neighboring countries, and even from as far as Europe or the U.S.A. The example of Dafra shows that practices which appear to represent “traditional religion” are neither traditional nor homogeneous nor uncontroversial. [Burkina Faso, local religion, Islam, shrine, cult shopping]