by Malidoma Some. Among the Dagara of Burkina Faso there is no distinction between the natural and the supernatural: the living converse with ancestral spirits, and those with the proper knowledge routinely travel to other worlds. Malidoma Patrice Some was born in a Dagara village, only to be abducted as a small boy and taken to a Jesuit mission school. When he returned to his people, he had to undergo an initiation so rigorous that it might have killed him. Instead, Malidoma's passage between two worlds resulted in an assignment to convey his people's knowledge to the West, leading to this book of rare healing and wisdom.