By Benjamin Ouedraogo
Where the image stops
The sun had just risen over the village of Goundrin, nestled among the hills of northcentral Burkina Faso. I had been there for two days, to attend the funeral of the village chief and report on the masks of the Mossi people. Accompanied by my cousin Hamidou, I was staying in the hut of an elder who had welcomed me with great hospitality, but also with a certain reserve.
It was on the third day that everything changed. An important funeral ceremony was about to take place – and the sacred masks had to come out. Not the show masks we show tourists. No, these were rare, deeply ritualized, and strictly forbidden to be photographed. The whole village knew it. I’d been warned: “No photography.
I listened carefully.
But that day, as I stood aside under a mango tree, cell phone in hand, a mask caught my eye: entirely black, adorned with horns and intricately carved scarification marks. It advanced slowly, carried by a silhouette covered in plant fibers, in a solemn silence. Behind him, a procession of initiates. The light was perfect. My hand rose, almost in spite of myself. My finger grazed the camera.
I didn’t press it. Not yet.
The dilemma
In my head, two voices clashed.
The first: “This mask… it would be a rare, powerful image. A unique opportunity.”
The second, more serious: “You’re violating a ban. Perhaps you don’t understand what you risk provoking.”
Back home, there’s a proverb: “Transgressing a ban can kill.”I met old Issaka’s gaze a few yards away. He had seen me. He’d seen the camera. He said nothing, but his gaze changed.
That’s when I realized that the mere thought of it had already put me at fault.
The choice
I lowered the camera. Slowly. Then I sat down. I looked without trying to capture. I listened to the singing, the stamping of feet, the dancing, the crying – and the intonations in suku, the sacred language of the masks. For a moment, I left my role as observer and became a silent witness.
Later, an elderly woman approached me. She said, without aggression: “Back home, no one should photograph these masks. It’s tradition”
That day, I understood that access to the sacred is never a right, and that my status as a journalist did not exempt me from respect or restraint.
Reflection
That day, I understood one essential thing: in the field, it’s local reality that counts. In school, we are taught to seek the truth, to document, to show. But in culturally sensitive contexts, truth is never universal. What is “information” for me can be “profanation” for others.
I thought of all those sacred objects looted during colonization, stripped of their spiritual function to become mere curiosities on display in Western museums. I also thought: what would this photo have added to my article? A striking image? An aesthetic shock? Perhaps. But without context, without consent, without respect for the rules of those who had welcomed me, this image would have been illegitimate – and the story, distorted.
I also realized that my truth as a journalist was no more valid than that of the local voices. It wasn’t a question of giving up reporting, but of learning to report differently. And maybe that’s what true ethical travel journalism is all about: accepting not to show everything, not to know everything, not to understand everything – and above all, not to own everything, for as Blaise Pascal wrote, “Truth below the Pyrenees, error beyond”.
This article is part of the practical work carried out by students on the Master’s Degree in Travel Journalism at the School of Travel Journalism.