LA DAME DE MALI

Sculpted by nature in the steepness of a cliff of Mount Loura, this beautiful lady is famous throughout Guinea. From the outskirts of the village of Dongol Loura, she offers her profile to the eyes of visitors. Her face and her bust stand out very clearly on the high part of the mountain while the lower part of her body seems to be draped in a huge rocky loincloth. A bit like a mother watching over her offspring, she seems to look down on all of Guinea and her children from these heights, unless she is silently contemplating the surrounding plains and mountains because of a curse. This is what the myth of the Lady suggests, as told by Sadio Souaré, a citizen of Mali (the city) and a tourist guide in his spare time: "In a village, there lived a girl with a rare and captivating beauty. In the prime of her life, she was to be married. Many candidates came forward. Among them, she accepted only a young marabout of great reputation. They got married and promised to be faithful for life. But another young man with devastating charm used his power of seduction to disturb the young woman. The latter, hesitant, asked him for a few days of reflection. But after several nights where her soul was torturing her, she said to herself: "If fidelity were to last forever, then the water would never have betrayed the fish to which it gave life" (because the fish is boiled in water). So she decided to give in to the young man's advances.

On Thursday night, she prepared a delicious dish for him and asked her husband if she could bring it to his parents. Her husband was not fooled and refused categorically. In desperation, she left the marital home late at night for the darkness. When the marabout woke up, he realized that his wife was absent and went alone to fetch water for her ablutions. Furious, before going to the mosque, he consulted one of his most harmful Koranic books, written in chameleon blood. Then he implored God to punish his wife for her treason on a holy Friday. The marabout asked the Almighty that the world could watch this sinner naked in her disgrace. His prayer was answered and his wife was transformed into the Lady of Mali, destined to contemplate with desolation the surrounding plains until the end of time

Having made her husband's misfortune, the Lady has since been the delight of the region's citizens and visitors.