During the early phases of my ethnographic fieldwork in the Republic of Niger, I became an apprentice to several renowned healers in the towns of Tillaberi and Mehanna, both of which border the River Niger. In Mehanna, I spent a great deal of time with Sorko Djibo Moumouni, a healer who, among other things, specialized in finding the stolen souls of sick and dying villagers. On one occasion, we attended to an ailing man, a bedridden pious Muslim, who seemed to be dying. Sorko Djibo instructed his wife to bathe him with fragrant water that he had sanctified. We left the man and walked to the outskirts of town, where Sorko Djibo kneeled in a pile of millet husks, called duo in Songhay. On his hands and knees, he sifted through the debris. Suddenly, he jumped up and turned to me: