Born in Western Africa in the early 1950s Somé was kidnapped at age group four with a People from france Jesuit missionary to learn being a priest, for the next 15 years long lasting the harsh regimen of the seminary where his native vocabulary and tribal traditions were systematically suppressed. At age 20 he escaped, but when he returned to his Dugara people in Upper Volta (right now Burkina Faso) they turned down him as an outsider. To reconnect with his indigenous tradition, Some underwent a month-long initiation into shamanism where he reports that he journeyed to the underworld, became a parrot, then a porcupine and was buried alive.