The Oral History of the Mali Empire

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC you and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the African and Middle East division of the Library of Congress and to our noontime lecture series with dr. Nubia Kies presentation today on the oral history ography of the Mali Empire sponsored by the African section I'm John weeks acting head of the Near East section and behalf of all my colleagues in particular dr. Mary Jane Dave had a chief of the division I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone and before we start today's program I'd like to give you a brief overview of the division and its resources so that hopefully you'll come back and use this beautiful reading room for your research the division is comprised of three sections that build and serve the collections to researchers from around the world we cover 78 countries and more than 35 languages the Africa section includes countries in all of sub-sahara Africa the Hebraic section is responsible for Judaica and hebraica worldwide and the Near East section covers all of the Arab countries including North Africa Turkey Turkic Central Asia Iran Afghanistan the Muslims in western China Russia the Balkans and the people of the Caucasus now I would like to invite Marita Harper our area specialists for francophone West and Central Africa and the Sahel to come to the podium and introduce our speaker thank you today we are fortunate to have with us Nubia Kai who will discuss her new book kuma mylink a mr. OGG Rafi Sundiata Keita to our mama so Mari tor tor a the first and last leaders of the Mali Empire from the 13th to the 15th centuries her book is dedicated to Diallo Digimon Kuya a who's pictured on the Flyers that you receive announcing this program Digimon was well known to the African section he played for us in 1997 when the African section moved to the refurbished Jefferson building and more recently his son Amadou corriente played the traditional kora instrument that he learned from his father didja moe in a performance sponsored by the library's American Folklife Center last launc dr. chi received her PhD in African literature and film from Howard University she is a poet playwright storyteller and novelist who has won numerous awards for her writing including three Michigan Council for the Arts Awards 3dc Commission on the Arts Awards and two National Endowment for the Arts Awards she has published in black scholar black world and Essence magazine and several other journals and anthologies she has two collections of poetry piece of my mind and solos plays have been produced at the new federal theater the new new bumper and several other theaters she has also taught in the history department of Georgetown George Washington University and Howard University's Department of bitter arts and the University of Maryland please help me welcome dr. Kai thank you very much for the introduction and thank you for inviting me having me to come here and do this presentation miss Harper and the Library of Congress African section I first would like to do a paper that I did several years ago and the title of the paper is drama ritual in theory in Mandinka historiography and then I'm going to go on to do a PowerPoint presentation the Mandinka mandingo of malenque are well known in the international world as the former founders and rulers of the Mali Empire and more recent times as master historians musicians and performers the term griot was popularized when Alex Haley's roots was published in 1977 at that time the entire world was exposed to the history of Kunta Kinte Alex Haley's ancestor through an elaborate system of genealogical and historical discourse the word griot is not an African word per se but most likely in French corruption of the Fulani word for griot Gao Allah or the wall of word Galois griot nevertheless has become the popular term for traditional African historians in general and has even been adopted in western academia to refer to outstanding historians we have excellent memories before discussing the elements of drama ritual in theory and its usage in Mandinka history I would first like to clarify the meaning of the term griot and their function in man in society the word for griot in the Mandinka language is jelly or jolly as is pronounced in the western region and it literally means blood European scholars have often erroneously defined the jelly or grill as bards or storytellers likening them to the Bartok tradition of medieval Europe however the grilles have a much broader diversified in significant role than that of a mere storyteller first of all in the traditional pre-colonial era greek grills were the principal political advisors to king's chiefs and other high government officials they were the mediators in international national and local disputes they served as ambassadors and diplomats to neighboring countries they were the chief judicial advisors and advisors of national defense they were also the officiator zuv rites of passage ceremonies naming ceremonies puberty rites marriage naming ceremonies funerals as well as national inaugurations harvest festivals religious festivals sporting events and other national holidays they negotiated marriage and dowry arraignments arrangements between the families of the bride and groom they were for most historians archivists genealogists social and cultural anthropologists musicians and dramatic performers training of both male and female Rios began at an early age in a peripatetic fashion through close association with their parents and of other family members who were also grills by the time a griot child reaches adulthood they have already learned and absorbed a good deal of Mandinka cultural history then they may travel widely to learn the local histories of specific regions of the Empire and become apprentices of the grills where they may study anywhere from 10 to 20 years by the time a griot reaches the last stage of initiation achieving the title of any era or valent Iggy master of the word they have amassed a phenomenal amount of very detailed knowledge of every aspect of Mandinka culture society history politics art genealogy and in most cases have mastered a musical instrument or instruments elocution singing dancing and dramatic performance they are the repositories of history with a repertoire that can fill a library the astonishing amount of information that degree L stores in his or her brain corroborates the disarming fact that human beings use only 10% of their brain capacity for the griot seem to use a much larger percent and confirm the seemingly infinite capacity of the human brain to amass knowledge the grills then are far more than storytellers they use storytelling techniques and devices in their exploitation of history yet that skill is a drop in the bucket of a multi-faceted range of skills and expertise and numerous professions the musician performer genealogists historian are inseparable in Mandinka historiography the intellectual and aesthetic are inseparable in a culture where there is no separation between the sacred and the profane the individual and the collective community the Corporal in spiritual worlds the historical artistic paradigm is only a reflection of the way art is integrated into the daily life of the people history - the Mandinka griot is a form of divine revelation a sacred text that provides human beings with a spiritual ethical map on how to arrive by degrees to their initials state of perfection since life in this cosmological scheme is sacred the recording of social and cultural life is also sacred thus the histories in traditional cultures are denoted as sacred histories the most important event in history in Mali's history in any history according to the griot jelly genome quiete improved the picture you have there and who write dedicated the book to is the birth of a child for when a child is born a miniature universe is born hits ego that is the ego that we seem a see in the genealogical charts the individual is the center of the world and the center of history how does a Mandinka griot accomplish the task of infusing history into the souls of every Malian citizen the answer lies in a historiography rooted in a correspondent cosmogony and a deployment of aesthetic devices designed to engage the audience simultaneously at an intellectual emotional and spiritual level drama ritual and arc play a prominent role in the daily life of traditional African society and a special role in enlivening interpreting and transmitting history so that his history's powers of transformation are actualized in order to understand the function of ritual drama and art in the Inca history it is first necessary to define these concepts from the Mandinka z-- theoretical frame of reference a ritual is an acting out of an established prescribed procedure it can range from a family event such as offering prayer before a meal to an elaborate religious ceremonies such as the kama blow performed every seven years in the historical town of kanga bah but ritual is much more than that ritual serves to link the human being in an unbroken interdependent with the material world of animals plants and other human beings and the spiritual world of planets stars gods angels spirits and ancestors ritual enactments reify and reinforce the pre-existing cosmic ionic relationship between man nature and the universe for example a marriage ritual which establishes a bond between a man and woman in their respective families is witnessed not only in the human community it is acknowledged in the natural world and the spiritual world of the gods spirits and ancestors who all play a role in seeing that the marriage vows are kept similarly when a child is born and lives through the transitional period of seven days it is named in an akika a ritual ceremony in which all the spiritual forces and forces of nature invoked are obliged to take part in infants growth and development the most important invent in history the birth of a child is always accompanied with a ritual and since ego is situated at the center of the world history is constructed to revolve around ego each member of Malian society is made to feel that they are a sexual part of Mali's history through this ritualization of history that is the recounting of each person genealogy and the legacies established by their ancestor at rites of passage ceremonies and various other ceremonial venues there is no citizen of Mali who does not have eponymous ancestors who took part in the shaping of the Empire the griot recounts an individual's lineage his significant the significant deeds of their four parents and at the same time enjoins them to eclipse or surpass their aunt for parents in character and deeds most often rituals are enactments of what Joseph Campbell calls living myths he uses living myths to distinct from the connotative usage of myth meaning a lie a false or fictional narrative living myths signifies the opposite of the connotative construct it is a narrative that expounds the highest level of truth that can be expressed within the limits of language Baca Fenn argues that the origins of history can only be revealed through myth since in myth lies the beginning of all development origination establishes a prototypical model of subsequent development character and direction the primordial power of the original act is recaptured through the narrative performances and rituals that reenact the myths WT Stephenson further explains the primacy of mythological discourse the essential character of our personal and social lives are shaped by myth or it is by the power of particular myths which determine by way of determining our fundamental presuppositions the way we shape our cultural social political and economic lives we do nothing of significance which is not informed by myth in a fundamental way and the more significant our act the more this is true it is dissembles within the context of myth which give rise to fall thought this is true even in the modern western context as well Jung called DS Jung called these symbols the transformers of energy their function being to convert libido from a lower to a higher form Marcelle growl who did extend extensive research on doe commanding cosmology found that among the Dogon and Mandinka the symbol not the object is alone the essential qualities since it reifies the spiritual potency of an object the Dogon a branch of the Mandinka people configure a network winces between all things through an elaborate system of symbols in MIPS the universe to the Dogon is an orderly synchronized whole incessantly disturbed perpetually reordered along the lines of a preexisting internal harmony myth constitutes the ado know satiny the astonishing word a history of the universe and man simultaneously the whole is illumined by myth structures in it appear progressively in time the one superimposed on the next each having its own meaning each also displaying close correlation with the others that's a quote from gree a legitimate mythic symbolism attempts to explain the spiritual nature of men and woman and their inextricable connection to universal order and traditional cultures myths legends epics are regarded as real history while fairy tales animal fables trickster tales are generally categorized as fictional in the modern world the extreme methodology of Aristotelian logic combined with social Darwinism relegated myth to the fantastic fictions of the infantile primitive mind nevertheless and despite the intellectual hubris that generated the disfigurement of myth there was an undeniable consensus regarding is transformational power and peculiar ability to shape and transmute consciousness among some of the most influential religious scholars and psychologists mercy Iliad Baca Fenn Carl Jung seek arrogance Sigmund Freud WT stevenson and joseph campbell turned a psycho analytical eye on myth and formulated at least a precise explanation of his functionality the idea that myths are invented in order to rationalize and explain human existence was radically challenged once scholars isolated and care carefully observed the cause of thick relationship of myth and consciousness Joseph Campbell one of the foremost scholars of Mythology defines four functions of living myths and their ritual enactments the first is what I have called the mystical function to awaken and maintain in the individual a sense of all and gratitude in relation to the mystery dimension of the universe not so that he lives in fear of it but so that he recognizes that he participates in it since the mystery of its being is the mystery of his own deep being as well the sex second function of Mythology is to offer an image of the universe that will be in accord with the knowledge of the time the sciences and fields of action of the folk to whom the mythology is addressed the third function of living mythology is to validate support and imprint the norms of a given specific moral order that namely of the society in which the individual is to live and the fourth is to guide him stage by stage in health strength and harmony of spirit through the whole foreseeable course of a useful life and that is from Joseph Campbell in the case of Sundiata Keita the founder and first emperor of the Mali Empire his Monument that is his personal myth is represented and one of the most extensive beautifully constructed in important epochs in Africa historical myths are direct descendants of creation myths inheriting their numinous qualities internal structure dialectical movements and revelation of the spiritual ethical norms of the society only instead of the narrative revolving around the gods in the primordial world it has revolved around the culture hero historical myths are narratives of mythic proportions and fun such as the biblical history of the children of Israel the bhagavad-gita of India and the Babylonian epic of gilgamesh the predominant venue of expression for historical myths is the epic far less symbolic and abstruse than creation myths historical myths record history as it actually occurs though they may be embellished with extended metaphors hyperboles parables proverbs imagery symbolism and philosophical analysis in the epic the narrative is usually built around the life and deeds of the hero the circumstances of his/her birth childhood trials obstacles triumphs and in their impact on the course of history epics even more than creation myths are constructed to personalize experience through the vicarious revelation of the hero whose acts epitomize the most cherished human principles faith courage integrity generosity compassion loyalty intelligence through these virtues the hero is able to subvert all opposition and obstacles and achieve a personal and public victory often the monolithic journey is a national parable explaining the philosophical and ethical ideas of the society through the life and character of the culture hero the life of Sundiata Keita is a national parable he is a leader of men on intimate terms with the gods and possessed with divine qualities that give him a transcendental link between the contingencies of social world in the world of spirits though the epic of Sundiata is cast in secular narrative there is an implicit religious ideal embodied in heroic themes the finite and the infinite man's mortality and immortality are brought into conflict with each other through the heroes action but the two worlds the material and spiritual also overlap and the conflicts are resolved through him his ideas visions inspirations and actions come pristine from the primal springs of human life and thought through which society is reborn Sundiata the founder of the first and first emperor Mali overcame a debilitating illness during his youth evaded the attempted murder initiated by his father's first wife first wife Susumu beretti went into exile for several years with his mother's soul on conde and finally vanquished the despot someone guru Conte who had ruthlessly conquered and subjected demanding kingdoms under his rule demanding kingdoms were reorganized into the great Empire of Mali he restored peace order justice and autonomy to the Mandinka kings and established alliances and solidarity with neighboring nations who were installed in the Empire Sundiata is greatest achievement which until recently was guarded in secrecy by a consensus of Mandinka Grylls was his abolition of slavery and the slave trade his numerous conquests in West Africa were launched in order to enforce the oath of demanding the edik officially banning slavery and slave trade in the Empire unfortunately the slave trade and slavery was resumed 20 years after his death and apparently the National shame of the breaking of the oath compelled the griot to censure this significant event from the annals of Mali's official history yet this effacement was public not private and initiated griot as two billion Tiggy were taught to history but had to swear never to reveal it one commies so-called who was the chief Grillo of Mali in the 1970s and 80s real from clean up made the decision to break the vow of silence and devotes this hidden history to a Malian historian a modern Mali historian Yousef Tata Sisi used to touch Assisi collected and published wakame circles texts Limpy limpia do Mali Sundiata noogler la gloria do Mali and the grand just do Mali excuse my French for those of you who you know the language right and I want to show you and talk about the oath of demanding or it's also called the Mandan Charter in the PowerPoint but I'm going to come back to that all right the epic of Sundiata like the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer became a major source for dramatic abdication Grillo's dramatized detects using music dance and storytelling techniques it rites of passage ceremonies national festivals inauguration is hunting fishing weaving and harvest ceremonies in Mandinka society every social ceremonial whether secular or religious gave rise to colorful flamboyant and elaborate theatrical performances that involve the entire community and lasted for days or weeks as Velandia noted everything in them is displayed in performed social practices are in a state of permanent dramatisation ritual trauma permeates the society on a daily basis and infuses its members with an experiential sense of history culture morality and spirituality history cultural politics and social practice are consistently explicated through multiple forms of dramatic performance masquerade theatres spoken drama dance theater dramatized narratives recitations and civic and sacred rituals the epic of Sundiata and many other ethics popular among the Mandinka re-enacted than all these theatrical forms Rio's primarily recount Molly's history through dramatized narratives the written word holds a secondary place in their history geography why because the world was created through the world and history is transmitted through the creative word the spoken word thus history in the Mandinka language is called kuma the word or word force the primacy and preference of an oral recitation of history in a culture that has two written scripts they have the Mandinka script in the Arabic script but there's still a preference for using the spoken word it's predicated on the power of the spoken word which contains an abundance of in Yama in Yama that means a vital force or vital energy and this vital force and vital energy is contained in the spoken word at much greater level than it is in the written word so it pervades and effectively impacts consciousness more than a written text that's why they prefer to use the spoken word so the in Yama force that comes from the spoken word it instills in the audience the mystical function of language so that they know and understand the history exponentially and with that I'm going to go into the commanding Charter and then it talked a little bit more so some photographs and talk a little bit about some of the principles of their philosophy of history and methodology now this manding Charter as I said before I was a charter or oath that was constructed at the beginning of the formation of the Mali Empire and with the information that came out and this information came out in the 1980s the secret history was revealed through wakame soko now scholars are trying to look it they have to kind of look it look again at the whole history of Mali because instead of someone guru conte who is the enemy in the in the epic Sundiata Keita he now becomes the hero or is a hero because he was the one who came up with the idea to end slavery in the Mali Empire and what he did he tried to call the Mandinka people to arms against the Sun inkaid and against the Moors and other Mandinka who were also trading in slaves now this is 300 years before the transatlantic slave trade and it was pretty bad even at that time and I'm not going to go into all the details but if you want to read Yusuf fantasy to these texts that again where he's recording wakame socco you can get the text but there they have not been translated they're still in in French anyway some rule comes up with the idea and when the Mandinka refused to to go along with him in ending slavery because major some of the major leaders in demanding were slavers they would be explained as slave traders so they refused so some world this is when he launches his attack he attacks the Mandinka people it kills nine of the kings and pales their bodies on spikes makes furniture other the skins of his enemies and literally sells the people into slavery that was his response when they refused to in slavery that's why in the secret history he's known as a sacred despot it sounds rather oxymoronic but he's called a sacred despot because the idea to end slavery and the slave trade was really some rules idea so finally and you probably know the story because the epic of Sundiata now become part of the literary canon now reading it and colleges almost everywhere you know the story how he's away in exile because his stepmothers trying to kill him he's away and the envoys are sent to get him and when he comes back he goes into he has this war with some one girl and eventually he vanquishes him and then he becomes the Emperor but what happens is just before his mother passes away his mother is one silver on conde who tells him look they're gonna ask you to be the Emperor but before you accept the position of Emperor I want you to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the Mali Empire forever and of course he agreed to do this and so this is what he did this is why he goes on to this conquest of the outlying nations like the jail off and tip toward other parts around Mali because he knew as long as it continued in the outlying areas it was going to infiltrate back into my demanding proper so he creates an empire that was slavery of you know of Empire where slavery was forbidden and where the trade was forbidden and this is how the Charter goes the hunters refers to because Sundiata was hunter the hunters declare all human life is one life it is true that one life may appear to exist before another life but one life is no more ancient or more respectable than another life in the same way no living being is superior to another leave living being the hunters declare all life being one life all harm calls to a living being requires reparation consequently no one can take things freely steal from his neighbor no one must cause harm to his fellow man no one should kill his fellow man the hunters declare that everyone must watch over his fellow man that everyone should venerate their ancestors that everyone should educate their children that everyone maintain and provide for the needs of their family the hunters declare that each guard the country of their fathers through country or homeland he must also understand and especially men that every nation every land where men disappeared from the face of the earth became immediately nostalgic the hunters declare hunger is not a good thing slavery is no longer a good thing there is no greater calamity than slavery in the present world as long as we are in possession of the bow and quiver hunger will no longer kill a person in Mandan if by chance famine raged against us war will never again destroy some village to take away slaves from now on no one can force a bit in the mouths of another human being to sell into slavery a person will no longer beat let alone put to death another because he is son of a slave the hunters declare the essence of slavery is distinguished this day from one into the other of manding rating is vanished and reckon with this day in Bandung the torments borne of these horrors have ended this day in Mandan what tribulation what torment especially when the oppressed have no other recourse what decadence this slavery the slave has not shown any consideration in this world the people of the past say man in that he is an individual made of bones and flesh of morals and nerves nourishes himself with food and drink but his soul his mind lives on three things to see what it wishes to see to say what it wishes to say and to do what it wishes to do if even one of these things is missing from the soul it suffers and will surely waste away consequently the hunters declare from now on each person arranges his own affair everyone is free to do what he wants in respect of the prohibitions such is the oath of the Mandan for the benefit of the ears of the entire world so here is to have a map of the Mali Empire actually the darker color is the area of Mali and you know there's variations that sue the territorial how the territorial size the other lighter color is actually part of songhai and as you see Timbuktu and at this point my league had Timbuktu and God after Mansa Musa comes to power and then some guy is able to take back Timbuktu and God actually songhai empire was actually a little larger than the Mali Empire but you see goes all the way to the west coast to Atlantic Ocean here is a picture of the Tama blown this is the Sacred House of Congo ba where the jia bocce jelly orgy Abbate grills get together every seven years and they had this big major festival they recite all of the creation myths the historical myths and it's also a time when this represents the resuscitation of the the empire of the nation and something they say that people who had been there to see this where the old roof of the house is lifted off in at some new roof that kind of just mystically comes back and sits on top of the of the house so that's what it's really known for people that you know kind of fascinated by that to come a blonde that's one of the most again sacred sites in Mali in Congo ba baccarat Simone oh he was the chief grill or jelly of Mali he was a person who I spent many hours interviewing him and I remember two mainichi Abbate who was a when best core players in Mali he told me so oh you're gonna talk to balcony tomorrow said you don't need to talk to anybody else that's just how much knowledge he had he knew everything but of course you get different things from different grills but he was truly a master and gave me a lot of information a lot of information in the book is coming from my colleagues some are know who died a year after I was there to do the interviews here's a picture of Shelley who's also the picture on the flyer jolly G mo karate noticed that they had the spelling J di which is the J sound in French and they say jolly because they say jolly and Senegal in Gambia that they say jelly in Mali so he's jolly G McCoy at a who I also dedicated the book to he was the first creo they put me in touch with all the other girls and of course he's based here in Washington DC taught at the University of Maryland outstanding also an outstanding corrala or kora player and then this is Siddiqui Giamatti he was one of the first girls I interviewed but over in when I went to Mali it was just for a visit but I started interviewing Rios whenever I went to Africa Siddiqui Jia Bochy he's the father of two Manny Giamatti who is he famous kora player and probably the best scorer player in Mali today two mainichi Abbate you see him again with the kora now when I first went to Mali tamati was just a little boy you know so in but then he became my host I stayed five months at his guest house he never took a dime for me I stayed fine once at his guest house when I was doing the research for the book Syria Mauricio bought a this is example I say sometimes I use the word griot you know to refer to woman but I just say master griot because she was probably one of the most popular grills in Mali while she was alive here's a picture of her when she was younger and you see she's blind but she was had this beautiful deep voice some people say she's kind of sound like Big Mama Thornton but when she's saying the history of Molly's and just to just bring the people to tears and people just would say oh then cry when they here to seeing more Giamatti recite the history sing the history so she was a master grill also a master at mediating there was never a conflict that she did not resolve and she was very dedicated to solving disputes so she was master mediator as well Sarah Morin Giamatti and then these are some of the instruments that are used by the grill because there are certain instruments that only three OHS use nowadays you know everybody is using them and people are learning the core and Vala phone but during the time the Mali Empire there were specific instruments that were primarily used by the griot and this was one of them the kora which is like a 21 string instrument very beautiful sounding harp like that sound and then these are the surrounds kind of a smaller version of the of the kora with you know fewer strings that you can see and this is the in Guney which they say was the precursor of the banjo because the gang Guney was brought over here by Africans coming from West Africa it's usually a three string instrument in Guney some people also say in fact the Mandinka call that Guney this is actually from my lord uncle me so the finger knee and then the other one of course is the balafon which is getting the precursor to the xylophone and actually the piano if you look at it you set it up vertically you know put the mallets on the keys you have a piano to something I know this is about the balafon xylophone okay and here's the first one of the famous emperors of Mali Sundiata Keita of course that you probably believed was in people's in the people of Mali because he was the founder he's considered the greatest but Mansa Musa certainly was probably the most well known internationally and that was because of the pilgrimage that he made to Mecca in 13 24 hours his silken pilgrimage and which he gave away so much wealth you know everywhere he went he built schools he built hospitals he'd been built mosques and he was giving away a lot of gold and he said he gave away so much go that the world suffer from deflation for the next 20 years so Mansa Musa this also this picture comes from an old map in old Spanish map but this picture was also in the New York Post recently they had an article about the richest men in the world and Mansa Musa was on the top of the list you know and they they did what do they call it the inflation adjustment but he was number one the richest man in history with Mansa Musa but then I always also wondered were they talking about his personal riches or were they talking about the riches of the nation because they're still mad at Mansa Musa and Mali because he took the treasure the marlins treasury and a lot of sacred icons and gave them away right so that wasn't clear if the articles talking about his personal wealth or not but still he was again very wealthy man the Empire was very wealthy you could say at that time this is Gundam this is a city in the in the Timbuktu district it gives you an idea of the kind of traditional architecture that you had at that time going them because these are buildings that go back to the 14th 15th century and then here's a panoramic view of Timbuktu kind of a bird's eye view of Timbuktu you see this similar architecture that you find in Kingdom then here's a picture of a warrior in the middle and his grills this is from Senegal these are Susu Susu again our branch of the Mandinka people fact that someone Goro Conte was sooo so Lada sousou's after the war between him and someone who were a lot of them ended up in Guinea but it's a source of grill and his I don't know if they're his wives or what but you see he's there he plays him grinning and then there's a jolly you know from jolly this is from the western region of Mali from Senegal nicely a jolly playing the ballad phone alright these are just a few principles I have and it's more details in the book and again even in the book it's just you know some of the ideas about malinka historiography their philosophy of history malaika a philosophy of history is rooted in its cosmogony history is an ongoing manifestation of the first creative word that brought creation into being so they always go back to the creation myths history follows the same principles of motion gender polarity dialectics to govern the natural laws of the universe you know anthropologists here also believe that and we're trying to find these laws but they understand this to be the case also that it follows the same laws nothing in history is new remember that this asked a famous saying when African Americans I think may come directly is there nothing in history is new this is what the jellies will tell you every idea human activity event is a reconfiguration of something that took place before so there's nothing new Under the Sun right everything's been done before history's purpose is to teach people to know themselves as something else again did you find the girls would say to know thyself enough words inherent in the thematic structure of history are parables directing humanity to write action and behavior in accordance with the moral ideals of the culture history serves a spiritual ethical function and is therefore a sacred text the meaning and message of history are allegories that can be applied to mediate any dispute or resolve any conflict thus the jellies are also mediators spiritual forces into two entities angels jinns totems cetera are constantly interacting in human activities and must be accounted for as they actually appear in history this is where you get the fantastic elements in the history because these things are going on they've been extricated from Western historiography but they're still acknowledged in traditional histories theory and methodology is a few things the beautiful rhythmic arrangements of poetic narratives make verses easier to memorize and imbues them with an eternal luminous quality so again the poetic narratives is considered superior to a discursive narrative aesthetic devices such as metaphors symbolism alliterations rhythm allegory imagery and drama magnify the emotional and spiritual response of the audience and allows him to experience the history vicariously oral recitation of history is preferred because writing lacks the warmth intimacy and word for samyama embodied in the human voice the more in Yama unleashed in unleashed in the performance the more impact it has on transforming human consciousness mythic narratives reconnect this audience with the cosmic world and collective memory and the ritualization of myth allows the individual to relive the historical experience genealogy is an essential and inextricable component of a people's history history should be directed to the individual so that she he is inspired to eclipse or surpass the deeds of their ancestors writing inhibits the development of memory because writing is really a substitute for memory while trained oral recitation expands the mnemonic capacity the capacity to memorize ascribed rights history but a master historian memorizes it and that's that's that's something I've seen school yes okay that's a good question but for the first question I'm not familiar with the instruments used in Uganda but it could be that they come from the same source because I didn't go into this in the lecture but in the book I talk about the origin of the Grail tradition and actually they inherited their tradition from the Sun Incan people okay of the Empire of water through the empire of Ghana and then the so ningke got the tradition from Sonnen which is in Egypt and in fact so name is called Aswan today but the Egyptian name is so named and there's people who still call it Sony so Sony K means people of Sony and they migrated from you know Upper Egypt to the area of ancient Ghana around 100 AD but they brought their to tradition with them okay so it so the Luke right so that's why I say the lute instruments right probably again they're derived from there yeah and then the second question on the Islam that's a loaded question because I talked to the grills about their relationship you know because you know I guess around probably in the seventh century you start getting the Muslims coming in to North Africa and the Concord North Africa but one of the misconceptions and it's a huge misconception at this particular time the Arabs they are coming into North Africa our black Arabs they're afro Arabs they're not what we think of it's Arabs today we're usually thinking of white Arabs because that's what we see all the time right is represented but if you go to the Sudan you go to Saudi Arabia you're going to see that eighty eighty-five percent are black people you know in fact most of them are darker than but Americans these were the people that the people of Mali Empire encountered so when I asked him about what about the Arab see that came in he said well they were just like us they they were African people and there are a lot of lineages I go into the lineages they come from sallee that came that a part of the Mandinka people probably the full monty people too so Nicky all of these groups you know because again I said they're genealogists as well and the genealogy is not separate they haven't executed it from the history right so they're considered just their their brothers they don't look at them as you know I'm saying the way of course now it's a different relationship with you know the North Africa but at that time the formation of the Mali Empire it was a good relationship and in fact Sundiata Keita when they talked about his genealogy if you remember from the epoch whether they trace it back to his lineage goes directly back to Balaam he is a descendant of the Lao who was the first medicine of Islam so you have all of these nuts so they knew about Islam from the very beginning but you had some of the Emperor's were Muslims you know they were as they say they practiced the religion did the president you had others that didn't you know they dealt with the traditional or local religion that was practiced so it went back and forth back and forth you know but I turn to get to Mansa Musa he's a devout Muslim from him and his brother mandingo curry because I didn't talk about the voyage to America that's another thing there's a chapter in the book on Mansa Musa mandingo curry but the relationships that they had with the Arabs you know and the the early Muslims was a good relationship begin but they're dealing with people who look like them and who were actually apart there are several lineages that actually come directly from Saudi Arabia that part of think of people you know as soon Theodore himself comes from a bill out the flowers come supposedly originally from Chad you know but again so they have they had very close ties you know yes oh well thank you in fact the angel was on my doctor batiste I should say was on my committee you know well right it was on my committee when I did the dissertation so I think you mean are they still recording the history orally in the way that they had been - yeah that that's another very good question from what I understand they're they know they are no longer doing it you know it's like the title of group of kuma actually kuma is also another cannibal rate of history it refers to just some ago from the time of some girl I mean I'm sorry time of some Moree today all right who's the one who's fighting the French and he was like the last to kind of reorganize the Empire to the present but it really ends with some summary too late you know the grills after that after Molly is colonized the Empire was broken up good now you see it between Gambia and Mali Guinea you know code of wire is there's no longer a tradition of them learning new histories and recording the new histories which i think is unfortunate so but now I mean they still have the grills but now they're memorizing history up until a period of the French conquest you know and and then there's also a movement Gaius Sulaimon contact it's a movement to begin to use Mandinka script well he's using he's kind of created a new script called own Co you know I I write so there's a movement to start using Mandinka script and then you have the traditional Mandinka script you know I don't know how much they're using that much but you know a lot of the modern grills that maybe come from real families but they've you know studied in the West and they're phd's many of them expressed to me that while which they could have come along and learned what therefore parents learn because they don't have the memory that therefore parents had right because they're relying on the writing and the writing is the substitute right it limits your in mnemonic capacities so they wish they had learned in the same way so who knows it might be a movement but as far as I know this not least when I was doing the research yeah well it was you know the sonykay people they were the principal traders and they were mainly selling Bend Incas slaves to the Moors to the mort's these are all again African people and some of the main people involved in the trade which is why some world was angry and worth putting into it were the Mandinka people who were selling you know there are people so again there was an input to all of this for time during the time then the Empire was first formed and this was a time when it was a very very peaceful place you know from what has been recorded by other historians coming from outside when courted and talked about morality they didn't tolerate any county and justice but unfortunately he didn't didn't last long there were also serious consequences all right that came this was an oak when people swear to an oath it's like you got to keep the oath or else they're serious consequences for breaking the old so and I look at the millions of us that are over here now who knows you know there were consequences for breaking that this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

Channel: Library of Congress

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Id: IuK2PGUdehI

Length: 59min 53sec (3593 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2016