West Africa's griots carry centuries of history in memory and song
In much of West Africa, history was not shelved in libraries but carried in people. Griots, hereditary singers, poets and storytellers, memorise family lines, battles and the deeds of kings, and perform them to music. One griot lineage traces itself to an adviser of Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire.
A griot, called jeli or jali in Mande languages and gewel in Wolof, is at once historian, praise singer, poet and musician. Telling history aloud lets a performer use rhythm, verse and melody to hold an audience, which is one reason oral histories have lasted for centuries unwritten. The English word may come through French from the Portuguese criado, meaning servant, while jali derives from a root meaning blood, a nod to the role being inherited.
Griots traditionally married within their own group and passed the craft down through families. Every king had a griot, and every griot a royal patron, known as a jatigi; villages kept their own as well, recounting births, marriages, hunts and battles. In the Epic of Sundiata, the young ruler is given a griot named Balla Fasseke as counsellor, and the Kouyate line he is said to have founded survives today. Respected as neutral, griots could approach both sides of a feud, broker peace, and even criticise nobles in public.
Children in griot families learn by watching, repeating and joining performances rather than through formal drills, practising short passages of real pieces and gradually expanding them. Men have often specialised in instruments such as the kora, balafon and ngoni, while women, called griottes or jelimusow, lead praise singing. At weddings griottes dress the bride and sing songs that bind the two families, and a softly spoken woman may transform on stage into a commanding presence in bright clothes and jewellery.
Esteem has always been mixed with distance. Griots were long treated as a separate people, and in the harshest cases were buried in trees rather than in the earth. In Mali today women performers often dominate commercial and international stages, while in parts of Senegambia men still lead mixed performances.
Source: Griot
