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Callaloo 23.4 (2000) 1330-1337



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First Sumu

Ahmadou Kourouma


Your name: Koyaga! Your totem: the falcon! You are a soldier and president. You will remain president and the greatest general of the Republic of the Gulf as long as Allah (may he spare us for years and years to come!) does not take from you the breath that animates you. You are a hunter! Along with Ramses II and Sundyata, you will remain one of the three greatest hunters of human kind. Remember the name of Koyaga, hunter and President-Dictator of the Republic of the Gulf.

Now the sun is beginning to disappear behind the mountains. It will soon be night. You have summoned the seven most prestigious masters among the multitude of hunters that have come running. They are sitting cross-legged in a circle around you with their Phrygian bonnets and their hunting cloaks bedecked with gris-gris, tiny mirrors, and amulets. They all have their long slave rifles slung over their shoulders and a master's fly-swatter in their right hand. You, Koyaga, sit enthroned at the center of the circle. Macledio, your Minister of Orientation, is seated on your right hand. I, Bingo, am the sèrè; I praise, I sing, and I play the kora. A sèrè is a minstrel, a bard who recounts the exploits of the hunters and praises their heroes. Remember my name, Bingo; I am the griot musician of the Society of Hunters.

The man on my right, the acrobat dressed in his outrageous costume and with his flute, is called Tiekoura. Tiekoura is my responder. A sèrè is always accompanied by an apprentice called a "responder." Remember the name of Tiekoura, my apprentice responder--he is an initiate going through the purificatory stage, a king's jester.

Here we all are, in the garden apatam of your residence. Everything is ready; everybody is in place. I will recite the purificatory narrative of your life as master hunter and dictator. The purificatory narrative is called, in Maninka, a donsomana. That is an epic. It is recited by a sèrè accompanied by a responder or koroduwa. A koroduwa is an initiate in the purificatory stage, the cathartic stage. Tiekoura is a koroduwa and, like all koroduwa, he plays the buffoon, the clown, the jester. He does anything he wants and nothing he does goes unpardoned.

Tiekoura--everybody is here, everything has been said. Add your grain of salt.

The responder plays the flute, wiggles, and dances. Abruptly, he stops and calls to President Koyaga.

President, General, Dictator Koyaga, we are going to sing and dance your donsomana during five festive sumu. We shall tell the truth. The truth about your dictatorship. [End Page 1330] The truth about your parents and your collaborators. All the truth about your filthy tricks and your bullshit; we shall denounce your lies, your numerous crimes and assassinations.

Stop insulting a great and righteous man of honor like Koyaga, the father of our nation. If you don't, malediction and misfortune will pursue you and destroy you. So stop it! Stop it!

A festive assembly cannot be conducted without a theme as an undertone to the narration. Veneration of tradition is a good thing. From this theme will come the proverbs enunciated during the interludes of this first sumu. Tradition must be respected for the following reasons.

If the partridge flies away, his child cannot remain on the ground.

Regardless of a bird's long sojourn in the baobab, he will never forget the nest of the humble shrub where he was hatched.

And if one does not know where he is going, let him recall the place from which he comes.

1

Ah, Tiekoura! During the meeting on the partition of Africa held by the Europeans at Berlin in 1884, the Bight of Benin and the Slave Coast devolved to the French and the Germans. The colonizers tried out an original experiment in civilization with the Black peoples in the zone called the Gulf. They went off to buy back slaves in America, free them, and...

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