The Epic of Kelefaa Saane

Preface and Acknowledgments

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE EPIC OF KELEFAA SAANE is part of the repertoire that maintains the memory of a legendary warrior prince of Kaabu, a kingdom in the Senegambian area of West Africa, in the nineteenth century. He helped rally the Mandinka people to defend their region against the threat of an invasion. Today, the Mandinka jalóol (plural of jali, the Mandinka word for the regional term “griot”), continue to identify him as a person with extraordinary merits. Furthermore, every young jali by custom must begin his instruction on the kora—a twenty-one stringed harplute —by mastering Kelefaa baa, “Kelefaa the Great,” one of the songs dedicated to the Mandinka cultural hero and one of the most popular songs in the larger Mandinka repertoire. In its written form, The Epic of Kelefaa Saane is a faithful transcription and translation of the performance of Sirifo Camara. The epic was recorded in the city of Dakar, Senegal, in 1987 by Boundiaye Jiite, an important patron of Senegambian music. The text in English, 3,202 lines long, is a linear translation of the jali’s performance, which lasted two and a half hours. Neither an interpretation nor even a rewriting, the story by the jali rendered here conveys as much as is possible in written form the flavor of the original narration. The introduction to the epic and the annotations, which explain certain nuances of the text, clarify the contextual and historic frame of this great epic work. As “text,” the epic of Kelefaa represents the third published version in English that describes the legendary life of Kelafaa Saane. The first version, by Bamba Suso, and the second, by Shirif Jebate, recorded by Gordon Innes and first published in one volume in 1978 (by the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London) and republished in 2002 (by Routledge Curzon), are quite short (780 lines and 533 lines, respectively). They are both out of print and contain far fewer examples of the song and recitation modes typical of Mandinka epics from the vast Mande region of West Africa than does this volume . It is this mode that gives the far more detailed 3,202 line narration by Camara stronger heroic resonances. For this reason, the epic text presented here fits far more closely the epic tradition of the region, has a heightened emotional impact on the Mandinka listener, is nearly six times longer than the previous pair, and has more extensive anno- x / Preface and Acknowledgments tations and a more thorough introduction placing the epic in its cultural context. To make the rather challenging transformation from oral narrative to printed text, I personally transcribed the epic, using the two cassettes that were available to me, and translated the entire text into English . Each time I encountered difficulty hearing or understanding the recording, I obtained an explanation from Jali Morikeba Kouyate, the person who prompted my desire to study the performance of Sirifo Camara. On more than one occasion during a visit to Senegal, I also consulted Solo Kutujo, a kora player who accompanied the performance of Sirifo Camara, and who greatly contributed to my understanding of both the narrative and the cultural context. Mallafé Dramé, professor of African linguistics at King Saud University, in Saudi Arabia, also contributed to the translation of certain expressions. Concerning the text as a whole, I had a two-year correspondence with the editors of the series , two specialists in African epic texts, John Johnson and Thomas Hale. I followed their recommendations regarding the transcription and translation as well as the introduction and notes. It is thanks to them that this project has become a reality. The goal of this edition, like that of the narrator Sirifo Camara in the oral context, is to make available to a wider audience, in this case readers in many fields, a distinctive example of the African oral epic from an authentic source. This work will be a significant addition to the corpus of African oral epics for both scholars and students interested in African literature, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and multicultural studies in the United States and abroad. I had one written internet correspondence with Sirifo Camara before his death. He related his biography to me through my sister, Sartha Camara. He also exhorted me to make his work known. It was three days after my arrival in Dakar, in December 2003, that I received the unexpected news of his passing. I pray that he will rest...