Empire of the Mind: New Work in Mande Studies

Books Discussed

Mandinka Spoken Art: Folk-tales, Griot Accounts, and Songs, by Katrin Pfeiffer. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 1997.

Jägerliteratur in Manden: Gattungs- und Übersetzungsprobleme afrikanischer Oralliteratur am Beispiel von Baala Jinba Jakites Epos Bilakoro Mari (Teil 1), by Brahima Camara. Bayreuth: Schultz and Stellmacher, 1998.

Jägererzählungen der Bamanan: Transcription, Übersetzung und literarischer Kommentar, by N'Golo Konaté. Bayreuth: Schultz and Stellmacher, 1998.

Nyagalen Mugan Tarawele: Une épopée bambara racontée par Bakoroba Koné, by Klaudia Dombrowsky-Hahn. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 2001.

Epopée, histoire, société: Le cas de Soundjata, Mali et Guinée, by Jan Jansen. Paris: Karthala, 2001.

Griots at War: Conflict, Conciliation, and Caste in Mande, by Barbara Hoffman. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000.

Das Gewicht der Rede: Kulturelle Reinterpretation Geschichte und Vermittlung bei den Mande Westafrikas, by Clemens Zobel. Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe xix: Volkskunde/Ethnologie, Band. 45. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.

Les vergers de l'aube: Paroles mandenka sur la Traversée du Monde, by Sory Camara. Bordeaux: Editions confluences, 2001.

Readers outside the field of Mande studies may be forgiven for suspecting the descendents of the medieval empire of Mali of continuing imperial ambitions. Although the political and military might of the Mande world has been drastically reduced since the time of Sunjata (of popular memory), or even of the more troublesome Samori Toure in the nineteenth century, its influence remains powerful, and its traditional culture (those elements hearkening back to the precolonial era) seems less endangered by modernization and globalization than is true elsewhere in Africa. Mande culture is in fact exporting itself: the griots ¹ of the Mande world are now to be found well-established across the industrialized world, and to some extent they have helped to define the outsider's vision of the African preservation of the past. Within the Mande world, the performance tradition may be undergoing some changes in repertory and theme, but it has adapted itself to the world of the microphone, the loudspeaker, and the cassette recorder. It also continues to inform the world of contemporary authors such as Ahmadou Kourouma or Massa Makan Diabate, and for some readers that connection may define the usefulness of the titles considered in this essay, which are all devoted to local forms of verbal art, as documentation or as analysis of the social context. Seven of the titles fall neatly into two groups: four are editions of texts, and three are straightforward monographs on the jeliw, the specialist producers of some of the texts. The eighth book, by Sory Kamara, straddles the division to some extent; it contains his (enriched) translations of some recorded material, but contextualizes it in a poetic and personal meditation.

Some explanatory description may be useful here. The Mande world covers the peoples, and particularly the languages, of the Mande family, spread across a territory centered on the upper Niger (in modern Mali and Guinea), but extending across the savannas and forests through Senegal, the Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire, and other adjoining countries. Within this region, folktales, worksongs, and personal narratives are a domestic product, subject perhaps to some customary limitations (tales may not be told during the daytime, or in certain seasons of the year) but otherwise comparable to the material found elsewhere in Africa. A more specially distinctive feature is the tradition of historical recitations (usually called epics) or praise-singing by specialist performers: the jeliw (singular: jeli). A jeli is defined by birth and training: certain lineages (Kuyate, Diabaté or Jabaté, Sisoko, and others) are jeli lineages, parallel to the noble (or free) lineages that provided the rulers of the land: Keita, Traore, Kone, Conde, and others. Jeli and noble lineages are often linked through a founding legend: the Diabate lineage is linked to the Traore lineage, as are the Kuyates to the Keitas, in both cases through reference to events recounted in the...