At first glance, Sɔmɔnɔ Bala may seem an odd choice as first publication in a series of African Sources for African History. This narrative about a Sɔmɔnɔ fisherman who travels with French colonial documents that confirm his authority, who has a battle with whips for the affection of a woman, and who dives to the bottom of the river Niger, where he meets a magical fish that supports him with its special powers was transcribed and translated from a popular Mande cassette tape bought by David Conrad in 1996. This is hardly the type of material that most historians would recognize as a historical source. Nevertheless, it perfectly illustrates the aims and objectives of this series. Historians of Africa have long realized that in order to study African history, they need to look beyond the written sources traditionally employed by Western academic historians. Since the mid-20th century, they have studied very diverse African sources, from language and material culture, to songs and many types of oral traditions. While the use of these sources may have become part of mainstream historical practice, this does not mean that they are easily available. Many historians of Africa create their own written sources: for example, they record oral traditions and transcribe and translate them, or they conduct oral history interviews. In doing so, they create very valuable sources from an African perspective, but these are generally not made available in printed editions to other researchers. In fact, compared to the number of printed sources representing a European or a colonial perspective (including travelogues, colonial reports, early ethnographical studies and colonial memoirs), relatively few primary sources from an African perspective are published. Those African sources that are available tend to conform to European styles: memoirs from African politicians, treatises from African Western-educated intellectuals, and for oral sources the large epics such as that of Sunjata or Segu, and, more generally, traditions of origins. These are very valuable texts, but their number is limited, and they represent only certain genres from the very diverse range of African historical experience. The editors of ASAH aim to make available more African sources in printed editions, with an introduction that contextualizes the source, with full scholarly apparatus, and when applicable in the original African language alongside an English or French translation. The series aims to reflect the diversity of African sources. These may be written, in the form of personal correspondence, ego-documents, popular pamphlet literature, local histories and other documentation. However, they can also come in many other forms: pictorial, material culture, and the many types of oral sources from highly ritualized performances, through life histories and interviews, to popular cassette literature. The source presented in this volume is an example of the latter category.
vi EDITORS INTRODUCTION In this introduction, we will briefly discuss the genre of cassette literature as a historical source. After this, we will briefly introduce Sɔmɔnɔ Bala as cassette literature, and as part of Mande oral tradition. We will mention some of the relevant cultural aspects that are discussed in more detail in David Conrad s and Sekou Camara s introductory chapters. We will also comment on the uses of Bala as a historical source. Cassette literature is a genre of historical sources with recent origins. However, it is also a medium that has transmitted and changed older forms of oral tradition. This has resulted in the question, addressed by Newton, of whether cassette literature should be considered a genre in itself, or merely a medium for specific genres of oral traditions. Newton makes an important observation, which can be generalized for the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa: Most students and teachers outside Mali have experienced Mande epics only in printed form ( ) the vast majority of Malians experience these epics aurally, not as live performances, but as audio cassettes, played on local and national radio stations or on their own cassette players. 1 One notable difference between cassette literature and other forms of oral tradition concerns the role of the jeli (griot). The rhetorical task of the jeli is to preserve the truth of the past into the context of the present, not to memorize. One way in which he does this, is by reciting praise names and panegyrics during his performance, and by referring to contemporary developments known to, and of relevance to the audience. This aspect, as Conrad argues, tends to disappear from cassette literature, as the griot does not know his listeners and does not have a direct interaction with the audience (in the case of the text published in this volume, the narrator limits himself to the remark that the recording was made at the place of Mamadi Ture). The vast majority of cassettes traded in Mali, Guinée, the Gambia and Senegal (and elsewhere in Africa) are based on one of three types of recordings: official vinyl records, radio broadcasts, or locally recorded live performances (many of these cassettes are illegal copies). The first two categories of recordings are distributed widely and have generally withstood the test of time. Versions by the Malian Rail Band of the popular and prestigious Sunjata epic are not only locally available on cassette, but are distributed globally on CD. Sekou Toure, president of Guinée (1958-1984) even ordered the production of a cassette with the official history of Guinée sung in Maninka and spoken in French. The third category of locally recorded performances deserves closer attention from the academic world. These recordings often concern less prestigious and more concise versions of well-known histories, supplemented with family histories. By studying the aspects of the recording that do not address the prestigious traditions of (trans-)national heroes, we can acquire some insight as to which historical processes have been of regional importance. 1 Newton 1999: 313.
vii Cassette literature is not often used as an historical source because it tends to largely escape the eyes and ears of researchers. Not only is the sound quality often poor, these type of performances also require an advanced level of competence in the local language to get any idea of what the recording is about. The performance published in this volume is special, not only because of its historical content (it is an example of a fairly common genre), but in particular because it was noticed by a scholar who could understand and translate it, and who recognized its value as a historical source. The source presented in this volume is part of Mande oral tradition, even though the protagonist of the story, Bala of the Sɔmɔnɔ, is not generally known in the Mande world. The concept Mande world may require some introduction for those who are not familiar with this part of West Africa. Belcher describes Mande in the following way : The Manden (or Mande) is a space, in some way perhaps a time, and for many, an idea. The space is roughly defined by the headwaters of the Niger and its affluents and lies in western Mali and eastern Guinea; it is occupied by the Malinke, for whom it is a symbolic heartland from which the more widespread branches of their people have departed (or claim to have departed eds.) at various times to take on different names (Mandinka, Dyula, Konyaka, and others). As a time, the Manden looks back to its period of unification and glory under the emperor Sunjata. ( ) To speak of the Manden is, of necessity, to evoke the time and space of Sunjata s rule: thus, the Manden is also an idea spread across Africa. 2 By studying the Sɔmɔnɔ Bala, David Conrad takes his longstanding fascination with Mande oral tradition one step further. Until now, Conrad focused his attention mainly on the wide variation in narratives about culture heroes in the Mande oral tradition, the history of which often goes back centuries. Previous publications analyzed versions of the Sunjata epic, the Segu epic, and heroes who had links with blacksmithing and traditional healing, such as Fakoli and Nfa Jigin. The extensive notes and references in the present volume indicate that knowledge of these themes and characters is a prerequisite to a correct appreciation and understanding of Sɔmɔnɔ Bala as a historical source that reaches further back in time than the life of the narrator Laminigbé Bayo (1943-1992). The meetings with an underwater creature in the Sɔmɔnɔ Bala, for instance, refer to an ancient theme that is also present in the Segu epic. Sɔmɔnɔ Bala can also be read as an etiological legend for a ritual for which as yet we do not have an extensively documented field observation: the battle with whips between youths. Conrad mentions several sources that discuss whips, but the Sɔmɔnɔ Bala narrative is more comprehensive than previous sources. 2 Belcher 1999: 89.
viii EDITORS INTRODUCTION The Sɔmɔnɔ Bala does not only draw upon longstanding Mande oral traditions, it also discusses the relation with the French colonial authorities during the decades before 1958, the year of Guinée s independence. Of interest is the position of the authorization document, which is Leitmotiv in the entire process, but which does not seem to have any concrete function. Historians might want to consider various possible interpretations of this element of the narrative. Does it imply that we should read this story as a critique of the bureaucracy? Or should we rather explore the interconnecting roles of textuality and orality in colonial (and postcolonial) Africa? Bala s refusal to accept specific positions in the colonial administration indicates the problems inherent in the forced collaboration with colonial authorities. Bala does not accept the position assigned to him by the colonial authorities, but instead chooses a function that follows from his Sɔmɔnɔ identity, and which thus produces a new Sɔmɔnɔ identity. Sɔmɔnɔ identity is part of the issue discussed by Conrad in his introduction: What is (a) Sɔmɔnɔ? Conrad shows that the interpretation of Sɔmɔnɔ is dependent on the relation to whom the Sɔmɔnɔ identifies him- or herself. Topical, but with older roots, is therefore the complex relation between Sɔmɔnɔ Bala and those around him. Conrad shows, on the basis of a detailed study of the literature, that the Sɔmɔnɔ in the past have been defined as an ethnic group, as a group of Maninka artisans ( yamakalaw), as an occupational group of fishers, or as a group of families. For Sɔmɔnɔ Bala, his Sɔmɔnɔ identity becomes articulated in relation to the commandant and in the context of the battle for a woman. It is revealing that Sɔmɔnɔ Bala s adversary, the girl s lover, is initially absent because of bush clearing. This defines his adversary as a farmer, as are the girl s parents. The tension between Sɔmɔnɔ Bala and the girl s people reflect more widespread tensions between fishers and farmers. One explanation of these tense relations is the fact that it is the women that sell fish. Local trade relations result in sexual relationships between fishers and farmers daughters, or between fishers daughters and farmers. Dumestre and Touré s recent collection of amorous adventures in the Segou region 3 provides illustrative examples of tensions connected with sexual relations between fishers (Sɔmɔnɔ) and farmers (Bamana). Sɔmɔnɔ is marked as an ethnic identity in the current administrative arrangements of the upper Niger region (Guinée, Mali). In this context, this first printed edition of a Sɔmɔnɔ narrative may be perceived as a milestone. The author and the series editors are aware of the fact that there is a possibility that this ASAH publication will eventually have some political effect, as from a certain perspective it institutionalizes Sɔmɔnɔ history. However, as a historical and literary source the Sɔmɔnɔ Bala mainly showa the dynamics and the variety of Mande oral tradition and not a priori the history of the 3 Dumestre and Touré 1998.
ix Sɔmɔnɔ. In this sense the text functions as a warning against rash conclusions about the perceived historical reality of protaganists in Mande oral traditions. This volume also contains an important by-product of Conrad s research: the study about the musical instrument the dan. Conrad s colleague Sekou Camara, the son of the famous hunters bard Seydou Camara, provides a number of etymologies of the dan and gives an impression of the songs that were sung with dan-music. Collections of song texts are rare in Mande. Although Camara does not provide all texts in a bi-lingual format, and while some of these texts may be incomplete, this is a contribution of significant historical value as an exploration of a new area of study. WORKS CONSULTED Belcher, S.P., Epic Traditions of Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). Dumestre, G., and S. Touré, Chroniques amoureuses au Mali (Paris: Karthala, 1998). Newton, R.C. Out of Print: The Epic Cassette as Intervention, Reinvention, and Commodity in In Search of Sunjata - The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature, and Performance R.A. Austen (ed.) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999) 313-327.