1.  Mande Peoples of Western Africa
(crossing modern geo-political boundaries of Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, north Cote d’Ivoire, north Liberia, south Mauritania)

• share common cultural traditions through more than 2,000 years of contact

• speak closely related languages  e.g. Mandinka, Bambara, Jula, Khasonke, Wangara, Malinke

• believe in common origins – i.e. share great cultural hero Sundjata, 13th c. hunter-warrior & epic founder Mali Empire)

2.  On Mande Culture
Nyamakalaw (handlers of nyama*) are initiated members of Mande hereditary professional guilds of skilled, powerful artisans, including:

		jeli (griot or bard, loremaster, praise-singer)
		numu (blacksmith - great occult power, authority)
		garankule (leatherworker)
		kule (woodworker)

*nyama are occult powers and primal energies of creation and destruction; initiated members of nyamakalaw are highly skilled artisans trained to wield and release nyama in practicing their professions.

The jeli—traditional Mande griot or bard—masters of nyama & the occult secrets of the spoken word, have served these roles in Mande cultures: 

		history’s chronicler, analyzer, interpreter
		advisor and conscience of kings and other powerful patrons
		preserver of social customs and values
		mediator between human parties, spiritual-human worlds

3. Djeliba  - or great Griots
(AKA: jeli, jali, gewel, gawlo, mabo, gesere, jesere, etc. in various Mande languages), are initiated into their high positions through years of spiritual and artistic training, giving them mastery of epic lore, genealogies, cultural wisdom traditions, and poetic formulas, as well as sophisticated oral performance skills in music and poetic improvisation.

The Mande Griot: 

		creates as recites using open-ended poetic formulas (the epic narrative is not just memorized and repeated)
		is supported by singers, musicians, patrons, & audience respondents
		adjusts content & performance to different audiences & occasions, local traditions & patrons, changing values & social conditions

4.  Genre Definition:  “An epic is a long poem, told in dignified language, celebrating the actions of a hero.”

World epics tell heroic stories (narratives) full of marvels.  All cultures create stories and myths.  Constructing stories is a way to know and make sense of the world, and myths are powerful imaginative vehicles for interpreting the human condition.  Epics present a mythology, or a body of interconnected stories that serve to explain the way things are.  In addition to the narrative (the story itself), oral epics like Sundjata are filled with large amounts of didactic material, which work with the narrative to teach lessons and ethical norms, and pass on the collective wisdom of Mande cultures.   

The West, too, has produced both oral and literary epics:

(a) “Traditional epics” are written versions of what were originally oral poems or songs about cultural heroes developed in a warlike age: e.g. Iliad and Odyssey of ancient Greece, Beowolf of medieval England;

(b) “Literary epics,” like John Milton’s Paradise Lost (17^th century England) are composed in writing and meant to be read (rather than performed) to imitate “traditional epics.” 

Some people dismiss any belief system that is not their own to be “myth.”  But “myth” to one person can be “religion” another.  Myths may be based on verifiable fact—e.g. Western-style “evidence” does support the historical existence of a medieval Mali king named Sundjata.  However, documented verifiable evidence is not necessary for a cultural group to claim an epic narrative as its own, to believe in the power of the mythic story to convey a people’s history, values, beliefs; to preserve their cultural wisdom; and to transmit important spiritual truths. 

M.H. Abrams (A Glossary of Literary Terms, 6th ed., 1993) lists these defining features of the epic genre, based on Western epic models & applicable to many other cultures’ epics as well:

		Long narrative poem on serious subject, told in an elevated style using song, poetry,  rhythmic prose or chants, with perhaps some unsung parts.
		Centers on heroic or quasi-divine figures--tells adventures of extraordinary people attuned to their destiny on whose action depend the fate of a group, a nation, and/or humankind.  Myth critic Northrop Frye (The Anatomy of Criticism, 1957) notes that epic heroic characters have great powers and “ac[t] at or near the limits of desire.”
		Typical epic action features heroic deeds in battle and/or long, arduous journeys or quests (Myth critic Frye identifies the quest-myth as the central or “mono-myth” of Western literature.) -- war, battle, & power struggles are often centered, motivated, e.g. by revenge, by desire to reclaim lost lands or lost rights; by drive to fulfill hero/ine’s destiny and/or social obligations; and/or to reaffirm, preserve social unity and continuity of the culture.
		Gods, other supernatural beings and/or spirits take an active interest and role in human affairs.  Myth critic Frye observes that Western literature is “massively funded by the powerful myths of the Bible and classical [Greek and Roman] culture”]

5.  Non-Western Oral Epics continue to live in contemporary national/regional traditions of song-recitation and dance-drama performed before a live audience.  Ceremonial-ritual performances of sacred-spiritual epics, believed to summon the hero/ine and his/her power, can also entail spirit possession and trance-dance, and serve these functions:

		to ritually protect and cure,
		to tell the community’s/culture’s story and assert its self-identity
		to build cultural unity, preserve customs & values, and ensure the culture’s continuity
		to model desirable clan-social relations
		to warn of what could happen (rather than what did/will happen)

6. Characteristics of African Oral Epics:

a.  Narrative mode tells complex story in episodes based on place of action, and in theme groups, including genealogies, incantations, prayers, curses, oaths, praise-names, & proverbs.

Following examples are taken from Epic of Son-Jara, as performed by griot Fa-Digi Sisoko, 1968:

Example 1:  Episode One: Prologue in Paradise [Praise Song, ll. 1-6]

Nare Magan Konate! [Sundjata]

Sorcerer-Seizing-Sorcerer!

A man of power is hard to find.

And four mastersingers                                           (Indeed)

O Kala Jula Sangoyi! [legendary bard of Old Mali]

Sorcerer-Seizing-Sorcerer….                                  (Mmm)

Example 2:  [Adam, the forefather, & his successors evoked, ll. 7-30]

I sing of Biribiriba [Sundjata]                                    (Indeed)

Of Naran Magan Konate!….

Stump-in-the-Dark-of-Night!

Should you bump against it,

It will bump against you.                                        (Indeed)

Song mode is used to celebrate important plot events

Example 3:  From Episode 4: The Manden
[Elder woman gives newborn Son-Jara gets his first praise-name, ll. 1123-1145]:

She lifted the edge of the cloth….

From the very top of Son-Jara’s [Sundjata’s] head,     (Indeed)

To the very tip of his toes, all hair!                             (Indeed)

The old mother went outside.                                     (Indeed)

She laughed out: “Ha! Birth-givers! Hurrah!

“The little mother have borne a lion-thief.                  (True)

Thus gave the old mother Son-Jara his name.            (Indeed)

….Son-Jara, Nare Magan Konate.                               (Indeed)

Simbon, Lion-Born-of-the-Cat.                                     (Indeed

Example 4: [King Dankaran Touman’s mother [Sassouma Berete] hexes Son-Jara [Sundjata] and makes him crippled, ll. 1151-1159]:

The Berete woman,

She summoned to her a holy-man,

Charging him to pray to God,                                          (Indeed

So Son-Jara would not walk.                                           (Indeed)

And summoned to her an Omen Master,                          (Indeed)

For him to read the signs in sand,                                   (Indeed)

So Son-Jara could not walk.                                            (Indeed)

For nine years, Son-Jara crawled upon the ground.

Magan Konate could not rise.                                          (Indeed)

Transitions between episodes present proverbs (with no break in performance)

Example 5:  [Transitional Proverb between episodes, ll. 944-945]

What sitting will not solve,

Travel will resolve….                                                       (It is true)