In week 22 of the humanities crash course, I read two classic oral epics from sub-Saharan Africa. I also listened to a bit of African music and watched a classic African film. With the exception of the music, I wasn’t even aware of any of these works — which says a lot about me and my culture. They provided exactly what I hoped to get from this course: stretched boundaries.
Readings
Two works: The Mwindo Epic and the Epic of Sundiata. Both are oral stories that have no clear author. Instead, they’ve been re-told, embellished, and evolved over centuries.
The Mwindo Epic comes from the Congo. It tells the story of a magical child born to a village chief who rejects him. (More than that: he tries to kill the child in various ways.) The child goes on a journey for revenge that includes several trials and encounters with supernatural beings.
I didn’t like this story much; it felt episodic and disjointed. My sense is that this material isn’t meant to be read. I kept wondering what it’d be like to experience Mwindo performed by a master storyteller.
Sundiata felt more like the kind of text I’m used to. (The version I read was transcribed and translated by D.T. Niane, who is listed as the author.) I found this work both more enjoyable and easier to understand than Mwindo.
Again, the story involves the son of a chief who is cast out and must reclaim his rightful throne. While Sundiata includes moral and ethical lessons, the focus here is on the tradition itself. A storyteller (griot) is a major character in the story, and we’re constantly reminded of the key role stories play in cementing a group’s identity.
Audiovisual
Music: Fela Kuti, particularly the records Coffin for Head of State and Zombie. I was familiar with Kuti via his influence on Brian Eno. (Listen to the Talking Heads’s Remain in Light.)
Arts: African arts. Back in school, I saw these sculptures and masks as beautiful abstract objects. That is, I understood them only from an aesthetic angle. (Their influence on early 20th century modern art is also mostly aesthetic.) But they play an important functional role as well, making tangible elements of these oral traditions.
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Benin plaque with warriors and attendants (16th–17th century) via Wikimedia
Cinema: Djibril Diop Mambéty’s TOUKI BOUKI — a 1973 Senegalese film that felt like a mix of Goddard and Buñuel but with vibrant imagery and sound.
An impoverished cowherd and a student live in Dakar, but dream of emigrating to Paris. They finance their dream through petty theft. But the story matters less than the vibe and themes, especially the relationship between the “modern” European/colonial world and local traditions.
Reflections
Sundiata’s subtitle — An Epic of Old Mali — says much about the role of these stories in their societies. Classic Western epics like the Illiad and the Odyssey are attributed to individual author. We speak of the brilliance of Homer, even if those stories, too, were transmitted orally. (And some scholars believe Homer himself was a tradition rather than an individual.)
In contrast, both of these African epics are self-consciously the work of a people. The stories were passed down orally through generations; the versions I read were written down by particular authors, but they make it clear that they didn’t originate the stories.
For example, in the introduction to Mwindo, the “author” includes a section detailing the life of the oral storyteller from whom they heard the particular telling relayed in the text, noting that there are other variations out there.
So both of these stories felt a lot more fluid than something like the Book of Job, where every word and sequence of words has been painstakingly analyzed over centuries.
The difference is in the media. In the written text, the focus is on the ideas. With verbal storytelling, the focus is on the experience of listening to a particular storyteller. There’s a level of interactivity as well: performances of Mwindo include the audience singing songs, clapping, etc.
The emphasis isn’t on the stories’s authors but on the stories themselves and their performers. In reading Sundiata, I learned a new word: griot. ChatGPT described it thus:
a West African storyteller, historian, praise singer, poet, or musician who maintains and passes down oral traditions, histories, and genealogies. Griots play a vital role in preserving the cultural heritage of their communities through storytelling and music. They are often seen as cultural custodians and advisors to leaders, using their vast knowledge of history and lore to educate and entertain.
With the advent of recorded (rather than written) media — music and cinema, in particular — we get the ability to capture the experience (minus the interactivity,) elevating the profile of particular performers/auteurs. Hence, we know the names Fela Kuti and Djibril Diop Mambéty. My sense is they’re closer to authors than griots — but now I understand their work (particularly Kuti’s) in the context of a tradition where storytellers set the tone for their societies.
Notes on Note-taking
I learned of TOUKI BOUKI by asking Perplexity for recommendations on classic African films. I was at a loss here (again, a sign of my ignorance.) Perplexity gave solid suggestions; I chose this film because it was available to stream via Criterion.
Other than that, I didn’t experiment with novel note-taking techniques this week. Obsidian just released a new feature called Bases that enables new workflows; I hope to be able to play around with it in the upcoming weeks.
Up Next
Next week, we’re heading back to Europe in the Middle Ages. This time, the focus will be love. Gioia recommends The Letters of Abelard and Heloise and love lyrics from various troubadours. More performers!
Again, there’s a YouTube playlist for the videos I’m sharing here. I’m also sharing these posts via Substack if you’d like to subscribe and comment. See you next week!