Griots at War Conflict.

Griots at War

Conflict, Conciliation, and Caste in Mande

Barbara G Hoffman

Bloomington: Indiana University Pres 2000 ix + 298 pp b/w photographs, bibliography and index. $3995 cloth

greatest in quantity readers are familiar with works dedicated to the part of the Mande griot as the performer of epic histories in West Africa. More newly the term "griot" has been applied liberally to World Beat African musicians and level to storytellers and musicians in the Black Atlantic world. This just discovered and contemporary use of "griot" hazes our understanding of jell (griot) and jeliya (griotness), in the Mande world. In her ethnography of Mande jeli, Hoffman refocuses our attention away from the instant global use of "griot" and brings us firmly back into the Mande world. in consequence of the lens of a newly come griot war of succession, she demonstrates the ways that jeliya is firmly origined in Mande social action and identity; in language and its power and efficacy; and in history the two ancient and modern.

In her introduction Hoffman sets the stage for the part by describing the extensive preparations for travel to the Kita celebration through the Jabate family with whom she was affiliated. Ostensibly, the Kita celebration of 1995 took place for the installation of Makanjan Jabate as the modern jelikuntigi, head griot of Kita, and the inauguration of a strange griot hall. The event, however, was in fact an occasion to bring about the resolution of a war between Kita griot families from one side of to the other the right of succession. The end was played out in public, with Radio Television Mali recording the celebration, if it be not that the history of this conflict and the deeper meanings encod in the speeches and performances given through a three-day period were not easily accessible to the wider audience. As a member of the Jabate delegation from Bamako, Hoffman participated in the affair recording and observing the many public speeches given during this celebration. For nearly a decade Hoffman analyzed the one and the other the language of the true copys and their performances. Her unraveling of the polysemy of these speeches and the affective performative strategies of the speakers reveal frequently about the power of words in the Mande world. Her ethnography of the griot war gives us insights into a protracted social drama that had had real and serious effects for the participants, involving rumors of death by way of sorcery and resulting in the dissolution of calm long-standing marriages, leading to serious social quarrels within the community.

Her first chapter frames the ethnography in theoretical word s She discusses the place of griots in Mande social organization and the manifold relationship between nobles and griots in Mande society. She also introduces the distinctive performative dimensions of griot practices that define griot-ness for the couple jeli and non-jeli and which are still operative today. over the next chapters she builds on the subject of these framing concepts. In chapter 2 she examines the nature of Mande discourse, identifying forms associated with jeliya and performative strategies which involve extra-linguistic features as it is as volume, pitch, facial expression, dead body language, and the like. She discusses to what degree speech in the Mande world is adjusted within a cultural framework that takes into account age, form relative to sex social position, etc. Then, within an analysis of a words given in Kita by Seku Jabate, a jell from Guinte, she demonstrates his mastery of form and performance affect and identifies the ways that he builds his argument for reconciliation within a specific Mande cultural frame that draws immediately after Mande history, social organization, and moral values.

In the nearest three chapters she focuses forward the complex social dynamics between griots and nobles in Mande society, the crux of many debates in the literature forward Mande society and the nature of Mande castes. at analyzing specific interactions between the visiting griot delegation and the noble authorities in Kita during the three days of the affair she demonstrates how the griot/noble relationship is played without through a series of words events that reveal expectations the two met and failed and that allude to tensions about legitimacy and the rights to dialect that have arisen from colonial and postcolonial political histories.

The final chapter recurs to a lengthy discussion of the anthropological definition of caste. She redefines caste in Mande period of times and discusses this redefinition in relationship to anthropological literature that retheorizes caste in the Indian connection This is a well-written and engaging part with moments of high drama that venture the reader along through the analysis of the incident Hoffman speaks authoritatively to the issues of Mande caste, social identity, and history, Her focus forward the Kita celebration demonstrates the specific ways that caste and caste identity is situationally created and maintained within speech and performance.

For close examiners of Mande culture, Hoffman's close attention is a welcome addition to the literature forward griots. Her analysis of the encod messages within these thesiss and performances is rich in ethnographic detail and she provides the reader with the dialect texts in both the original language and in translation. Her analysis of the performative strategies used by means of Mande jell suggests interesting parallels for the reflection of Mande visual arts and aesthetics. More broadly, her careful attention to performance propounds insights for studies of oratorical forms and discursive practices elsewhere in Africa.

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