Mamadou Diawara: L’empire du verbe et l’éloquence du silence – Vers une anthropologie du discours dans les groupes dits dominés au Sahel [PDF]

 69.80

Includes 7% VAT
 
To view and read PDF documents, you need a PDF reader, e.g. Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader.

Description

2003
462 pp.
1 map, 9 b/w photos, 5 tables, 2 diagrams, appendix, index of persons and places, subject index

Text language: French

This anthropological analysis of oral literature in the West African Sahel region, an arid region encompassing Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Republic of Niger, draws attention to the importance of silence as a meaningful aspect of orality. The author bases his analysis on a selection of legendary stories concerning Daaman Gille, the founder of the Jawara dynasty in 16th century Jaara in the North-West of the current Republic of Mali, his servant Jonpisugo and Sunjata, one of his many adversaries. In the strictly hierarchical society of Jaara, oral poets (Griots) were mainly drawn from the lower strata of dependent servants who composed legends and stories in the service of aristocratic patrons.

Part of the presented legends were recorded by the author during the 1970s and 1980s, another part was drawn from the transcriptions and translations produced by colonial officials, travellers and scientists. To put these legends into a broader historical context, the author uses the 17th and 18th century chronical sources from Tombouctou. The study is meant as a contribution to the history of the sociology of narration, the evolution of narrative situations and occasions.

The author details how the past as contained in the legends is perceived by today’s ordinary people, and how this notion of the past has developed due to the changes in society during the last decades, among them the genesis of the artist entrepreneur, the rise of a market economy or the availability and influence of radio, television and tape recordings. Special emphasis is placed on the silence, i.e. that which is left unsaid in the stories.

If the African oral tradition is considered in a comprehensive context of its performance, including the narrator and the audience, it becomes clear that silence and listening are as important for the glorification of the power of the protagonist Daaman Gille as the actual spoken words. All of the analysed stories are printed in the original in the appendix, along with a French translation.

Dr. Mamadou Diawara is Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and is Director of «Point Sud», the Research Centre for Local Knowledge in Bamako, Mali.

You may also like…