Griots: The Keepers of African Memory

Long before books, archives and hard drives, West Africa invented another way of preserving history: entrusting it to entire families, trained generation after generation to memorise, recite and sing the collective memory. These keepers bear a name the whole world knows today: the griots.

Who are the griots?

"Griot" is the word that passed into French and English, but each culture has its own. Among the Mande peoples, the word is jeli (or djeli), in Bambara as in Maninka. Among the Soninke, one speaks of the gesere. Among the Wolof of Senegal, the griot is the guewel. Behind these names lies one and the same institution: families entrusted with the spoken word, at once historians, musicians, poets and voices of the community.

The griot is not merely an artist. He knows the genealogies of the great families across generations and recites them at weddings, baptisms and funerals. He preserves the epics, the founding stories of the kingdoms, the great deeds of the ancestors. And he acts as a mediator: because his word is respected by all, he is sent to negotiate alliances, calm conflicts and carry delicate messages. In societies of oral tradition, the griot is at once the library, the newspaper and the diplomat.

The epic of Sundiata, a monument of oral tradition

The masterpiece of the griots' repertoire is the epic of Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire in the 13th century. It tells of the humiliated childhood of a prince who could not walk, his exile, then his triumphant return to defeat the sorcerer king Soumaoro Kante and unify the Mande. Within the story itself, the griot holds a central place: Balla Fasseke, Sundiata's griot, accompanies the hero and carries his legend.

For roughly seven centuries, this epic was passed from a griot's mouth to an apprentice's ear, without writing, in the Mande languages. Only in the 20th century was it set down on paper, notably by the historian Djibril Tamsir Niane from the account of a traditional griot. A founding text of African literature, carried entirely by human memory.

Kora, balafon, ngoni: the instruments of memory

The griot's word is inseparable from his music. Three instruments dominate this tradition. The kora, a 21-string harp-lute built on a half calabash, whose crystalline sound has become emblematic of West Africa. The balafon, a xylophone with wooden keys resting on resonating calabashes, whose history is intimately tied to the Mande epic: the sacred balafon of the Sosso, associated with Soumaoro Kante, is still kept and venerated. Finally the ngoni, a small lute with a percussive sound, often described as an African cousin of the banjo. Each instrument carries the stories: the melody supports the memory, and certain tunes are attached to specific families or heroes.

A knowledge passed down within the family

One does not become a griot; one is born a griot. The role is handed down within dedicated lineages: the Kouyate, the Diabate, the Sissoko and other celebrated names of the Mande world are griot family names. The apprenticeship begins in childhood: the child listens, repeats, accompanies the elders at ceremonies, learns the genealogies, the stories and the family instrument. It takes years, sometimes decades, to be recognised as a master of the word. This family transmission explains the depth of the tradition: some lineages trace their art back across a great many generations.

Griots today

The tradition does not belong to the past. The Malian Toumani Diabate (1965-2024), born into an illustrious line of griots, brought the kora to stages around the world and won two Grammy Awards. The Gambian Sona Jobarteh, born into a great griot family, became one of the first female kora virtuosos, on an instrument traditionally reserved for men. Ballake Sissoko, Bassekou Kouyate and many others carry on and reinvent this heritage, between international concerts and ceremonies back home. The griots have changed stages, not missions: to carry the memory and keep it alive.

"When an old person dies, a library burns"

The words of the Malian writer Amadou Hampate Ba, born of his 1960 UNESCO address, sum up what is at stake: in oral cultures, knowledge lives in people, not on shelves. Every griot who passes away without transmitting, every language that ceases to be spoken, is a wing of the archives going up in smoke. That is the whole meaning of the fight for preserving African languages: to save the language is to save the library.

Entering the tradition through the language

You never fully understand a griot in translation. The praises, the family mottoes, the wordplay and the rhythms of speech exist only in the original language. Learning Bambara, Soninke or Wolof means giving yourself the means to listen to this tradition in its original version: to grasp the words of the jeli, the gesere or the guewel, and to receive in turn a little of that memory. That is exactly what Jossmo offers: learning these languages with the voices of native speakers, so that the library keeps being passed on.