Writings on african literature - Felix Rian

Writings On African Literature

Felix Constantinescu

An African Symbol Of Holiness (The Story Of A Tanzanian Little Elijah)

In the year of 1985 the Romanian Ion Creangă Publishing Company in Bucharest edited a book for children, with the title: “Din basmele Africii”, which translated in English is: “From The Fairy Tales Of Africa”. I liked reading it very much while being a kid, as a matter of fact I have read it and reread it until I tore it up to pieces. This was my way of reading good books when I was a child. This book was my first encounter with Africa, together with the big map of Africa in the Geographical Atlas, the map I loved the most.

In the introductory note of the re-teller, Cristina Petrescu, it is said that the texts were translated from African languages like: Bantu, Swahili, Hausa, Peule, Hotentot, Wolof, Arabian. And I believe that these stories together with others offer us the access to a memory which couldn’t be accessed some other way, for instance by archaeology. Because the most of the Ancient African civilisations are characterised by the village, it is very hard if not impossible to make thorough arcaeological researches on the entire period of history of man in Africa.

At pages 142-145 in this story book can be found the story to be presented her, with the Romanian title “Fetiţa care ştia să facă ploaie”. The English translation of the title is “The Little Girl Which Knew How To Make Rain”. The story’s indication of origin is Tanzania and its subject is this: Once in a fertile land lived an orphan little girl who was cared for by the women of the village because she was such a very good child. One summer came a fierce drought and the children who were playing at the edge of the forest, couldn’t play cooking no more because of the lack of water. But one day when it was so hot outside the orphan girl asked them if they could keep a secret and then made rain for them to fill their pots with the water for the cooking.

After she made rain for the kids a few more times one of the girls toled her mother and showed her the water, and her mother told to another woman and soon enough all the village knew about the ability of the orphan little girl to make rain. The chief of the tribe gave her a lot of gold and asked her to make rain for them. After many insistences the orphan agreed and when the rain fell she was taken up in the sky and disappeared in the storm. And the legend says that in that land drought never came again.

A unique parallel of thist story is the biblical history of the prophet Elijah. But iti is obvious that the two symbols have appeared independently one of another. Most probably this story dates older than the entrance of Islam in Tanganyka and today’s Tanzania, and it is generated by the previous beliefs. The story of the girl who knew how to make rain has not the Bible via Islam as its origin, although – just like the story of Elijah – it is a picture of holiness, but inside an Animistic religious system. And, besides, Islam has made only half a road in Tanzania.

The definition of animism in the English language dictionary is: “Animism – the doctrine that all natural objects and the universe itself have souls.” Thus, keeping in mind this definition we notice that the version published in the 1985 Ion Creangă Publishing Romanian language book is not a translation of the original – as indicated, also, on the front page – and more than that it’s a shortened and an European version, because in the Romanian version it is not specified if the objects have life, as it is commonly met in the stories belonging to the Animistic cultures.

Another argument is that in the story “Maruwa”, - from the same book, a story from Kenya which is also an umma territory and closer to Muhammad’s Mecca than Tanzania , it is mentioned the protection of Namuru, a god of a river, so both the stories’ origins must date before the Hegira, and the story to be studied here is indicated here by historical arguments to be independent of the biblical text. If we could have the access to the original we could answer most probably without doubt, but as I observed the Communist Romanian translators erased every possible reference to religion from the text, so from this secularised version the story is harder to analyse in this aspect. On another hand I believe that the folklore has an attribute that can be named some kind of inertia. I don’t believe that Islam had enough time to enter in the core at such an old folklore as the African Tanzanian is, a folklore of the village. Even in the old Romanian folklore, current personages which entered in the narrations were the Lord and Saint Peter, whose reference dates to two thousands of years ago even to rather a young nation as the Romanian people is. This theory of inertia in folklore says that it is very hard for a much newer culture to enter at the core of a much older one, once more if the older one is based on village community and oral culture. There can be influences, on both sides and the urban culture can

take many elements from the rural but otherwise no, or anyway very slowly. More probably is that the civilised culture changes, produces mutations and eventualy destroys the other culture.

This is why in the Te-Pito-Te-Henua chronicles the name of the captain who discovered the island and named it Easter Island is not written. Just like the core of the language of a conquered land remains intact so it is with its folklore. This is the way it was with folklore producing cultures, past culture because that ages have mostly set. As a paranthesis I will say that in newer folklore and in stages before it’s dissolution we can find historical themes or modern motives like a leader of a peasant uprising or the motive of a train journey, but as we go deeper in folklore, the more we advance in time the lesser are the themes until we arrive to only three each one less older than the other: man, nature, God. In the collective book “Omul medieval” (published at Polirom 1999), in the chapter about Medieval holiness are described the different nuances of Medieval Christianity. I notice a growth of quality between the different concepts of holiness in the Post-Primary-Church Christianity. After the historical period of the Primary Church had ended the Jewish origin notion of holiness, became a mixed concept or gave its place to other concepts of it. We have Saint Anthony, the pillar saints, the prevalence of the Vth century bishops in the West as keepers of holy relics and guaranteers of holiness, we have the holy kings as political saints and the monks as professionals of holiness, and later we have the Saint Francis’ paradigm of holiness. I honestly believe in analysing this categories of holiness that although they may be different concepts of the same notion they are not of the same quality. It is not the same thing just to live on a pillar or to spend all your life alone in a desert with living Christian belief as Francis of Assisi who, to quote from the bookfrom pages 299-300: “Săracul din Assisi şi stigmatizatul de la Alverno, a dus cu siguranţă cel mai departe strădania de a actualiza mesajul evanghelic într-o existenţă pământească, până la a reproduce Patima lui Hristos în propriul trup. Viaţa lui constituie expresia deplină a noii concepţii asupra sfinţeniei, rod al unei experienţe lăuntrice şi al unei iubiri ce se străduia să regăsească în toate făpturile, şi în special la cele mai nenorocite, chipul lui Dumnezeu. “ I honestly believe that between the two notions there is a lot of distance, not to mention the other categories, because the desert Fathers and the pillar saints approached the matter from the exterior while Saint Frances approached it from the interior of human heart.

Thus the saint is more closer to a Red Cross worker than a stone statue. An as it is written later on the page: “Astfel apare limpede procesul de interiorizare a sfinţeniei, bazată de acum încolo – dincolo de diferenţele de mediu social – pe o comună pietate faţă de umanitatea lui Hristos şi pe dorinţa de a-l urma, imitându-l.” I wrote this paragraph to analyse what holiness meant for a milennium in Christian belief and European culture, and now the question is, to which category named before does the holiness of the little girl from the story can be resembled? Although in the ends she becomes a protector of the material welfare of that land and that at first glance she has a power that are similar to the powers of the European saints over nature, she is not to be resembled to any of the categories named earlier. The major text that resemble the most to this story are the chapters from the Bible about Elijah.

The girl has the innocent nature of a saint like Elijah, a saint of basic needs and basic faith; she is even less complicated than Saint Francis, who also was very simple although. This African story creyonates an image of traditional African holiness. But, before going any further, we must try to understand by what means did the little girl the miracle. She was a saint so she did a miracle, but the first question is how did she do it. Did she do it by magic, did she had the powers needed to make rain or did she do it by religion, by the connection to a god? What is the difference between magic and religion? They are both links to another world, but while magic uses the another world for man in this world, religion consecrates man in this world for another world. A first strong argument that in this story we deal with religion and not magic is the fact

that in the end the girl is lifted up in the sky. Another argument is that she shows no desire for the gold she is given by the leader of the tribe. Another argument is that when she made rain the place where she was went through a process of consecration, and this also is an argument that this story is an image of holiness. The fact that she asked the tribe people to draw further from the place she stood indicates the fact that that place became hallowed by the iminent miracle. We can speculate even more and say that the children draw further without somebody telling them, while the grown people didn’t get farther from the place not even after the litle girl asked them to; and this could indicate the more openess of the child to religion, sacred and miracle that of the grown people, which could be noticed in any culture. In the story the children deal better with the sacred than the grown people of the village.

In the biblical history about Elijah we can find another common thing between Elijah and the little girl who made rain, other than the fact that they both brought rain and were taken up to the sky and other than the fact that they are both pure beings. In the second chapter of the Second book of Kings, Elijah before being taken up to heaven says to Elisha, his disciple: “When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here; the LORD has sent me to Bethel.’” Elisha refuses to remain there. After they arrive to Bethel Elijah says: “Then Elijah said to him, ‘Stay here, Elisha; the LORD has sent me to Jericho.’” Then, again, after arriving to Jericho, Elijah says to his disciple Elisha: “Then Elisha said to him, ‘Stay here; the LORD has sent me to the Jordan.’”

And, after miraculously crossing the Jordan, Elijah is taken up to heaven in the presence of Elisha. Something alike can be found in the story to be commented; before making rain the little girl asked all the people present to draw farther from the place she stood just as Elijah asked his disciple three times to remain behind and let him literally go to God. (Of course that the Animistic or primitive holiness has nothing to do with real holiness, but its understanding is needed if we want to get the entire background of this literary text.)

What is holiness? In the Christian faith holiness means to be identified spiritually with the blood of Christ. This is the Christian faith for two thousand years. We could draw a rule that means to identify yourself with something. To identify yourself with something beyond yourself up to a point of transfiguration.

The little girl in the story identifies herself with the other children, with the toy community of the village. And it is because that she identifies herself with the children that she is a good person and this is why the god of rain, the storm or the sky bestowed her the gift of making rain. She doesn’t have her gift by magic, but through spirituality which is another definition for goodnes. And it is the same with the prophet Elijah. If we want to understand his psychology we would observe the same goodness, the same pure will to help people, the community and also his openess to serve God. This is the reason for his calling. – because of his love for God and humans -, and not the will to be in a position – a religious one or not. This is why Elijah comes to the calling to be a prophet and then to holiness.

In the African story the little girl tried to help the children because she had compassion for them and because children are on a closer level to the sacred than grown people. And also she told the children about her ability because – as I have said – she identified herself with them. And also her disclosure of the gift is an active manifestation of the sacred towards the world like for instance the Christian gospel, the Jewish teaching and the Islamic djihad.

Another thing, by telling the other children to keep his gift concealed she goes beyond the power of making rain and arrives to an unordinary power to make mistery.

The grown-ups cannot deal with the sacred. When the mystery si reveiled by on of the little girls to her mother this one tells it to another woman and this one to another until the

secret mystery is reveiled to the entire village. Then, when they ask her to make rain after much insisting she agrees but she asks her in her turn to draw further from the place she was and they didn’’t listen. The reason why the little girl asked her to draw farther is because that that place became sanctified, became sacred.

The rain comes but the little saint is taken up to the storm. The reason is that the sacred and the power of the god of the rain, storm or sky became too close and manifest to humans, so manifest that the humans couldn’t deal with it; and this is the reason why the holyman is taken from them. Another reason that that may be is that this saint, the little girl, is too little to manage in the lower world once her holiness became reveiled to man, so – in order to protect her – the god of rain, storm or sky or altogether chose to lift her in the upper world.

The story ends with one sentence: “De atunci, se spune că în ţinutul acela n-a mai bântuit niciodată seceta.” It can be interpreted in two ways. First, once the little saint arrived to the upper world, to the world of the gods, the people in her village and of that county had a protective semi-immortal in the upper world who looked up on them with her gift.

Second, this story seems to be an explicative legend wich simply explains religiosly the quality of a fruitful land where is never drought.

All this be said, I think I’ve brought all the interpretations to this African story that I’ve found for now. Good literature has the quality of being full of thought especially old one, and I am convinced that I’ve reached yet only the surface of this four page story with illustrations so – in the future – if God leads maybe I will examine this African story further. Until then, God bless us.

Abba Moses A Black Father Of The Egyptian Desert

Part One

“Patericul” – (Romanian translation) – is a singular book. Most probably written in the 4th to 5th centuries, to it’s content have contributed – in one way or another - hundreds, maybe thousands of Christian monks. The religious special awakening and movement towards the desert of Egypt has begun with the first desert dweller, the first monk, Anthony – born in 251 AD and reposed in 356 AD. “The Pateric” to which we refer to is also called “The Egyptian Pateric”; this is the oldest writing bearing this title and the most valuable. As the Romanian monk Teofil Pârâianu said: “Deci noi, când vorbim acum despre "Ce învãtãm din Pateric", ne gândim la un Pateric anume, la Patericul egiptean, care este Patericul clasic, Patericul care a existat înainte de a fi alte Paterice.” (Archimandrite Teofil Pârâianu – “Ce învăţăm din Pateric?”) It is not an hazarduous accident that we have quoted the Archimandrite.

In the last part of this introduction we will quote further from the same text of the Orthodox priest Teofil Pârâianu because we believe that if you want to understand the soul of a desert monk of the 4th century Egipt’s wasteland like Abba Moses, the Ethiopian, then you must

spend some time in the company of one of his good representants, i.e. a righteous monk of our contemporaneity. Father Teofil has died not too much time ago so no one can deny I think the fact that his righteousness was one of our contemporaries, not to mention his spiritual preaching to the colleges youth. The quote is as follows: “Cuvântul Pateric vine de la patir care în limba greacã înseamnã tatã; am zice "învãtãturi ale Pãrintilor duhovnicesti", am putea zice "învãtãturi ale bãtrânilor". "Cartea bãtrânilor", asa se mai numeste Patericul. Si când sunt referiri ale Pãrintilor duhovnicesti la învãtãturile din Pateric, gãsim referirile în întelesul acesta, de "Cartea bãtrânilor". Cãlugãr în limba greacã cuprinde si cuvântul gheron, care înseamnã bãtrân. Calos înseamnã bun sau frumos. Cu acelasi cuvânt se poate exprima cuvântul "bun" sau "frumos", calos¬gheron ar fi "bãtrân frumos", deci cuvântul "cãlugãr" din limba românã este un cuvânt alcãtuit din cuvintele grecesti calos¬gheron. Nu numai bãtrânii sunt cãlugãri, sunt si tineri care sunt cãlugãri, dar, etimologic, cuvântul "cãlugãr" înseamnã "bãtrân frumos". Deci "Cartea bãtrânilor" sau Patericul înseamnã cartea celor care au experientã, cartea celor care au ajuns la niste concluzii, cartea celor ce vorbesc cu autoritate. Vorbesc si tinerii cu autoritate, dar autoritatea bãtrânilor n¬o au decât bãtrânii.” (Teofil Pârâianu – Ce învăţăm din Pateric?).

Who is abba Moses? Firstly, what we can say about him is that he is a Christian Catholic and Orthodox father, the second that he was an Ethiopian, Black. This is why we write this essay here in this series, because we deal with an African who made his – or maybe God’s way – all throughout the Christian European culture and he made that a long time ago, 1500 or 1600 years ago. But the blessed abba Moses did not spring from emptiness, he is part of a culture, - Christian Ethiopia, and more than that, a community – Ethiopian monasticism, or who knows maybe abba Moses is from the beginning of Ethiopian Christian massive faith. [Yes, Ethiopian monasticism is one thousand five hundred years old, aproximately from the days of abba Moses] Anyway as Robert Van de Weyer - a visitor to 18 Ethiopian monasteries - inform us: “Over the centuries the monks of Ethiopia have jealously guarded the primitive traditions, and they claim that even today their monastic communities are identical to those of the early desert [Egyptian desert] fathers.” (Robert Van de Weyer - The Monastic Community Of Ethiopia).

If these communities are se well preserved and “identical” to the ancient communities it could be edifying to hear of these communities’ way of prayer, it could be so close to abba Moses prayer’s life. Robert Van de Weyer tells us: “The center of the monks’ life is prayer. The monks rise on most mornings at around four o’clock and assemble in the church to chant the morning office (Sa’atat) which last about two hours. On Sundays and major feast days they start the office at midnight and then perform the Mass (Kiddase), finishing at dawn. Unlike the large secular churches few monasteries have trained singers and the monks do not dance as the secular priests do. Some of the more ascetical monasteries do not even chant the office and the Mass, but prefer simply to say them. In mid-afternoon the monks gather once again, usually in the assembly hall, for a short office of about 15 minutes. Apart from these common prayers the monk is expected to pray frequently in private. Each monk is free to choose his own method of private prayer, though certain ways are common. Many retire to their huts every one or two hours and say the Lord’s Prayer and the Canticle of St. Mary. Others repeat ” Jesus Christ, please save me ” or ” Through Blessed Mary, have mercy on me ” 41 times. Most monks also spend long hours at night in silent contemplation.” (Robert Van de Weyer - The Monastic Community Of Ethiopia).

I will ask the reader to please excuse me but I will add two more quotes from Van de Weyer, quotes which we consider that it would so enlighten our quest for the portrait of the soul of abba Moses; not to mention that Vand de Weyer’s informations on the subject are first hand and based on his and other people – also a priest among them [Father Thomas Conway]– research, to which we are truly grateful.

The first quote is about hermits: “Though it has long since disappeared in the West, the eremitical life is still widespread in Ethiopia. The cenobitical monks and indeed the ordinary people regard the hermitage as Man’s highest abode on earth, and often monks seem fearful at the possibility of God calling them to it. In almost every monastery there are a number of monks – perhaps one tenth of the total-who confine themselves to their cells. They are described as ” the monks who never see the sun.” They have no responsibilities within the community and do not attend the daily common prayers. Food is brought to their huts each day by a single monk permanently designated to the task, and the hermit only emerges for the Mass in church on Sundays and feast days. Usually their cells are within the monastery compound, though sometimes they are a short distance away: at Debre Damo, for instance, hermits can be seen in apparently inaccessible caves in the sheer cliff beneath the monastery. Other monks or lay people can visit them (if they can reach their cell), and even today many of the rulers of Ethiopia, including the Emperor himself, frequently seek the advice of these hermits on both spiritual and temporal matters.

Besides these monastic hermits, there are countless holy men (ba’atawi) living in remote forests and caves throughout Ethiopia. These men have totally rejected human contact, and if they ever visit a church they “come by night, crawling through the undergrowth so as not to be seen.” as an admiring priest described it. They live only on the wild fruits and herbs which Nature provides. A few of these holy men are ordained monks who have left their communities, but mostly they are lay people – as another monk put it, ” God has called them to holiness from nothing, as Christ called Peter and Paul.”” (Robert Van de Weyer - The Monastic Community Of Ethiopia).

The second is a part of the article’s conclusion. “By the same analogy [with the Benedictine paradigm] the Ethiopian monastery is a university: each monk studies perfection in his own way within a loosely-knit community, governed by traditional rules and customs.

Ethiopian monasticism has retained the flexibility and freedom of the first desert convents of Egypt. The monk is within broad limits his own master, both spiritually and physically. He can participate in the community life as much or as little as he chooses, from being a hard worker who enjoys the company of his fellows in his leisure hours, to being a hermit.” (Robert Van de Weyer - The Monastic Community Of Ethiopia).

Well, I believe that this is the context of existence which was common to abba Moses the Ethiopian 1500-1600 years ago in the desert of Egypt. Who was abba Moses? He was a man who delighted in the silence of his cell, who had the joy of the saints and who most probably also cried their tears and as it was written about him who was concerning only about his sins. Most probably that all the struggle of the Pateric, all it’s war was common to him, we could say maybe that his soul was the Pateric as it was to hundreds and thousands of ancient Eastern monks and hermits. Abba Moses was Black and he is a Church calendar saint, in the Romanian Orthodox calendar his day is 28 August. A Black saint. The writer of this pages awaits the coming of the day of a Gypsy saint in the Orthodox or Catholic calendar, someday when God will have mercy on both the Gypsies and Romanians of this country, someday when Gypsies would be more and more evangelized and Romanians would be less and less racist.

I must confess that I am not from the traditional churches, so this article about human saints – towards which we evangelicals, so to speak, show justified distrust – could seem a little unusual. I am a Protestant but I do find “The Pateric” a useful and superb book and not only that – as I write essayes about the noble Africa – when I found out about the existence of a Black saint of the Christian Church old a milennium and a half ago I could not just not write this essay. For me abba Moses is not only a symbol a noble soul and of Africa – just as Steve Biko, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, Paul Rusesabagina, Youssou N’Dour or Wole Soyinka are –

but I consider old abba Moses their archetype, so I have not only a religious interest in the matter but an anti-rasist and a pro-humanitarian ones too and I consider that any African should be interested in the subject of this present text and not only every African but also every nonAfrican who has a heart for this stardust continent. Abba Moses is the archetype of Africa as we [Europeans] know it, and the roots of this archetype go 400-500 years before up to the Roman times. Abba Moses is Africa, up to the present day; Africa is one of the places on Earth with the one of the most strongest believers in any Christian denomination, no matter whethet is Catholic, Coptic, Orthodox, Protestant or Evangelical. Africa is full of little abbas Moses, not to mention that even if the Black man was taken from his homeland and from his Mother Africa this mysterious abba Moses went along with him somewhere with his soul and we have other little abbas Moses in the masterpieces of the world’s art describing therir life in other continents like Mark Twain’s character Negro Jim, depicted after the reality of the humble and strong faith of an enslaved nation. The simple fact that the Christian Church had an African saint for such a long period ago is a conclusion that Africa DESERVES it’s rightful place among the civilised world, and all the rasism of all the past behind humanity is proved to be a wrong practice and an evil idea. Africa is just a poorer sister of ours who needs to be helped by her rich or much richer brothers, she need to be helped – so God has let that it should be – not mocked or ignored for decades or centuries.

Now I should comment on the references on abba Moses in “The Pateric”, but firstly what must be said that the entire book, i. e. The Pateric is a deep text to which superficial analysis proves to be of little meaning and a text on which prolonged meditation proves to be rewarding and – as the desert fathers often used to say – useful.

The Word Of The Mamadu Kuyaté Griot. A Commented Fragment.

In this pages we are interested only in the introductory part of the words of the named above griot. It is indicated to specify that the text’s version belongs to Djibril Tamsir Niané from Guinea, and that we will comment the Romanian translation published in the poetry anthology “EFIGII ÎN ABANOS – din lirica neagră francofonă”, appeared at Albatros Publishing, Bucharest in 1978. We have a very interesting situation because we have an original African creation rewritten in French then translated in Romanian and now commented in English, but this reveals the increased possibility for intercultural exchange of our times.

After and while presenting himself and his griot ancestors Mamadu Kuyaté – maybe a fictional hero - says in a primitive, African characteristic sentence: “suntem sacii cu vorbe, suntem sacii păstrători ai tainelor vechi de secole.” Mamadu then continues: Arta de a vorbi nu are secrete pentru noi, şi fără noi numele regilor ar cădea în uitare, suntem memoria oamenilor…”. Yes, every human community needed a sense of its own not only continuity but purpose, meaning and something like what Steve Biko meaned while pronouncing: “our legitimate place in the world.”

The role in society of the griot is on one hand that of an artist, an artist of orality and on the other hand is that of a keper – also oral - of the records of the past. Mamadu lives in Manding and his task is to keep the memory of Manding kingdom; besides being a poet Mamadu is also a historian of his community. He is one of the few who has almost unlimited access to the

historical sources of the past, because the history of his people is recorded in the songs, poems and myths he has learned from his father, a griot of the past who – a Mamadu says – learned them from his father, another griot of the past and so on through out the entire Manding history.

Mamadu makes the note that they, the griots, are the memory of humankind, of the black humans. Besides singing their songs to the community, the griots noted down in their memories anything important that happened in the Manding tribe they did this for centuries.

When Europe was still in the Middle-Ages, the griots probably fullfilled their duty to their community. And as other griots did in other communities, they embellished it, they transformed it into myth just like Homer, the blind Greek. Why both the griots or the other creators did it it is maybe for someone else to answer. For now let’s just make note that the griots – as other poets – took first hand reality and transformed into myth, and maybe one strong reason is just aesthetics. The griots needed – just as the writers of modernity – to make their subjects and creations extraordinary. Then follow the other reasons, which we will not analyse here;.

The griot says: “numele toate au un sens, un înţeles ascuns.” A hidden meaning, the further we go in the past the meanings increase and are more and more revealed; if this idea is true than God exists, somewhere revealed and hidden in the same time. He then utters a phrasing resembling with the short sentences of Solomon’s Kohelet: “…pentru că lumea e bătrână, iar viitorul se naşte din trecut.”

Further on Mamadu recites – or sings: “Cuvântul meu e neîntinat şi dezbrăcat de minciună; este cuvântul tatălui meu aşa cum l-am primit; (…) suntem păstrătorii secretelor lăsate de strămoşi.” He believes that his word is truth, historical, logical and not last theological and that this word which his family owns contains the secrets given by the ancestors and he and his family and all the griots are the “keepers” of this mysterious heritage. And what makes their ancestors so special for being able to give secrets, is their probable semi-deity – totemic or not or if this is not the case their religious knowledge.

“Ascultaţi-mi cuvântul, voi care vreţi să ştiţi, prin gura mea afla-veţi istoria Mandingului.” Mamadu Kuyaté could be resembled to a professional historian of today; he is specialised most in history, for him religion and poetry are ment to serve historical narration and not viceversa. He is not – after all - a poet like Homer or a mystic like Dante Alighieri, griot Kuyaté is the primitive and oral variant of an historian, PH. D. Mamadu Kuyaté resembles to a Jewish teacher of the law, in receiving an important teaching and tradition and keeping it – because of religious, historical and aestethic motives, without adding much to it. Indeed Mamadu Kuyaté and his family are what this griot calls: “sacii cu vorbe.” Centuries, and maybe millenia, of words are contained in their minds.