The Role Of The Griot

Recently I took a Theatre Appreciation course at my college and had to do a Presentation on which I picked the topic of The African Storyteller. Was so enlightened by the information that I learned that I decided to share it with you all in this blog:

      

 

     It is important that peopole understand the roles and the power that the griot (known as "jali" and refixed before the given family name) has been endowed with since the beginning. One of the roles the griot in African society had before the Europeans came was maintaining a cultural and historical past with that of the present. He informed, even to this day, man and woman of the roles they must play in traditional African society. The griot was well respected and was very close to kings-- in fact, closer to the king than the king's own wife.

     The griot served as the king's confidant and personal advisor. The griot would interpret things, such as different facts, for the king. It was also the responsibility of the griot to make sure that the people received all the information about their ancestors-- what the father, the grandparents, and their lineages had done and how they had done it. What the griot gave to African society in oral history, cultural information, and ancestral wisdom and knowledge is the key with which all people of African descent can progress and maintain a high level of understanding of their true heritage.

     All people of African descent-- the Latin, the Jamaican, the Haitian, the Brazilian, the Caribbean, and the African American-- all must realize that, although they were not born in Africa, they are still African people and all of us have been through the experience of slavery. Most of us have lost our original language and traditions because of having been born outside of the African homeland. When you are away from your ancestral land and lack the necessary cultural information, you become "lost" by concept. The color of the skin remains the same but the concept, the knowledge of Africa, is gone. The traditional names and roles in society, everything that belonged to us by birthright, was taken away from most of us.

     This is known as "the painful period." In order to get back what was ours, information and knowledge about African society and culture must be learned now. This the griot gives to all who need it. Our children need to have the facts about their ancestral homeland. This destiny will take a while, however. Everyone has a transition period. When a black person understands his or her own African past, accepts being African, he is different from one who does not know these things. Those of us who know, know our value.'

 

     The reason I begin with this kind of conversation is that I want peopleto have the right idea about Africa and the role of the griot in the past and in today's time, so that everyone can understand the "capacity" and potential power that we still have today. This power must be used in a good way so that we can help one another. We are still a proud people and know the significant role we have and the part we must play in our humanity.

     So the young man and woman, everybody who stays in the village get a chance to listen to live and learn about their culture and such things as I have been saying. In West African society there are various types of stories to communicate these principles. In the evening, after dinner, the stories that are usually told by the griot are call tahlio (tah-lee-OH), which means it is not the reality but an imagined event between humans and animals and some kind of spirit. These are the stories that are told for entertainment. A griot has special ways of telling these stories so that they are very entertaining, even though the griot's main intention is not to entertain but to teach the people to know themselves. When tahlio takes place, everybody participates. Know, too, that music is not always used and that the stringed harp like instrument, the kora, for thich griots are noted, is new in comparison to other African instruments.

     We have to be all that we can be to get our art and all true information about the griot and our rich cultural folklore "out of the closet" in modern society. Most of us know all bout the white man's education, his schools, history, and culture, but we lack the necessary information about our own.

 

     I hope that someday we will have the young generation follow you and mean and each of us who is working hard at keeping African fulture and tradion alive. Yes, we need our stories; without stories in an oral tradition, there is no history, no reference. As the song says: Sy-yah Cah-pee-sah ma loo dee. Death is natural but I won't take humiliation; which means, if you don't know, you have to learn. Knowledge is learned. When one does not learn, that is humiliation.