Title: Violence in Two African Epics: A Comparative Study of Chaka and Sundiata
Abstract: Violence in Two African Epics: A Comparative Study of Chaka and Sundiata KONATE Siendou Universite de Cocody-Abidjan [email protected] December 19 th , 2012 Abstract: This paper discusses heroic violence in the epics of Sundiata, the Emperor of Old Mali, and Chaka the Zulu king who revealed himself as a military strategist to English colonizers of southern Africa. Notwithstanding the violence treasured by the griot in one epic (Sundiata’s) and decried by the Christian author in the other (Chaka’s), the truth remains that the heroic exploits of these two historical figures are capitalized by their contemporaries as a source of reference for their present daily experience. Keywords: Mande, Zulu, heroism, violence, griot, history, contemporary Introduction Reliance on oral culture (i.e. the spoken word and its related culture) as a medium of expression on the African continent is no secret. Unlike certain nations that privileged writing in order to confer a perennial character to acts and deeds of their people –that is to make their trace indelible on the pages of History–, some African language communities relied on memory and the spoken word to tell about themselves, what they feel and what things and people should be. In addition to the above-mentioned historical categories, orality was used to tell what occurred, what the people who had come to pass as the great figures and torches of their communities did. The content and the purpose of epic poetry and/or narrative fall in this category. In pre-European colonial Africa, there were well-known epics including, among countless others, the Mvet of Cameroon, the Ozidi story recorded by J-P Clark Bekederemo as The Ozidi Zaga, The Epic of Kelefaa Saane as told by Sirifo Camara, among others. These epics were told by the jeliw (griots) among West Africa’s Mande people 1 and imbongi among the people of southern Africa. The present analysis deals with the life and warring exploits of Sundiata Keita, 2 the Emperor of Old Mali and those of Chaka, the Zulu king, two (mythical and/or “Jeliw” is the plural for “jeli” in Maninka, the language of the Mande people. However, Anglophone Maninka of Gambia has the singular as jalool whose plural form is jali. For this form of utterance, see The Epic of Kelefa Saane (Preface ix) as translated by Sana Camara from Sirifo Camara’s 1987 performance in Senegal. The word may translate into griot, which is of an uncertain origin to mean bard. Opposing writing to orality or memory, jeli Mamadou Kouyate, the narrator of Djibril Tamsir Niane’s Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali states, “Other people use writing to record the past, but this invention has killed the faculty of memory among them. They do not feel the past any more, for writing lacks the warmth of the human voice. With them everybody thinks he knows, whereas learning should be a secret” (Niane 41). The name of the founding father of the Mali Empire is often spelt variously; the francophone in West Africa call him Soundiata, in the everyday talk, the Mandinka usually say Sunjata, and
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-12-19
Language: en
Type: article
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