The Griot's Craft: An Essay on Oral Tradition and Diplomacy

" Griots, the West African traditional bards, have attracted scholarly attention for decades because of their apparently infinite knowledge of history and their positions as social mediators. Academic research has thus focused on their verbal skills, their memory, their music and the meaning of their texts. Their diplomatic skills as mediators, however, have never been the object of systematic analysis. This book aims to fill that lacuna by examining how griots deal with both social relationships and the transfer of knowledge, thus illustrating why griots play such an important role in Mande societies. Griots are more than mere storytellers' or entertainers'. The subtle art of diplomatic mediation is integral to their craft. Jan Jansen elaborates his ideas on the basis of observations made during two years of research conducted among the prestigious bards of Kela (Mali). By using an interactionist approach, he demonstrates how griots create - both physically and metaphorically - a sp