Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 10 - Singing Songs and Performing Dances with Embedded Historical Meanings in Somalia

  • from Part Two - The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
  • Edited by Alice Bellagamba, Sandra E. Greene, Cornell University, New York, Martin A. Klein, University of Toronto
  • Book:
    African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
    Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    13 May 2013, pp 121-128

  • Summary

    Bakoyo Suso belongs to one of three main social categories that Mandinka culture recognizes as part of its historical legacy: freeborn, professional endogamous groups and descendants of slaves. This chapter presents an extract from the narrative of Al Haji Bakoyo Suso. Bakoyo's family engaged in farming and trade while also offering their services as bards to the rural elite. Chiefs, traders, and cattle-owners retained the resources to promote the jali as artists and oral historians. Listening to a jaloo was a common and greatly appreciated form of entertainment. Bamba's historical repertory included the epic of Sunjata Keita and the oral traditions of the major pre-colonial polities along the River Gambia. Bakoyo explains where most of the River Gambia slaves hailed from, and describes both the ruthlessness of the rulers toward their subjects and the trading families' pride in having large slave entourages.