Griots: African Storytellers
Medieval Africa
Medieval Africa was an evolving world. From 500 to 1500 CE, Africa opened trading routes, was exposed to new religions, increased literacy, and experienced one of the continent’s richest periods. Before computers and social media, everything was written in books and journals to document our past. During the medieval period, Africa experienced a similar evolution as it moved from oral history to written documentation. The African people do not have a lot of documentation on their history, because in ancient times they passed down their stories orally. However, with the information that we have, we do know that Africa changed immensely in speech, religion, and technology during the medieval era.
The Griot
Traditionally, griots were members of a family of griots, these families held important positions in the kingdoms because their role was to pass down the historic stories and histories. Not just anyone could become a griot. Griots were responsible for keeping all the births, deaths and marriages throughout the generations of the family or village. They tell their stories to music using four principal instruments—the kora (a 21-string lute that sounds like a harp), the balafon, the ngoni, and the voice. And it is possible that each griot family might stick to one physical instrument, which they then learn to make and harness, and pass that through their family for generations.
The training for younger members born into a griot family is usually thorough spending years of listening and memorizing. This usually started as young as eight years old when training initially began by learning to create the instrument played by the family. Griots usually carry this important responsibility from one generation to the next so that their stories may never be forgotten or lost.
The Griot Apprentices in this guild began by making their own balafones and drums. Working with a drummer to learn about rhythms they began creating the music on which to build the story of the kingdoms they represented, their monologues. In the monologue video, they are the musicians and hear the stories they wrote to share their stories. Additionally, as modern griots, they were documenting this work in books they created themselves.