IN PRAISE OF THE WORD

In many of traditional African cultures, oral arts are professionalized: the most accomplished storytellers and praise singers are initiates (griots or bards), who have mastered many complex verbal, musical, and memory skills after years of specialized training. This training often includes a strong spiritual and ethical dimension required to control the special forces believed to be released by the spoken/sung word in oral performances. These occult powers and primal energies of creation and destruction are called nyama by Mande peoples of Western Africa, for example, and their jeli, or griots, are a subgroup of the artisan professions that the Mande designate nyamakalaw, or “nyama-handlers.” Following a traditional griot performance of a spiritually-charged oral epic like Sundjiata, a Malian audience might ritualistically chant, “!Ka nyama bo!”-- which could be translated something like, “May the powers of nyama safely disperse!” This power of the spoken word is expressed in the following praise poem of the West African Bamara (AKA: Bambara) peoples:


For More Click on the Website Below...

http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/CoursePack/coursepackpast/oralarts.htm


Peace!
Isaiah

Hi Isaiah,

I did not quite understand the link on traditional african oral arts.
The site was different to me. What I mean, I could not follow the meaning of the stories. Maybe, I'm dense. :?:

:wave: :wave: Hello Seeley!

I just wanted to Welcome you to Destee's! Look around, make yourself at home, and I look forward to reading you in the discussions here. We are family here and would love for you to be apart of it!!! :couple:

Oh yes yes! Thank you Brother Isaiah! Excellent Thread! :terrific:

Excellent thread and link. Thanks again Isaiah

IN PRAISE OF THE WORD

In many of traditional African cultures, oral arts are professionalized: the most accomplished storytellers and praise singers are initiates (griots or bards), who have mastered many complex verbal, musical, and memory skills after years of specialized training. This training often includes a strong spiritual and ethical dimension required to control the special forces believed to be released by the spoken/sung word in oral performances. These occult powers and primal energies of creation and destruction are called nyama by Mande peoples of Western Africa, for example, and their jeli, or griots, are a subgroup of the artisan professions that the Mande designate nyamakalaw, or “nyama-handlers.” Following a traditional griot performance of a spiritually-charged oral epic like Sundjiata, a Malian audience might ritualistically chant, “!Ka nyama bo!”-- which could be translated something like, “May the powers of nyama safely disperse!” This power of the spoken word is expressed in the following praise poem of the West African Bamara (AKA: Bambara) peoples:


For More Click on the Website Below...

http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/CoursePack/coursepackpast/oralarts.htm


Peace!
Isaiah

Yes, truly our African roots are the basis for today's music.

Yes, storytelling is largely lost in American Blacks.

Yes, we should preserve this rich history in oral and written word and in song.



Ancient writing traditions do exist on the African continent, but most Africans today, as in the past, are primarily oral peoples, and their art forms are oral rather than literary. In contrast to written “literature,” “orature” (a phrase favored by Kenyan novelist and critic Ngugi wa Thiong’o) is orally composed and transmitted, and African oral arts are created to be verbally and communally performed as an integral part of dance and music. The Oral Arts of Africa are rich and varied, developing with the beginnings of African cultures, and they remain living traditions that continue to evolve and flourish today. ....

Call and Response: Call-and-response forms, found everywhere in Africa, entail a caller or soloist who “raises the song”--as the Kpelle say--and the community chorus who respond, or “agree underneath the song.” In the case of the Igbo stories, the storyteller “calls” out the story in lines; the audience “responds” at regular intervals with a “sala” (Igbo for the chorus’ response). One common Igbo “sala” is “amanye,” roughly equivalent to American English expressions of agreement like “amen,” “indeed,” “it is true,” or “right on!” Traditional African storytelling is a communal participatory experience. Everyone in most traditional African societies participate in formal and informal storytelling as interactive oral performance—such participation is an essential part of traditional African social life.