mandebala.net

facing p. 217

Le Sosso-Balla, ou balafong de Sosso. La tradition attribue à Soumaoro l'invention de cet instrumet de musique. Lui seul pouvait en jouer. Après sa défaite à Kirina, les Keita s'emparèrent de l'instrument qui devint la propriété des Kouyaté, clan de griots de la famille impériale. Aujourd'hui encore, ce sont les descendants de Balla Fasseké Kouyaté, griot officiel de Soundjata, qui ont la garde du précieux trophée. On ne joue de cet instrument que pour chanter l'épopé de Soundjata ou « Soundjata-Fassa ». C'est le Sosso-Balla qui donne le la à tous les balafongs du Vieux-Manding. L'actuel conservateur, Komakan Kouyaté, a bien voulu poser pour nous (photo prise par l'auteur en 1971, à Niagassola.)

p. 5

A l'extrême nord-est de la Guinée, près de la frontière malienne, dans le village de Nyagassola, la famille des griots Kouyaté est gardienne des derniers vestiges sacrés de l'Empire mandingue : un bonnet en cuir, une paire de grelots de poignet et surout un immense balafon appelé sosso-bala. Ces objets précieux, aujourd'hui gardés derrière la porte inviolable d'une case en torchis, auraient appartenu à Soumaoro Kanté, l'ancêtre des chasseurs et des forgerons, le dernier roi du Royaume sosso.

pp. 6-7

Or, cet immense balafon (sosso-bala) à vingt lames et dix-huit résonnateurs en calebasse ne doit être entendu que la nuit et seulement pour des occasions exceptionnelles. Ici, il est joué par un griot aveugle de Nyagassola. C'est le plus vieux descendant de Bala Faseka Kouyaté. De ce fait, il est le dépositaire de cet instrument et l'unique personne autorisée à en jouer.

"Il n'est point de bravoure sans magie.
Il n'est point de magie sans bravoure.
Hommes, femmes, enfants du Mandé.
Je vais vous parler de Soumaoro Kanté.
Le pouvoir a trouvé le chef qu'il attendait.
Soumaoro a pris le bâton de commandement.
Le pouvoir ne se donne pas,
Il se mérite...".

Tout en jouant le registre grave du sosso-bala, le vieux griot Kouyaté chante un extrait de l'épopée mandingue. L'un de ses petits-fils le seconde et l'encourage par ses exclamations : Na ! Namu ! A leurs côtés se tiennent un autre joueur de balafon, plus petit et plus aigu, un joueur de tambour d'aisselle (taman) frappé avec une baguette un forme de marteau, et un petit groupe de femmes qui fournissent, le temps des refrains, un écho pathétique au chant.

Au lendemain de la démonstration nocturne du grand sosso-bala, sur une place publique dominée par un immense fromager, nous retrouvons le vieux griot Kouyaté en compagnie de quatre autres joueurs de balafon. Chacun des cinq instruments est muni de dix-sept lames. C'est la fête, tout le monde y participe, y compris les plus petits enfants du village. Le griot entonne un extrait de l'épopée, auquel l'assistance féminine répondra par des refrains insistants. Ensuite, les griottes de la famille Kouyaté viendront, l'une après l'autre, le relayer pour la suit du récit. Il s'agin d'une série d'allusions et de réflexions philosophiques sur la vie et la mort, la richesse et la pauvreté, la peur et le courage, qui sont ponctuées par des appels aux grands hommes disparus.

"J'appelle tous les grands du Mandé !
Fakoli Daba (Fakoli-La-Grande-Bouche).
Fakoli Kumba (Fakoli-La-Grosse-Tête),
Je te salue !
Il n'y a rien que tu ne puisses dire.
Le Mandé peut bouillir,
Il peut être ravagé par les guerres,
Mais rien ne peut l'anéantir.
Le Mandé reste toujours égal à lui-même.".

p. 142-3

When Sunjata's jeli, Bala Faseke (or Balla Fassali) Kouyate, gained entry into Sumanguru Kante's secret chamber, he began playing the bala. Sumanguru, who was out in the bush, was reputed to be able to hear his bala anywhere he was, and he magically appeared in his chamber ready to kill whoever was playing it. Bala Faseke Kouyate immediately began singing Sumanguru's praises and won him over. Sumanguru is said to have cut Bala Faseke's Achilles tendons to ensure that he would remain his jeli.

p. 143

Bala Faseke Kouyate had three sons: Missa, Massa Magan, and Batru Mori (S.J. Kouyate 1990-per; L. Camara 1980:207; Fa-Digi Sisoko, in Johnson 1986:151; Sidiki Diabate 1988-disc; Dembo Kanute, in Innes 1974:281). When Sumanguru was defeated by Sunjata his bala is believed to have been passed on to Bala Faseke Kouyate and then passed down to his son Missa (S.J. Kouyate 1990-per; L. Camara 1980:207). That bala, known as the Sosso bala, has remained in the hands of the descendants of Missa Kouyate and at present is guarded by the Kouyates in Niagassola, Guinea.

p. 144-5

When the balatigui passed away in the mid-1970s there was a question whether [the bala guarded in Niagassola] should be moved to the next eldest in line, who was living in a village across the border in Mali. A major Kouyate family summit was held, and for various reasons, one being the recognition of its status as a national treasure, the bala remained in Guinea. In 1999 Sekou Kouyate succeeded the late Fadjimba Kouyate as balatigui in a major festival supported by the Guinean government. . . . A genealogy of the Kouyate family in Niagassola may provide a rare example of oral and written history converging. My host in Niagassola, Jemori Kouyate (son of Salikene), who was in his middle thirties at the time, recited a genealogy starting from Sunjata's jeli, Bala Faseke Kouyate, who lived in the early thirteenth century, and going about twelve generations up to the present day, detailing the movement of the ancestral bala from village to village.⁷⁷ Out of all of the ancestors named, only the second, third, and fourth generation aftere Bala Faseke Kouyate had Doka (Duwa in another dialect) as part of their names. Any of these descendants named Doka could have been alive when Ibn Battūta visited the royal court of Mali in the mid-fourteenth century. The person who acted as Ibn Battūta's interpreter, and was also the intermediary between those who wanted to speak to the king and the king himself, was named Dūghā, a dialect variation of Doka. What is all the more compelling is that Dūghā is the one who played the bala for the king. Of interest for future inquiry is the relative lack of Muslim first names in the Niagassola Kouyate genealogy.

77. Since there are several people named Jemori Kouyate in the Kouyate Niagassola compound, they may be distinguished by prefixing each name with the mother's given name, in this case, Salikene. I am exercising discretion here by not publishing a full Kouyate genealogy. A genealogy collected a few years later by anthropologist Clemens Zobel (personal communication 1998) from the same Jemori Kouyate yielded only very minor differences. Niagassola Kouyates refer to their lineage as Dokala, as in Niagassola native Kaniba Oule Kouyate's (1994-disc) song, Adama Diarra in which she sings, "I, a jeli, come from Dokala, the guardians of the Sosso bala" ("Ne jeli bora Sosso bala tigilu ro Dokala").

p. 295

56. Several members of the Kouyate family of Niagassola, guardians of the old Sosso bala (see chapter 3), including "Salikene" Jemori Kouyate and his uncle Namankoumba Kouyate, are accomplished on both the bala and the guitar. Jemori Kouyate can be seen playing guitar on Sayon Kane Diabate (n.d.-vid).

pp. 2-3

One branch of the Kouyaté family,² the original jeli family among the Mande, was faced with two choices: either to sing for their suppers by providing their services to the highest bidder, regardless of traditional prescriptions governing both inter-caste and inter-familial relationships, or to maintain musical and cultural traditions, even if it meant resorting to farming for subsistence. The Dökala Kouyatés chose to remain in the Mande heartland area, near the border of the present-day countries of Guinea and Mali.³ In this remote area, they have preserved the Sosso⁴ Bala, the single instrument from which all Mande balafons originate, since the thirteenth century CE. As a strategy to preserve the continuity of Mande musical culture and demonstrate its importance to an international audience, the Dökala Kouyatés have, with the assistance of the Guinean government, created a biannual international festival that celebrates the significance of the cultural space of the Sosso Bala, which has been recognized by UNESCO as a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."⁵

When Guinea gained its independence from France, one of the first priorities of Sekou Toure, Guinea’s first president, was to use the traditional arts of Guinea to help create a national identity.⁶ Sekou Toure, along with the Dökala Kouyatés, established Niagassola as the home of the Sosso Bala.⁷

2. I am referring to the Dökala branch of the Kouyaté family. The term Dökala refers to Döka Mamu, the virtuous and talented grandson of Balafaséké Kouyaté. Döka Mamu was the son of Musa (Missa in Charry 2000: 143), who inherited the Sosso Bala from his father, Balafaséké, the jeli of Sunjata Keita, thirteenth-century founder of the Empire of Mali. Musa passed the Sosso Bala on to his son, Döka Mamu, and the family took its name from him because he was renowned both for his virtuosity on the balafon and his integrity in preserving the Mande griot tradition.
3. Information about the Dökala branch of the Kouyaté family and their efforts to preserve the Sosso Bala come from Charry (2000, 142-144) and personal conversations and interviews with Namankoumba Kouyaté, a retired history professor at the Université Gamal Abdel Nasser de Conakry in Guinea, a Mande griot, and third in line to replace his elder brother as Balatigui—both the caretaker of and only person allowed to play the Sosso Bala (11 & 13 April 2004, in Professor Kouyaté's home in Conakry, Guinea).
4. . . . Sosso is the spelling used in Namankoumba Kouyaté’s "Échos d’une Veillee Culturelle," the brochure for the second biannual Sosso Bala Festival in Niagassola, Guinea, May 30 – June 1, 2001.
5. UNESCOPRESSE du 21 Mai 2001, communiqué Nº2001-71.

pp. 23-4

All current Mande balafons are alleged to be traceable to a single instrument, the Sosso Bala.¹ One of my primary sources on the history of the Mande balafon and the instrument's role in the transmission and preservation of Mande culture is Namankoumba Kouyaté,² who is a retired history professor at the Université Gamal Abdel Nasser de Conakry in Guinea as well as a Mande griot. He is also third in line to replace his elder brother as Balatigu—both the caretaker of and only person allowed to play the Sosso Bala. According to Namankoumba Kouyaté, the original instrument has been preserved by the Dökala³ branch of the Kouyaté family since Sunjata Keita, founder and first ruler of the Mande Empire of Mali, gave the instrument to his griot, Balafaséké Kouyaté, who is the ancestor of the Dökala Kouyatés, in 1236 CE.⁴

2. Most of the information I present in this chapter on the role of the Kouyaté family in the preservation of the Sosso Bala and the Mande griot tradition comes from personal interviews and visits with Namankoumba Kouyaté at his home in Conakry, Guinea, on 11 & 13 April 2004. See Charry (2000, 143-145) for similar information regarding the guardianship of the Sosso Bala by the Kouyaté family.
3. See note 2, page 2 above.
4. While this date is not universally accepted, it is the one given to me by Professor Kouyaté during our conversations in April 2004.