African Sources for African History – serie

In the late 1920s the Gold Coast businessman Charles Francis Hutchison published the first volume of his book titled The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities. The book contains 162 biographical sketches of Ghanaians that were important in business, in society and the church, in government, and in (nationalist) politics, both from Hutchison’s own time and from the nineteenth century. The text of the biographies is in blank verse, and portrait photographs accompany most sketches. Additional photographs of houses and special events, and added biographical information in the form of lists of famous deceased people complete the book.The Pen-Pictures is a well-known source for the history of the Gold Coast, modern Ghana, cited and quoted by both professional historians and interested lay-people. In effect, The Pen-Pictures is an important socio-historical document. The format, the style of presentation, the intimacy of many of the life histories, the overview offered of non-European Gold Coast society in the 1920s, they all allow for multiple analyses by historians, sociologists, social anthropologists and scholars of language and literature.This annotated edition is the first reprint of the book and offers a lively and both historically and literarily interesting text about an important phase in Ghanaian history. The added introduction and annotation offer a context hitherto unavailable to the scholar and general reader.

Ce tome présente le Ta:rikh Mandinka, un manuscrit rédigé en Arabe et en Mandinka, originaire du village de Bijini en Guinée-Bissau. Inédit jusqu’à présent, le manuscrit consiste en une compilation structurée et très originale sur le Kaabu, réunissant divers récits et chroniques focalisant les débuts mythiques et la chute de cet « empire » païen au milieu du 19ième siècle.Deux versions du manuscrit et plusieurs interprétations (lectures) du Ta:rikh sont reproduites, transcrites, traduites et analysées en tenant compte de questions philologiques, historiques et anthropologiques. L'analyse regarde la communauté cléricale de Bijini en tant que lieu de transmission de savoirs dans un contexte local et régional.Le point focal du livre est l’importance de la diaspora cléricale des Mandinka et Jaakanka (Jakhanké) dans le processus de la construction de l’histoire de l’ « empire » sòoninkee du Kaabu en Sénégambie. Le tome contient un glossaire des noms et des termes mentionnés par les sources, des illustrations, des tableaux, des cartes et des photographies. This volume presents a hitherto unpublished manuscript written in Arabic and Mandinka from the muslim village of Bijini in Guinea-Bissau, the Ta:rikh Mandinka, a unique and structured compilation unfolding the pagan "empire" of Kaabu from it's mythical beginnings to it's downfall in the nineteenth-century. Two existing manuscript versions and several oral interpretations of the Ta:rikh are reproduced, transcribed, translated, compared and analysed considering philological, historical and social-anthropological issues (chaps. 1-3). The fourth chapter deals with the clerical community of Bijini as a place of knowledge-transfer in it's local setting and within regional networks. The focus of the book is on the importance of the Mandinka and Jakhanka clerical diaspora in the making of the history of the Sooninkee "empire" of Kaabu in Senegambia. The volume contains a glossary of names and terms mentioned in the sources and is illustrated with maps, photographs and drawings.

Henry Muoria (1914-97), self-taught journalist and pamphleteer, helped to inspire Kenya's nationalisms before Mau Mau. The pamphlets reproduced here, in Gikuyu and English, contrast his own originality with the conservatism of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first President. The contributing editors introduce Muoria's political context, tell how three remarkable women sustained his families' life; and remember him as father. Courageous intellectual, political, and domestic life here intertwine.

First appearing as a series of letters to a local newspaper, “The Life Story of Me, Segilola” caused a sensation in Lagos in the late 1920s. The lifelike autobiography of a repentant courtesan, it regaled the reader with risqué escapades, pious moralising and vivid evocations of urban popular culture. The narrative and the commentary that sprang up around it in the Yoruba press offer a unique view of life in colonial Lagos. Today it is recognised as I.B.Thomas's work and hailed as the first Yoruba novel in a major African literary tradition. This volume presents the edited Yoruba text with translation, selected newspaper correspondence, and an introductory essay showing how the text emerged from the Yoruba print culture of the time.Print Culture and the First Yoruba Novel has won the Paul Hair Prize 2013!

Edition d'un récit en mandinka par Maalaŋ Galisa (octobre 1988) sur la constitution et les conditions de vie au Kaabu, territoire situé entre la Gambie, le Sénégal et la Guinée-Bissau, connu depuis le 16e siècle et détruit vers 1867. La gamme des sujets couvre: le peuplement, le gouvernement, les codes de conduite des guerriers, religieux, esclaves et 'hôtes étrangers', les règles de l'esclavage, du mariage et de la succession, la coexistence des religions, les relations entre groupes d'âge et de genre.Le texte diffère d'autres qui se focalisent sur un unique fondateur-patriarche, Tiramakan de l'épopée de Sunjata. Galisa parle du sud-est du Kaabu, à la frontière avec la Guinée. Il ajoute des couleurs locales au modèle mandinka, évoquant la puissance féminine et certains conflits violents.Edition of a recital in Mandinka by Maalaŋ Galisa (October 1988) on the political constitution and living conditions in Kaabu, a territory situated between present Gambia, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, known since the 16th century, definitely destroyed in 1867. The narrative presents a range of topics covering governance, codes of conduct of warriors, clerics, slaves and 'strangers', rules of slavery, marriage and succession, the cohabitation of different religions, relations of age and gender.This text is distinctive from others focussing on a single founder-patriarch, Tiramakan of the Epic of Sunjata. Galisa focuses on South-eastern Kaabu, bordering on the region of Labé (Guinea). He adds local colours to the Mandinka model, depicting powerful women and violent conflicts resulting from injustice.

The Epic of Sumanguru Kante contains the Bamana text and English translation of griot Abdoulaye Sako’s oral narrative of the life of Sumanguru, recorded in 1997 in Koulikoro (Mali), together with explanatory notes, a scholarly introduction, and sections on the Bamana language and musical accompaniment. Sumanguru is a familiar figure within Manding epic oral traditions about ancient Mali. But while these narratives generally focus on Sunjata Keita, Sako’s oral poem is rare in according Sumanguru the central role. In so doing he includes hitherto undocumented episodes relating to Sumanguru’s life and role as the ruler of Soso, the little known state said to have flourished in the western Sudan between the fall of ancient Ghana and rise of ancient Mali.

This book presents fifty-one didactic and devotional Sufi poems (with English translations) composed by the ulama of Brava, on Somalia’s Benadir coast, in Chimiini, a Bantu language related to Swahili and unique to the town. Because the six ulama-poets, among whom two women, guided local believers towards correct beliefs and behaviours in reference to specific authoritative religious texts, the poems allow insight into their authors’ religious education, affiliations, in which the Qādiriyyah and Aḥmadiyyah took pride of place, and regional connections. Because the poems refer to local people, places, events, and livelihoods, they also bring into view the uniquely local dimension of Islam in this small East African port city in this time-period.

Essai d’histoire locale fut écrit par un acteur-clé de l’historiographie de l’Afrique de l’Ouest pourtant encore méconnu: Djiguiba Camara. Rédigé en 1955, ce texte est centré sur l’histoire de la Haute Guinée, avec une attention particulière portée sur l’empire de Samori Touré et la résistance anticoloniale.Ce texte, Essai d’histoire locale, illustre la fabrique de l’histoire locale par un intermédiaire colonial guinéen et un intellectuel, à partir du point de vue spécifique de la famille Camara, qui fut engagée dans les armées de Samori. Ce texte n’a été connu que parce qu’il est devenu l’une des sources majeures de l’historien français Yves Person pour sa monumentale thèse Samori, Une Révolution Dyula (1968-1975). Avec l'édition annotée de cette source primaire, Essai d’histoire locale de Djiguiba Camara devient enfin accessible à un lectorat plus vaste. Elara Bertho et Marie Rodet ont démontré grâce à cette publication que Essai d’histoire locale est une source essentielle pour la compréhension de l’histoire de la Guinée et de la fabrique de l’historiographie en générale, et du travail d’Yves Person en particulier.Although a key figure in West African historiography, Djiguiba Camara has remained almost completely unknown. Completed in 1955, Essay on Local History focuses on the history of Upper Guinea with an emphasis on the Empire of Samori Touré and anticolonial resistance.Everywhere in Essay on Local History we can see not only the highly developed craft of the local historical writing of a Guinean colonial intermediary and scholar, but the view he gave is from the particular perspective of the Camara family, who had served in Samori’s armies.Djiguiba Camara’s own work had been known only by reputation as a source for the monumental thee-volume Samori – Une Révolution Dyula (1968-1975) by the French historian Yves Person. Now however, in this fully annotated text edition, Djiguiba Camara’s Essay on Local History becomes available to a wider audience for the first time. Elara Bertho and Marie Rodet have demonstrated through this publication that Essay on Local History is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand both the history of Guinea and the making of historiography in general, but also Yves Person’s modus operandi.

Ce volume présente un récit oral par le griot célébré Djèmory Kouyaté de Nyagassola (actuelle Guinée). Il traite de la façon dont on se souvient de l'époque qui relie la fondation de la société mandingue par Soundiata jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Les récits oraux sur cette époque sont rares car ils exigent du narrateur une compréhension avancée de l'histoire régionale et des relations entre les lignées dirigeantes concurrentes. Le griot célébré, Djèmory Kouyaté (décédé en 2019), a réalisé ce récit à Naréna (Mali actuel), offrant ainsi un aperçu unique des stratégies de narration et des compétences diplomatiques des griots, car le récit de Djèmory peut être comparé à certains de ses enregistrements antérieurs réalisés à Nyagassola, une ville gouvernée par une lignée rivale des Bandjougousi de Naréna. L’Histoire des Bandjougousi est donc une source importante d’historiographie ouest-africaine.This volume features an oral account by the acclaimed griot Djèmory Kouyaté from Nyagassola (present-day Guinée). It deals with the way the era that bridges the foundation of their society by Sunjata to their present-day society, called Manding, is remembered. Oral accounts on this era are rare as they demand from the narrator an advanced understanding of regional history and the relationships between competing ruling lineages.The acclaimed griot Djèmory Kouyaté (d. 2019) performed this account in Naréna (present-day Mali), thus offering a unique insight into griots’ storytelling strategies and diplomatic skills, because Djèmory’s account can be compared with earlier recordings of him made in Nyagassola, a town ruled by a rival lineage to the Bandjougousi from Naréna. L’Histoire des Bandjougousi is therefore an important source for West African historiography.

Though the Dogon are well-described, their culture still holds surprises. One of these is the cycle of songs called baja ni, which is at the heart of their funerary rites. These songs are attributed to a historic author, a blind poet/prophet who roamed the area in the nineteenth century and left a huge heritage of songs and prophecies. This book gives the full text of one performance of this legacy. The lyrics cover a range of topics, from comments on historical events to philosophical musings about life and death, and from remembering the departed to celebrating the joys of being alive.