The Many Ways of Being Human

1.9

Mali and the Mande

In a courtyard on the Niger, a man with a kora names a guest's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, back to the century of Europe's cathedrals, and the guest walks forward and pays more than he can spare. The Mande entrusted memory to a hereditary group, the griots, because what they wanted to keep was an order of people, not a list of events.