1.6 Learning Traditions

Trading cities in the West African empires were also centers of learning. The most famous was Timbuktu, near the Niger River, which became part of the Mali Empire in the 1300s. Gold and trade paid for mosques, schools and libraries, and scholars came from across West and North Africa.

Timbuktu had a thriving book trade, a university centered on its mosques, such as Sankore, and a community of scholars that included astronomers, mathematicians, architects and jurists (experts in law). Writers produced manuscripts on religion, law, medicine, astronomy, mathematics and history, mostly in Arabic, and sometimes in African languages written in Arabic script.

Many of these manuscripts survive in family libraries. In 2012 and 2013, when armed groups occupied Timbuktu, librarians and families smuggled hundreds of thousands of them to safety.

Griots were respected historians, storytellers and musicians. Among Mande speakers they're called jeli. They kept a community's history, genealogy, traditions and values, and passed them on through speech and song. Griots often advised rulers and recited the history of royal families at important events.

Many griots play instruments such as the kora (a harp-like instrument with many strings) or the balafon (a wooden xylophone). The role often passes down within griot families from one generation to the next.

Gender mattered in the griot tradition. Both women and men were griots, and women griots were especially known as singers. Griots kept track of a community's births, deaths and marriages, which made them keepers of family history as well as of kings' deeds.

The most famous griot story is the Epic of Sundiata (or Sunjata), the 'lion prince'. It tells how Sundiata Keita, who couldn't walk as a child, grew strong, went into exile and returned to defeat a powerful rival king around 1235, founding the Mali Empire. Mansa Musa, who ruled about a century later, came from Sundiata's extended royal family.

Mande griots have performed this epic for centuries, and it's still celebrated in Mali today. A griot's performance mixes narration, praise and music, so it teaches history, values and identity all at once.

Enslaved Africans couldn't bring books, but they brought oral traditions. Storytelling, call-and-response singing and the role of the respected storyteller carried into African American culture, from spirituals and folktales to the spoken-word poets and rappers who are sometimes called modern griots (4.17).