Bamana: Visions of Africa
by Jean-Paul Colleyn
from 5 Continents
The Healing Drum: African Wisdom Teachings
by Yaya Diallo
from Destiny Books
The Healing Drum traces the extraordinary cultural legacy of the Minianka tribe of West Africa, for whom music serves a sacred, healing function for the individual and society. The authors explore the Minianka view of humanity, music, and the cosmos relative to work, celebration, herbal medicine, dance, trance, initiation, and death.
The first book of its kind, delivering a message of untapped wisdom and power from a little-known culture through the universal medium of music.
The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold
by Frank T. Kryza
from Ecco
Timbuktu: The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold
by Marq de Villiers
from Walker & Company
Founded in the early 1100s by Tuareg nomads who called their camp “Tin Buktu,” it became, within two centuries, a wealthy metropolis and a nexus of the trans-Saharan trade. Salt from the deep Sahara, gold from Ghana, and money from slave markets made it rich. In part because of its wealth, Timbuktu also became a center of Islamic learning and religion, boasting impressive schools and libraries that attracted scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, Mecca, and Marrakech. The arts flourished, and Timbuktu gained near-mythic stature around the world, capturing the imagination of outsiders and ultimately attracting the attention of hostile sovereigns who sacked the city three times and plundered it half a dozen more. The ancient city was invaded by a Moroccan army in 1600, which began its long decline; since then it has been seized by Tuareg nomads and a variety of jihadists, in addition to enduring a terrible earthquake, several epidemics, and numerous famines. Perhaps no other city in the world has been as golden—and as deeply tarnished—as Timbuktu.
Using sources dating deep into Timbuktu’s fabled past, alongside interviews with Tuareg nomads and city residents and officials today, de Villiers and Hirtle have produced a spectacular portrait that brings the city back to life.
Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Politics, History, and Culture)
by Gregory Mann
from Duke University Press
For much of the twentieth century, France recruited colonial subjects from sub-Saharan Africa to serve in its military, sending West African soldiers to fight its battles in Europe, Southeast Asia, and North Africa. In this exemplary contribution to the “new imperial history,” Gregory Mann argues that this shared military experience between France and Africa was fundamental not only to their colonial relationship but also to the reconfiguration of that relationship in the postcolonial era. Mann explains that in the early twenty-first century, among Africans in France and Africa, and particularly in Mali—where Mann conducted his research—the belief that France has not adequately recognized and compensated the African veterans of its wars is widely held and frequently invoked. It continues to animate the political relationship between France and Africa, especially debates about African immigration to France.
Focusing on the period between World War I and 1968, Mann draws on archival research and extensive interviews with surviving Malian veterans of French wars to explore the experiences of the African soldiers. He describes the effects their long absences and infrequent homecomings had on these men and their communities, he considers the veterans’ status within contemporary Malian society, and he examines their efforts to claim recognition and pensions from France. Mann contends that Mali is as much a postslavery society as it is a postcolonial one, and that specific ideas about reciprocity, mutual obligation, and uneven exchange that had developed during the era of slavery remain influential today, informing Malians’ conviction that France owes them a “blood debt” for the military service of African soldiers in French wars.
The Narrative of Robert Adams, A Barbary Captive: A Critical Edition
by Robert Adams
from Cambridge University Press
Originally published in London in 1816, The Narrative of Robert Adams is an account of the adventures of an African American seaman who survives shipwreck, slavery, and brutal efforts to convert him to Islam, before being ransomed to the British consul. Robert Adams's story is accompanied by contemporary essays and notes ranking his experience in the context of African exploration at the time. The book's introduction examines Adams's contemporary credibility in relation to literary genres of the slave narrative and the Barbary Captivity narrative.
First published in London in 1816, The Narrative of Robert Adams is the story of the adventures of Robert Adams, an African American seaman who survives shipwreck, slavery, and brutal efforts to convert him to Islam, before being ransomed to the British consul. Adams's story is accompanied by contemporary essays which place it in the context of 19th century European exploration. It is preceded by an introduction by Professor Charles Adams which examines Adams's credibility in light of modern knowledge of Africa and discusses the story's literary and historical significance.
In Griot Time Pb
by Banning Eyre
from Temple University Press
"Djelimady Toundara has powerful hands. His muscled fingers and palms seem almost brutish to the eye, but when he grasps the neck of a guitar and brushes the nail of his right index finger across the strings, the sound lifts effortlessly, like dust in a wind. In Bamako, Mali, where musicians struggle, Djelimady is a big man, and all of his family's good fortunes flow from those hands."
Djelimady Tounkara is only one of the memorable people you will meet in this dramatic narrative of life among the griot musicians of Mali. Born into families where music and the tradition of griot stroy-telling is a heritage and a privilege, Djelimady and his fellow griots—both men and women—live their lives at the intersection of ancient traditions and the modern entertainment industry. During the seven months he spent living and studying with Djelimady, Banning Eyre immersed himself in a world that will fascinate you as it did him.
Eyre creates a range of unforgettable portraits. Some of the people who stride through his pages are internationally known, musicians like Salif Keita, Oumou Sangaré, and Grammy winner Ali Farka Touré. But the lesser-known characters are equally fascinating: Adama Kouyaté, Djelimady's dynamic wife; Moussa Kouyaté, the Tounkara family's own griot; Yayi Kanouté, the flamboyant jelimuso (female griot) who failed to take America by storm; Foutanga Babani Sissoko, the mysterious millionaire who rebuilt an entire town and whose patronage is much sought after by the griots of Bamako.
But the picture Eyre draws is not just a series of portraits. Out of their interactions comes a perceptive panorama of life in Mali in the late twentieth centruy. The narrative gives us a street-level view of the transformation of musical taste and social customs, the impact of technology, and the pressures of poverty, at a curcial time in Mali's history. In individual after individual, family after family, we see the subtle conflicts of heritage and change. Even the complications of democracy—with democracy, mango vendors think they can charge anything they want, Djelimady points out—are woven into an unforgettable saga of one man, his family, his profession, and the world of Malian music.
The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery, and the Search for Timbuktu
by Anthony Sattin
from St. Martin's Press
These men, a mixed group of soldiers and gentlemen, ex-convicts, and social outcasts, form the African Association, the world's first geographical society, and over several decades send hardened, grizzled adventurers to replace speculation with facts and remove the beasts from the maps. The explorers who ventured forth included Mungo Park, whose account of his travels would be a bestseller for more than a century; American John Ledyard; and Jean Louis Burckhardt, the discoverer of Petra and Abu Simbel. Their exploits would include grueling crossings of the Sahara, the exploration of the Nile, and---most dramatically---the search for the great River Niger and its legendary city of gold: Timbuktu.
Anthony Sattin weaves the plotting of the London gentlemen and the experiences of their extraordinary explorers into a gripping account of high adventure, international intrigue, and geographical discovery. The Gates of Africa is a story of human courage and fatal ambition, a groundbreaking insight into the struggle to reveal the secrets of Africa.
Islam and the Prayer Economy: History and Authority in a Malian Town
by Benjamin F. Soares
from University of Michigan Press
Drawing on extensive ethnography, archival research, and written sources, he provides a richly detailed discussion of Muslim religious practice—Sufism, Islamic reform, and other contemporary ways of being Muslim in western Mali and more broadly in the country.
This book provides a major contribution to the study of Islam in Africa and will be welcomed by scholars and students in history, religion, and the social sciences, particularly those interested in anthropology, Islam, colonialism and the public sphere.
Dogon: Africa's People of the Cliffs
by Walter E.A. Vanbeek
from Harry N. Abrams
In a remote area of Mali, West Africa, the people called Dogon survive today as they have for thousands of years: in mud-brick houses below the Bandiagara cliffs. In the sandy plains, they grow the millet and sorghum they need to live. This arresting photographic portrait allows us privileged access to their traditional way of life, remarkably maintained today even after extensive contact with Western civilization.
Stephenie Hollyman's intimate pictures show a tightly knit, cooperative society engaging in daily activities and sacred rituals: planting and harvesting crops, creating crafts, and performing varied religious ceremonies, most notably the masked dances with which the Dogon celebrate the honored burial of their dead. Walter van Beek's engaging narrative displays the authority and observant eye of an anthropologist who has long lived among the people he writes about. This astonishing volume will find a rapt audience among readers of Abrams' acclaimed African Ceremonies and other popular books on vanishing African tribal customs.
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