Expeditions

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Siguiri and El Hadj Kabiné Kouyaté

Acting as a pivot around which the circle spins, Siguiri lies right in the centre of the Mande region within the boundaries of Guinée-Conakry. Siguiri is situated approximately 200km from Bamako, the capital of Mali. Siguiri was the last residence of the griot El Hadj Kabiné Kouyaté. Just like his eldest son today, he was given the title of Konkoba when living.

The precise moment on which Kabiné settled in this little town is unknown. The story goes that he fled from Diomabanna for political reasons. After a day’s march he arrived in Siguiri and based on his status of griot he was offered a piece of land. A Malinké proverb says: when you have marched all day, the place you arrive at in the evening is your place to live.
In this place he built a compound and settled with his entire family, his six wives and their children.

Some of his descendants now live in this compound. Other members of his family live scattered in Conakry and in Washington, Paris, Brussels and Bamako.
Typical for this compound is the presence of extremes: both the youngest and the eldest son of the founder are actively present. They personalise tradition and modernity at the same time. Whereas the eldest, Kaourori, represents tradition and, on account of his title is, among other things, responsible for passing on knowledge, the modern world blends with tradition in the person of the youngest offspring, such as Mamoudou for instance who plays the guitar. Within the framework of this project these three persons are very important: with permission of the present Konkoba and with the help of the youngest son Mamoudou, efforts are made for retelling the life of the deceased griot, based on first hand stories from family and friends. This is one aspect of saving and stimulating the use of the family heritage, namely the Konkoba mask and the songs and music kept safe by the griots.

Griot

During the pre-colonial period, the social structure of the Mande was evident. An outline of this structure may be found in the Soundiata epic. This epic relates the history of the Mande and is accepted within the Mande region as a point of reference concerning the origin of a family, the name of this family, its status, and the mutual relations between different families. For the Kouyaté family, this epic is of invaluable importance to justify their status. In this epic it is told that they were the first griots, and being heirs to Balla Fassèkè Kouyaté, who was the balaphone player of Soundiata, they may claim the balaphone as their instrument. This family is also named Konkobala. Another branch of the Kouyaté, the Dokala who are the heirs of Jakoma Doka, keep watch over the very first balaphone, the Soso-Bala-Ba which is kept in Nyagassola, approximately 200km north of Siguiri. This site was appointed as UNESCO world heritage. Via the Sundiata epic both families are related. Every two years a balaphone festival takes place. The next one in april 2007.

Due to the colonisation, the whole social structure was profoundly shaken up and the status of griot became precarious. Originally, a griot was connected to a family. In Kouyaté’s case this was the Keita family. A griot was at the service of this family as verbal artist and as a musician. It was his duty to praise his patron, to repeat the family histories and to add new events, to embellish festivities. The family to which he was connected had the status of horon, a free man, and had a political role. This political role disappeared the moment the French arrived. Hence the griot lost his function and together with it a major source of income.

Within the circle

In July and August 2004 I stayed a few weeks in the compound of the Kouyaté family in Siguiri. I had made acquaintance the previous year and had started to study the balaphone. This time I was lucky to be together with the family all the time. Just like the elderly said: this is the only way to thoroughly learn something because we are kept busy with you all the time. In this manner they determined what they wanted to pass on to me as well.

The project Konkoba took shape in this context, through learning the music as well as the stories that go with them. With the music acting as the pivot, a circle came into existence – or rather a web – unravelling information about the family, its social structure, its present and past.

Konkoba

The word Konkoba can be interpreted in different ways, all depending on the point of view.
For the griot it is an indication of status, as Konkoba is a griot with an enormous amount of knowledge and skill. The oldest man in the compound in Siguiri has inherited this title, although a griot holding this title was always given a sign somewhere. His knowledge must be enormous, just like his responsibilities such as passing on this knowledge. This appears to be a delicate matter, because the youngsters and the elderly have different opinions about it. The heritage doesn’t seem so important today for these youngsters, they deal with music in a totally different way than their parents and relatives. In the life story of El Hadj Kabiné Kouyaté, a corner of the veil is lifted concerning the acquisition of this title.
For this family, the Konkoba also refers to the family mask which is kept in the house of the person being Konkoba. The mask is part of the musical heritage of the family. Together with the mask, this musical heritage is very important as well. Just before I left the compound in august 2005 this mask came out during a performance.


For the balaphoneplayer, Konkoba refers to a melody which can be played at any time, but still belongs to the mask when played in its true context. Additionally, this melody is played when the griottes (the wives and daughters of the griots) perform dances and play their dabo (flat bells struck together rhythmically).

A final meaning of konkoba is the rhythm as played during the harvest. Konkoba refers to a “large (=ba) field (= konko)”. In this context it is performed on djembes and dumdums. It is one of those rhythms difficult to master for Western musicians.

The family story

Histories are omnipresent in Siguiri. After all, this is a central griot area, the place of the verbal artists. During one of the many conversations with Mamoudou about the present, past and future of the family, the idea arose to search for the stories with regard to the founder of the compound El Hadj Kabiné Kouyaté. In many ways this man appears to have been very remarkable. He had many friends, some of them still alive. One of his wives, who is still living, and a few relatives among the present Konkoba, took great interest.

In 2004 Mamoudou and I interviewed some persons in spoken Malinké. These interviews were translated into French by Mamoudou, sometimes with help of the elderly. It is very interesting to go through these interviews and notice that most of these relate the acquisition of his women and his wealth, his personal resistance against the French colonials, his music and his wit playing an important role, and the mythical search for the title of Konkoba. The personal testimonies of his courage and integrity are very prominent, too.

The periods of his live encompass different historical eras. Probably, he was born round the turn of the century, and he died with certainty in 1986. Thus he lived during the time of the colonisation, the period of independence under Sekou Touré and during the time when president Lansana Conté took over the leadership in 1984. Those were times when griots and their music went through enormous changes, which undoubtedly have influenced the present situation. Family and friends of Kabiné Kouyaté speak of him in mythical terms; he truly is becoming a genuine family hero.

For the elderly, those stories are nostalgic: Kabiné was a great man – literally he appears to have been nearly two meters long – but in the other sense as well: living was good at that time in the compound. In contrast to the present, a griot still possessed some of his old glorious status, music was still a way of living, the instruments were well looked after, youngsters were taught in a traditional manner, the compound was a very busy place. Today all this has declined, music is only heard occasionally and the youngsters are much more interested in secondary sources such as modern pop versions of there cultural heritage broadcasted on the local radio station. Some are active as DJ, others have chosen a different job as taxi driver between Siguiri and Conakry, or barkeeper at the Gare de Routière.
Some of Kabiné Kouyaté’s sons are now cooperating on setting up a structure to at least save the family cultural heritage, but they would prefer to revive its past.
On August the 5th 2005, the first step has been taken in that direction: I proposed to organise a small contest for the balaphone players. This event evolved into a real mini-festival in which everyone participated: young and old, griots and griottes. Radio Siguiri and Radio Trottoir spread the rumour and this feast became a cultural event, chronicled in the records of Siguiri.

Project Konkoba El Hadj Kabiné Kouyaté

The stories about feu Konkoba are conceived as an entity, ready for publication. This is a wish that was explicitly put forward by the family, concerning the whole social story: the context, the music, the griot and other persons connected to the music, the connection with the compound and the family, rituals, gatherings, social relations, objects and meanings that can throw light upon the whole structure which feu Konkoba has organised and left within the changing Mande sociology. Studying this sociology opens perspectives in the search for meanings of the present relations and modern opinions of the younger generation, the way they function on a micro-level with the family but also on a local level, the social and economic life in which the family is embedded. Even a global level is present through the dispersion of some brothers around the world.

Music remains a constant element in the compound, whatever form it assumes; it is a link which enables them to settle all differences. As a temporary passer-by I witnessed the fiercest disputes about their music, but at other moments I discovered that the most ardent disagreements were disposed of in no time, for instance in the case of the performance of the family mask.

The Life story of feu Konkoba is inevitably connected to the mask and to the balaphone music. The story illustrates the search of a young man for his roots and explains his function: to acquire the title of Konkoba, to activate the family mask, and to maintain the positive social relations thanks to his charisma. The story can clarify the position of his family at present; it can elucidate the social tissue of an area and illustrate the power of cultural heritage, creating authenticity within modern society.

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Bibliography:

Adebayo Akanmu G, chapter 18: West Africa, in: The end of colonial rule: nationalism and decolonisation, CAP2002, pg. 339-360.

Camara Sory, Gens de la parole, Karthala, 1992.

Charry Eric, Mande music, Chicago Press London, 2000.

Davidson Basil, West Africa before the Colonial Era, Onhman, 1998.

Diawara Manthia, In search of Africa, Harvard University Press, 1998.

Diawara Mamadou, Le griot mande à l’heure de la globalisation, Cahiers d’Etudes africaines, 144, XXXVI-4, 1996, pp. 591-612

Jansen Jan, De draaiende put, Leiden, 1995.

Keita Chérif, Jaliya in The Modern World, in: Status and Identity in West-Africa, 1995.

Laget Rachel, ‘un griot qui meurt, c’est une bibliothèque qui brûle’ in : Kerozine, volume 2003, nr. 3, pp16-20.

Le sosso-bala-la, Le balafon sacré, edition of the Musée de Nyagassola, 1974.

Sunjata. Het beroemdste epos van Afrika, in : Bibliothecana Africana, Elmar, not dated.

Thiers-Thiam Valérie. A chacun son griot, L’Harmattan 2004.

Tonkin Elizabeth, Narrating our pasts, the social construction of oral history, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Van der Veen Roel, Afrika van de koude oorlog naar de 21ste eeuw, KIT Publishers Amsterdam, 2002

Personal field notes from 2003, 2004 and 2005.

Personal communication with Mamoudou Kouyaté (Siguiri), N’Faly Kouyaté (Brussels), Sérémady Condé (Siguiri)