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Storytelling traditions vary all over the world, yet have many things in common. This section is an attempt to gather information on customs of the oral tradition world-wide. Many people today are rediscovering the pleasures of telling stories, after their culture has lost most of its traditional storytelling, yet cannot easily find out much about the countless millennia of oral traditions with all their wisdom and techniques. I hope this site will help you discover and appreciate something of the central role which traditional storytelling has played in most cultures, and in some places still does.
Your help will be welcome if you know or come across any facts or resources to add, current or historical. To begin with I'll be adding bits and pieces as I can, mainly from the perspective of musical commentators. Later on we'll have overviews and this page will split into various areas - this is a big subject!
One thing to bear in mind is that in many old traditions storytelling is synonymous with song, chant, music, or epic poetry, especially in the bardic traditions. Stories may be chanted or sung, along with musical accompaniment on a certain instrument. Therefore some who would be called folk musicians by foreign music enthusiasts are just as accurately called storytellers - their true roles are more profound, as their names reflect: bards, ashiks, jyrau, griots amongst many more. Their roles in fact are often as much spiritual teachers and exemplars, or healers, for which the stories and music are vehicles, as well as historians and tradition-bearers. For instance bakhshi, the term for bard used in central Asia, means a shaman / healer who uses music as a conduit to the world of the Spirit. You can see photos of some of the above people in the Gallery and hear some of them on world music recordings. Also see the Musical Instruments for Storytelling page, for descriptions and discussion.
For genuine initiates of these bardic disciplines, they draw directly on the conscious creative power of the Divine and transmit it through the words they speak and sing. This is not the same as merely 'being creative' or 'feeling inspired', and involves considerable spiritual training. Different cultures and religions have different ways of describing this, though in general the practice is highly secret. For example, for the West African culture of the Manding, who call this power nyama,
“It controls nature, the stars and the motions of the sea. Nyama is truly the sculptor of the universe. While nyama molds nature into its many forms, the nyamakalaw (handlers of nyama) can shape nyama into art. The nyamakalaw spend their entire lives perfecting special secret skills that are passed down from generation to generation. The nyamakalaw are the only people in Mande that can use magic and are often skilled as sorcerers, blacksmiths, leather workers or bards.”
The World of the Mande: History, Art and Ritual in the Mande Culture, and Caste Systems in Mande Society, Anthropology/Africana Studies 269 and Anthropology/Africana Studies 267, Prof. Mandy Bastian (Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA) 1997-1999
But this section isn't only for the bardic traditions of storytelling - all other less formal traditions are part of the picture too, from hearthside informal telling or street tellers engaging passers-by, to traditional dramatic presentations, so if you can offer any details at all send them to me, Tim Sheppard.
Many traditions have spread across neighbouring countries because of old patterns of migration, empires, or religion, so this site is organised by geography. An alphabetical list of countries covered so far is also provided, but for the full picture do read the regional introduction on each page.
Africa
Asia and Middle East
Australasia and Oceania
Europe
North America
South and Central America
Albania
Armenia
Australia
Azerbaijan
Cambodia (Kampuchea)
China
Ethiopia
Finland
Gambia
Guinea
Herzegovina
Iceland
India
Iran
Japan
Jewish
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Ladakh
Laos
Mali
Mauritania
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
New Zealand
Romania
Sakha Republic (Yakutia)
Senegal
Serbia (Yugoslavia)
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania
Thailand
Tibet
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Transylvania
Uganda
Vietnam
“Traditionally, Africans have revered good stories and storytellers, as have most past and present peoples around the world who are rooted in oral cultures and traditions. Ancient writing traditions do exist on the African continent, but most Africans today, as in the past, are primarily oral peoples, and their art forms are oral rather than literary. In contrast to written "literature," African "orature" (to use Kenyan novelist and critic Ngugi wa Thiong’o's phrase) is orally composed and transmitted, and often created to be verbally and communally performed as an integral part of dance and music. The Oral Arts of Africa are rich and varied, developing with the beginnings of African cultures, and they remain living traditions that continue to evolve and flourish today.”
“Language is a primary means of learning and transmitting one’s culture, and it is used to help define and distinguish different ethnic groups and cultures. Consider the fact that more than 450 languages are spoken in modern Nigeria.”
“Secular tricksters like Tortoise often project the kinds of evil forces and bad behaviors against which the human community must contend to survive and which must be kept in check. This goal is rehearsed and achieved in communal performances of African proverbs and folktales, wherein the trickster’s bad anti-social behaviors are usually punished, and the evil forces unleashed are controlled or defeated. Thus, for example, recounting Tortoise stories in African communities can function to reaffirm the priority and wisdom of the community, reassure its members that balance and harmony can and should be restored, and that the community will survive and prevail.”
“Oral African storytelling is essentially a communal participatory experience. Everyone in most traditional African societies participate in formal and informal storytelling as interactive oral performance—such participation is an essential part of traditional African communal life, and basic training in a particular culture’s oral arts and skills is an essential part of children’s traditional indigenous education on their way to initiation into full humanness.”
“Call and response forms, found seemingly everywhere in Africa, entail a caller or soloist who "raises the song," as the Kpelle say, and the community chorus who respond, or "agree underneath the song" (Mutere, "African Oral Aesthetic"). In the case of the Igbo stories, the storyteller "calls" out the story in lines; the audience or chorus "responds" at regular intervals to the storyteller’s "calls" with a "sala" (the chorus’ response). The Igbo "sala" used in "Nnabe and Chineke" is "amanye," roughly equivalent to American English expressions of agreement like "amen" or "right on!" (Ihejetoh, qtd. in Jackson-Jones).
Traditional African societies have developed high aesthetic and ethical standards for participating in and judging accomplished oral storytelling performances—and audience members often feel free to interrupt less talented or respected secular performers to suggest improvements or voice criticisms.”
“In many of these cultures, storytelling arts are professionalized: the most accomplished storytellers are initiates (griots, or bards), who have mastered many complex verbal, musical, and memory skills after years of specialized training. This training often includes a strong spiritual and ethical dimension required to control the special forces believed to be released by the spoken/sung word in oral performances. These occult powers and primal energies of creation and destruction are called nyama by Mande peoples of Western Africa, for example [...]. This sense of special powers of the spoken word [...] has largely been lost in literate-based societies of the West...
Following a traditional griot performance of a spiritually-charged oral epic like Sundjiata, a Malian audience might ritualistically chant, "Ka nyama bo!" (which could be translated something like, "May the powers of nyama safely disperse!").”
Prof. Cora Agatucci, African Storytelling, Central Oregon Community College
African Storytelling - An introduction by Professor Cora Agatucci to the nature of storytelling in Africa, its centrality to culture, and influence on literature, complete with quotes and references. Also scroll down to the box of links for a huge resource on African culture and history, including many tidbits on oral traditions. See the African Timelines (especially part II), and African Links (especially sections on African Arts, Music, and Orature.)
Griots in this area, for instance the Gnawa of Morocco, play the gimbri - a long-necked lute. See Mali, and also West Africa, for full details on griots.
Much of West Africa is Mande - the culture inherited from the Manding Empire of Mali, but the term refers also to their family of languages and the areas that they occupy. Therefore most countries of West Africa share certain storytelling traditions, though there is much local variation.
“The Mande people are very magical in nature. This can be mostly attributed to the nyamakalaw subgroup; an endogamous people who are born with the inherent ability to control nature. The power they are able to wield so well is called nyama. In fact, their name nyama-kala could be translated as handlers (kala) of nyama. The Mande see nyama as a hot, wild energy that is the animating force of nature. Nyama is present in all the rocks, trees, people and animals that inhabit the Earth. It is similar to the Western notion of the soul but is more complete than that. It controls nature, the stars and the motions of the sea. Nyama is truly the sculptor of the universe.
While nyama molds nature into its many forms, the nyamakalaw can shape nyama into art. The nyamakalaw spend their entire lives perfecting special secret skills that are passed down from generation to generation. The nyamakalaw are the only people in Mande that can use magic and are often skilled as sorcerers, blacksmiths, leather workers or bards.”
“The Yoruba [mainly in southwest Nigeria] have a slightly different understanding about magic which they call ase. Ase is also present in all things and can be either good or evil. [...] Ase is most closely related to the griots (bards) of the Mande and their ability to make their nyama flow directly out of their body rather than into a sculpture or sword.”
Prof. Misty Bastian & students, Magic and Art in West Africa
“Mande society consists of two main groups: the Horonw and the Nyamakalaw. The Horonw, people of earth and agriculture, are the aristocracy, the warriors and the commoners. [...] These two groups often look upon each other with considerable disfavor and abhorence.
...Historically, the Horonw are the kings and rulers of Mande and comprise the majority of the population who live at the center of the villiage. The Nyamakalaw live in the bush on the outskirts of the town beyond the fields. This duality of the mundane and the magical, the calm and the wild, the cold and the hot, is directly a result of the Mande cosmogony or creation myth.”
Prof. Misty Bastian & students, History, Art and Ritual In the Mande Culture
“In the African countries where Islam has had a powerful influence and where chiefs exert considerable authority, much of the music-making is the province of the griots. These are traditional musicians who are employed as individuals, or in pairs, or even in very large groups and orchestras. In many savannah societies the griots are professional musicians, but in some --as in Senegal-- they are part-time entertainers and may also be farmers, fishermen or follow some other occupation. The latter may be attached to a village and may have only a small, local reputation as song-makers and instrumentalists, but in many regions the griots are employed by sultans, emirs, chiefs or headmen. Others --the most famous-- are free-ranging groups of professional musicians, unattached to any employer, who hire their services out to families, groups of workers or others who wish to hear and temporarily employ them.”
“A griot is required to sing on demand the history of a tribe or family for seven generations and, in particular areas, to be totally familiar with the songs of ritual necessary to summon spirits and gain the sympathy of the ancestors.”
“As Curt Sachs has noted, 'they importune the rich with either glorification or insults depending on whether their victims are open-handed or stingy. They often roam from village to village in gangs of about a dozen under a chief who is at the same time a seasoned historian and genealogist and knows to the last details the alliances, hostilities and conflicts that unite or oppose the families and villages of the country.' This puts the griots in a position of some power; they blackmail their listeners with their ridicule and are feared and despised for it, while being admired for their skill. The attitude of their audiences is ambivalent, for while they fear being the butt of their humour they want to hear the gossip and news they purvey, and listen to their music.”
Paul Oliver, Savannah Syncopators: African retentions in the blues, 1970.
The World of the Mande: History, Art and Ritual In the Mande Culture - an ongoing student study project with useful details about various aspects related to storytelling, including nyama, nyamakalaw, caste system, praise songs, and Malian epic.
About griots: Paul Oliver - Extract from the book Savannah Syncopators: African retentions in the blues. A clear and detailed statement of the complexity surrounding who griots are, what they do, and how they fit (or fitted) into traditional societies. Though being by a musicologist, the emphasis is on their being musicians rather than the storytellers they also are.
“Albania still retains certain elements from its past as a tribal society and Albanian concepts of honour, hospitality and family duty are immensely powerful... The population [is divided] into northern Ghegs and southern Tosks and Labs, separated by the River Shkumbin. Gheg music is rugged, heroic and single voiced while Tosk and Lab music is softer, more lyrical and polyphonic...
What unites all these styles is the weight that both performers and listeners give to their music as a means of patriotic expression and as a scaffolding for their oral historical tradition. Many composer-performers quite openly say that this is their main purpose...”
“The most serious musical form of north Albania is the epic poem. The oldest type, known as Rapsodi Kreshnikë (Poems of Heroes) and accompanied by the singer on the one-stringed fiddle, the lahuta, sounds very similar to the music of the Montenegrin and Serbian guslars [epic-singers using the one-stringed gusle], and is the province of old men. Indeed, Albanians describing this sort of music will sweep their fingers across their upper lip with a flourish to express the luxuriant growth of moustache thought necessary for the singer.
This tradition is particularly identified with the inhabitants of the northern highlands, but another ballad tradition is found throughout the Gheg area, with particularly important schools in Dibër (Debar) and Kerçovë (Kicevo) in Macedonia. Here the singer is accompanied by the çifteli, a two-stringed instrument related to the saz. One string carries the melody while the other is used mainly as a drone. The tales tell of heroes such as the fifteenth-century warrior Skanderbeg, leader of the struggle against the Turks, and their semi-historical, semi-mythical events are bound up with the constant Albanian themes of honour, hospitality, treachery and revenge... The performances can be highly emotional with compelling shifts of rhythms and tempo quite unlike the epics of their Slav neighbours.
Both traditions serve as a medium for oral history in what was until quite recently a preliterate society (there was not even a generally agreed alphabet until the early 1900s) and also preserve and inculcate moral codes and social values. In a culture that retained the blood-feud as its primary means of law enforcement until well into the twentieth century such codes were literally matters of life and death. Song was one of the most efficient ways of making sure that each member of the tribe was aware of what obligations he or she was bound to.”
Kim Burton, 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
“Ashugs are troubadours who appear also in Turkish and Azerbaijani music (where they're called ashiks). The word comes from Arabic (meaning 'lover') and describes someone who is a musician, poet and storyteller. The most famous of these troubadours was Sayat Nova (1712-1795) who lived in the cosmopolitan world of Tiflis (Tbilisi), the Georgian capital, and became court musician to King Heracles II. Some of the repertoire of Sayat Nova and more recent Ashugs has been recorded by Ocora with traditional ensembles of kamancha (3-stringed fiddle), kanun (zither), tar (lute) and duduk [a reedy woodwind]. All these instruments belong to the world of Turkish and Persian music and Armenia, as a Christian country right on the fringe, is unique in absorbing them so intrinsically into its culture.”
Simon Broughton, 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
The sound of the duduk is tremendously evocative, plaintive, and beautiful. Its acknowledged master today is Djivan Gasparyan, who often sings an ashug song during his concerts, though he is not an ashug himself. He has various recordings available.
Introduction to Asian Storytelling - Cathy Spagnoli's invaluable survey of the styles and traditions of countries across the continent. Follow the links especially to Styles, and to Props. Also there are profiles of tellers, some tales and riddles, and a bibliography.
The same Turkic term, bakhshi, may be used for both shamans and bards, and both may be called to their trade by spirits to undergo a difficult period of initiation. Indeed a bard is a healer who uses music as a conduit to the world of the Spirit, and there is a magical dimension to reciting the epics. They use a fiddle or lute as accompaniment, and tales may run through several nights of exhaustive performance; one Kyrgyz bard is known to recite 300,000 verses of the Manas, the major Kyrgyz epic.
“The dastan [Turkic epic] is ornate oral history and an important part of the Turkic literature of Central Asia. Traditionally, dastans have been repositories of ethnic identity and history, and some constitute nearly complete value systems for the peoples they embrace. The primary, or "mother", dastans are those composed to commemorate specific liberation struggles. Set mostly in verse by an ozan [bard], more than 50 mother dastans are recited by Central Asians from the Eastern Altai to the Western Ural Mountains and as far south as Bend-e Turkestan in Afghanistan. Most dastans commemorate the struggles of different Turkic peoples against external aggressors, such as the Kalmuks and Chinese. The central figure of the dastan is the alp [hero], who leads his people against the enemy, be they from afar or from within his own tribe. The alp endures many trials and tribulations, which ultimately are shared by a supporting cast. His problems are nearly always aggravated by one or more traitors, who although a problem for the alp, can never stop his ineluctable progress toward victory. His success is celebrated by a toy, or lavish feast. Traitors and enemies are dealt with, frequently paying with their lives for their treachery, but more often left to roam the earth in search of some kind of reconciliation with their consciences and with God.”
H. B. Paksoy, Central Asia's New Dastans
“Dastans are jealously guarded against textual change. Not even minor details are allowed to be altered. They are revised under only two conditions: when a major new alp appears and his heroic fight against oppression and for the preservation of his people's traditional life style and customs warrants celebrating; and when the heirs of an existing dastan face oppression by an outsider. Portions of new dastans , however, will almost certainly be borrowed from older dastans. This is not plagiarism: the new alp is being compared to his predecessors, which is intended to reassure the listener of the new alp's prowess, exemplary character and resourcefulness. By borrowing from the old dastans, the new alp is inextricably linked to the existing historical- literary traditions.”
H. B. Paksoy, Central Asia's New Dastans
“The reciter, ozan, accompanied himself with a musical instrument referred to as kobuz or kopuz. A descendant of kopuz is still known and used as saz or baglama in Asia Minor.”
H. B. Paksoy, Dastan Genre in Central Asia
Traditional Persian Music: Bakhshi - a short but valuable page giving much detail on the customs, training and spiritual role of the bakhshi epic singers who can be found in almost all of Central Asia, among the Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and Turkmen people as well as in Afghanistan, Tajik-Arab and in Xinjiang.
Central Asia's New Dastans - a long journal paper about the nature and traditions of dastans (Turkic epics), detailing customs of the bakhshi who sing them, storylines and more. These bardic epic singers are also called Ozan; Bahshi; Akin; Ashik; Kam in various places. This same paper is also available at the Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative, at http://aton.swco.ttu.edu/Central_Asias_New_Dastans.asp.
Dastan Genre in Central Asia - encyclopaedia article by the same author as the paper above, and with some overlap but also extra information.
Alpamysh - an entire online book of and about this primary Turkic dastan, an epic story central to the identity of the Turkic peoples across central Asia, and the struggle to preserve it under Russian rule. Naturally there is much detail on the dastan genre and the cultural traditions around their performance. The epic itself is given in full in chapter 3.
Alpamysh Audio - online audio of a complete Kazak performance of this epic, lasting 99 minutes, available at the Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative. This page also has audio of a nine-hour Tatar dastan, Chora Batir, and the texts of many others.
The Book of Dede Korkut - an important dastan; this website gives seven of the twelve tales from the complete cycle.
See here and here for nice photos of Uzbek bakhshi (epic singers) and their dombras (long-necked two-string lutes).
Storytelling is still integral to the way of life for Australian Aborigines. Stories are used to educate, to explain the history of the land and people, and give practical knowledge of nature. Traditionally storytellers are born into the role, but the role can be earned as well. As with many tribal cultures, there are public stories, but there are also stories that are sacred, secret, men-only, women-only or combinations of those restrictions, which may be used in certain ceremonies, gatherings or initiations. In the twentieth century the white population actively discouraged indigenous storytelling and many important tales were lost, but now Aborigines are struggling to re-establish their cultural identity and vitality without others appropriating or exploiting the stories that carry it.
“Gathered around the camp fire in the evening, on an expedition to a favourite waterhole, or at a landmark of special significance, parents, Elders or Aunts and Uncles use the stories as the first part of a child's education. Then, as children grow into young adults, more of the history and culture is revealed. Adults then take responsibility for passing on the stories to the following generations. In this way, the Stories of the Dreaming have been handed down over thousands of years.”
“The expression 'Dreamtime' is most often used to refer to the 'time before time', or 'the time of the creation of all things', while 'Dreaming' is often used to refer to an individual's or group's set of beliefs or spirituality.”
“Because the "Stories of the Dreaming" have been handed down through the generations, they are not 'owned' by individuals. They belong to a group or nation, and the storytellers of that nation are carrying out an obligation to pass the stories along. The Elders of a nation might appoint a particularly skilful and knowledgeable storyteller as 'custodian' of the stories of that people.”
Stories of the Dreaming, Australian Museum.
“You can be a yarnteller - telling about something that may or may not have happened down the street or in the community - but it lacks the lessons. The true role of the storyteller is to pass on the lessons from the beginning of time.”
“For me to be a reciter of stories--no--I don't want to be a reciter. I see myself as a traditional storyteller and therefore, the stories I tell are the ones in which I understand the laws, rules, culture and spirituality behind them--the Dreamtime stories.”
Pauline McLeod, Aboriginal Perspective on Storytelling
Stories of the Dreaming - A project by the Australian Museum explains about the role of storytelling in indigenous Australian culture, and for twenty stories gives text, audio clips and video clips of traditional storytellers. Elsewhere on the site there is lots of information about traditional Australian culture.
Aboriginal Perspective on Storytelling - a long interview with traditional storyteller Pauline McLeod, where she explains the nature and role of stories in the culture, and the role of the storyteller, both traditionally and in today's challenging climate, and gives advice to people who are keen to become tellers or tell traditional tales.
See Armenia and Turkey for details on the ashugs or ashiks that are also part of Azerbaijani tradition. Ashugs are still very popular in Azerbaijan, where they accompany themselves on the kobuz, improvising songs in the bardic way, and presumably reciting the epics.
Anthology of World Music: The Music of Azerbaijan, on Rounder 82161-5142-2 (2003). This is a reissue of the best compilation of Azerbaijani traditional music, and has one track of an Ashug song with saz accompaniment. This was recorded in the Soviet era of the '70s or '80s, but I don't know whether or not by a genuine ashug.
The tradition of wandering bards was almost wiped out by the Khmer Rouge regime, but a handful remain today. The best known is Kong Nay, who can now play publicly at festivals. The bard plays the chapay - a large, two-stringed, long-necked lute. The bottom string is used for rhythm and the top for melody. In bard songs the voice and instrument take turns separately. The songs tell local news, folk and moral tales etc. This tradition is related to that of mor lam in Laos and Thailand (though current mor lam is mainly a modernised pop music).
A Cambodian Bard: Singing and Lute Chapey - CD on Inedit W 260112, released in 2003. Bluesy bardic songs, telling local news, moral tales and more, plus some more lyrical tracks.
“Traditionally, the lowest social level was inhabited by those who performed in the streets, in the public marketplace. These were the despised “artists of the bazaar” -- contaminated and contaminating, in constant contact and negotiation with the Other, and often expressing no loyalty to any institution. The highest rank was enjoyed by narrators of history, followed by tellers of ghost and love stories. Among the Tai, the most prestigious stories were the Buddhist epics.”
“...Pingtan is a collective term, denoting two forms of storytelling: pinghua (narration without music); and tanci (narration with music, also known as, prosimetric performance, or chantefable). The prose of pinghua, and sections of tanci, is delivered in a styled form of speaking that is different from everyday speech; it has a recognizable cadence. Both pinghua and tanci allow insertion of commentary, anecdotes, poems, and descriptive set pieces; and both involve long, often serialized, tales. In tanci, the story is told in alternating passages of prose and rhymed metrical verse, plus comic-relief passages, singing, and instrumental accompaniment. In olden days, a story could take three months to tell, with an hour session each day: today, two weeks is usually the limit.
For the performance of tanci, mixed gender couples only became popular in the 1930s, with the general relaxation of social norms that previously had prohibited men and women from appearing together in public. Today, there are many female-female teams, as more women and fewer men are entering the field.”
“Among the minority peoples such as the Hmong (Miao), Zhuang, Yi, Yao, Molao, Dong, Tai, and Tujia, in southwestern China, there are traditions of antiphonal singing and chanting, in which lyrics are sung in turn by two or more singers:
One of the most unusual aspects of the Miao epic tradition is that the stories are related by antiphonal singing... After the song is decided, the narration begins. The challengers sing a section of the story, ending their song with a question. The opposing team then repeats much of what the first side has sung, and carries the story farther until they reach a point where a question is traditionally posed. Then it is the other team’s turn. This continues until the story is finished, or one team cannot answer a question.”
“It seems that in the late 1800s a certain public sphere arose in China which called for the construction of special storytelling recital halls, shu-chang, which typically hold 80-100 people (before then, pingtan and similar genres were performed in teahouses). Tea and snacks are served in these storyhouses. Engagements may last weeks or months: storytellers are paid on a commission basis. The stage area is usually slightly raised. The only set is a table and a few chairs. Behind the teller, at the back of the stage, there is often a painting on a screen: sometimes the painting portrays ladies and gentlemen at court. The essential stage props are two pieces of dry-sounding wood and a fan. The man’s traditional outfit is a long scholarly gown.”
“Beginning in the 1700s, storytellers formed guilds to give members an official status, regulate who would be allowed to perform in their territory, and exert control over fees and conditions in regional teahouses and later storyhouses. These guilds organized annual multi-day gatherings, called hui-shu or shu-hui, at which a number of storytellers told their best episodes. Since many storytellers moved about most of the year, these events gave them a chance to view each other’s performances and evaluate which young performers might qualify for guild membership.
Today, such gatherings are sponsored by state-sponsored storytelling troupes and are overseen by local culture bureaus (the longtime director of the Suzhou cultural bureau is a distinguished scholar of pingtan history). Gatherings are often held at the end of the year and in early spring, or for a variety of special occasions. For example, one recent gathering was organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mao’s famous comments about art at Yenan: many older pingtan performers chose not to attend. Another performance context was the tanghua, in which storytellers were invited to perform for a specified amount of time, ranging from one day to several weeks, in a private home or other institution. Storytellers would often be invited to perform at family festivals of the wealthy. There is an ancient tradition among housewives of having a monk come to one’s home to recite a Buddhist story during a day-long fast. Today, there may be special storytelling performances in factories, and at civic and corporate functions.”
“Among the Tai people of Southwest China, performers of the zhangkhap genre of storysinging, the Buddhist context has been particularly strong. Zhangkhap performers traditionally act as consecrators of events. Rituals of praying to the gods and paying respects to one’s teachers permeate the tradition.”
“In pre-1949 China, there were apprenticeships and guilds; now there are (state-run) academies and troupes. In the early 80s, on a wave of enthusiasm over the revival of pingtan, the aforementioned Suzhou Pingtan School reopened. The curriculum entails three years in the classroom, with classes in performance skills (singing, playing pipa [4-stringed lute](see a picture here), sanxian [3-stringed lute/banjo], and ways of speaking) and academics (Chinese literature, history, and politics). Students memorize scripts, then perform portions of them in class during tests. After coursework, students are assigned to study with a master for three to six months, sitting in on performances and gradually being asked to take part.”
“Because it takes a long time to be fully at home with a long story, the repertoire of most tanci performers was limited to one or two long stories, with a few medium-length and short stories, some of which were actually taken from the same long story. Since each master specialized in the telling of one or two long stories, which were regarded as private possession for maintaining his livelihood, the acceptance of an apprentice was, pre-1949, quite a serious matter and was conducted ceremonially.”
“An apprentice would observe his master in performance at every opportunity. There were four stages to the apprenticeship, which could last many years: 1) household duties, 2) learning a story by heart, 3) taking part in public performance, 4) graduation, marked by public performance of the learned story.
A saying went: “To memorize the master’s words a thousand times is not as effective as seeing the master in actual performance, and to see the master’s performance a thousand times is not as effective as performing it yourself.” What tied master and student so closely together was not only the ability to tell the same story, but more importantly, their knowledge that they formed the latest link in a long chain of oral tradition.”
Eric Miller, Continuity and Change in Chinese Storytelling, 2000 (dissertation).
“Suzhou tanci is a local style of professional storytelling popular in Suzhou, Shanghai, and other urban and rural areas of southern Jiangsu province. In its most popular form, a pair of performers sing and tell serial stories, often about the love affairs between gifted young scholars and beautiful, cultivated young women. [...] certain aesthetic principles guide storytellers in their performances. These include Lu Ruiting's famous Five Secrets: 'credibility,' 'intricate description,' 'strangeness,' 'flavor,' and 'compelling interest.' One pervasive concern among storytellers and audience members is the quality of qing or 'feeling' that is produced within the bounds of aesthetic expectations and referentiality in the storytelling process.”
Mark Bender, It's the Feeling: Meaning and Performance in Suzhou Pingtan Storytelling [abstract], paper presented at 'Performance, Ethnicity and Cultural Processes in China' symposium.
Continuity and Change in Chinese Storytelling. Eric Miller's fascinating 40+ page document gives lots of detail on both traditional and modern storytelling practices in such areas as The Subject Matter of Storytelling; Styles of Storytelling; Contexts and Functions of Storytelling; Training and Lifestyles of Storytellers; Media and Technology of Storytelling; Recent Storytelling-Related Experiments; and more.
Lower Yangzi Storytelling. Mark Bender gives a few more details, a couple of pictures of tancis in Yangzhou and Suzhou, and a couple of printed resources.
Songs and Gongs: Musical Storytelling and Folk Percussion. A short review of traditional performances, giving some useful details and history.
Chinese Storytelling. Very brief but interesting notes by Richard VanNess Simmons. Ignore any nonsense characters mixed into the text - they are your computer failing to display Chinese.
Liuyeqin. Picture, description and audio clip of this relative of the pipa (lute).
Minstrels here are called azmari (singer, in Amharic), and accompany themselves with a bowl lyre called a krar. Azmari also use a spike-fiddle with one string, called a masenqo.
Europe contains a great many distinct cultures and traditions, and has been crossed by diverse others, so its traditions of storytelling reflect that variety.
Troubadour: One of a class of lyric poets and poet-musicians, often of knightly rank, that flourished from the 11th through the 13th century, chiefly in Provence and other regions of southern France, northern Spain, and northern Italy. They wrote in the langue d'oc of southern France (see Languedoc) and cultivated a lyric poetry intricate in metre and rhyme and usually of a romantic amatory strain reflecting the ideals of courtly love. Favoured at courts, troubadours had great freedom of speech and were charged with creating around the court ladies an aura of pleasant cultivation. Their poetry, often set to music, was to influence all later European lyrical poetry.
"Troubadour." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica. 08 Oct, 2003.
Trouvère: One of a school of poets that flourished in northern France from the 11th to the 14th century. Trouvères were the counterparts in the language of northern France (the langue d'oïl) to the Provençal troubadour. Of either aristocratic or humble origins, they were originally connected with feudal courts but later found middle-class patrons. Noted for such forms as the chanson de geste, their works are generally narratives; their basic subject was courtly love. Trouvères pleased their audiences by combining stylized themes and traditional metrical forms rather than by originality of expression. The lyrics were intended to be sung, by the poet alone or accompanied by a hired musician.
"Trouvere." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica. 08 Oct, 2003.
Minnesinger: (from German, Minne: “love”) Any of certain German poet-musicians, c. 1150–c. 1325, parallel to the troubadours and trouvères. Like their French counterparts, the minnesingers' subjects were not limited to love but also included politics and ethics. Originally members of the high nobility, minnesingers later came from the emerging middle class and had an economic as well as social interest in singing.
"Minnesinger." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica. 08 Oct, 2003.
Such minstrels accompanied themselves on the vielle (fiddle) or lute. It was traditional to make one's own instrument. Troubadours, trouvères, minnesingers and so forth were eventually ousted by the Roman Catholic church, and then persecuted by the Inquisition, dying out around the 15th century.
Minnesang. A short article from the Wikipedia, on the art of the minnesinger, with helpful links to further articles on relevant aspects.
Troubadours United: Road of the Troubadours. A CD available on Enja 94362. There are many theories about the origins of the troubadours and their other European equivalents. Peter Pannke is convinced that these, and the Sufi lyrics of North Africa and the Middle East, and the Bhakti poetry of Hindu India, all had a common source. Pannke has brought various top traditional musicians together to play bardic material from these traditions, producing a CD reviewed as 'stunning'. A 26-page booklet gives plenty of historical information.
The traditions of Finland are concentrated around the Kalevala, the national epic which is sung in its strict trochaic tetrameter, accompanied by the kantele. Although the epic was put into its current form in the 19th century, the story-songs it was compiled from date back perhaps thousands of years.
“The zither-like kantele is the national Finnish instrument and dates from ancient times. In the Kalevala saga, Väinämoinen, the mythical hero, subdues his foes by playing on his kantele, made from the jawbone of a giant fish strung with a maiden's hair. The instrument was originally five-stringed - you still find these today - but it has developed variants over the years that range up to giant chromatic kanteles that can be used to play western classical music; the melodies and accompanying chords are plucked on the rows of strings. The kantele appears in various forms all along the Baltic coast. In Estonia it is the kannel, in Latvia the kokle, and in Lithuania the kankles. It has a magical, silvery tone that seems to carry both the listener and the players away in to the vast forest of Karelia or the depths of the Baltic sea.”
Magnus Bäckström and Philip Page, 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
The Kalevala metre goes into great depth about the ancient rhythm of the epic. In storytelling traditions all over the world, there has been a sophisticated understanding and use of different metres to achieve different qualities of trance in the listeners.
A Performance of The Wedding of Mustajbey's Son Becirbey. Halil Bajgoric, a South Slavic guslar of central Herzegovina, performs the 1030 lines of the oral epic The Wedding of Mustajbey's Son Becirbey. This audio recording was made in 1935. The site also gives a full text translation and details of a whole book about this early recording and the performance.
In the eleventh century there were professional sagamen, who recited the sagas - oral histories and tales.
“Ritu Verma is a stunning singer / narrator of the epic Mahabharata, from Madhya Pradesh, India. Of the many epic singing traditions to miraculously survive in a rapidly modernising world, Central Indian 'Pandvani' is perhaps the most dramatic and accessible. A singer, wielding a single-stringed tambura emblematically adorned with peacock feathers, delivers episodes from the great Hindu epic over the tremendously energised accompaniment of four backing musicians. The telling is in a mixture of prose and song rendered dramatic by a very rich gestural style. One of the musicians takes the role of ragi - a ritualised audience representative - urging the story forwards with interjected questions and supportive vocal approval.
It is clear that the outstanding young star of the tradition is Ritu Verma. She began to perform at the age of six, directly inspired by Jhadu Ram Dewangan, the man whose creative intervention in the 1940s saved and completely revived the tradition. Now she is in her mid twenties she is at the height of her powers, able to command vast audiences with a single gesture or the raising of an eyebrow.”
See the Gallery for several pictures (named Pandvani) of Ritu performing at Beyond the Border in 1995.
from the programme of Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival 2003
“Naghali is narrating of a story or an event in verse or prose with special tone, feelings and expression. A naghal (storyteller), playing the roles of different characters by himself, usually narrates epics and mythical stories in coffee houses [Ghahve-khanes]. Naghali still survives and naghal narrate stories taken from Ferdowsi's Shah Nameh and other ancient stories. Naghal are divided into two groups: those narrating all kinds of stories and those just narrating stories from Shah Nameh (Shahnameh khani). Naghali has been common all over Iran since the Safavid dynasty.”
Ms. Laleh Taghian, Center of Dramatic Arts, Tehran
“Coffeehouses were the main forums for cultural interactions between people. As a performing artist, Nagal had to possess a good oratorical and singing voice as well as theatrical talent. Above all, the Nagal relied on his imagination a great deal, to improvise according to the audience's feedback and add to the original tales that he was reciting. He would also acquire inspiration from the images and pictures fixed on the walls -pictures of religious leaders, sport heroes, epic characters- and appropriate them into his narrative.”
Shahin Parhami, Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolution
“Pardehdari is a kind of Naghali (story-telling) which is performed [by Pardeh-khani] mostly in the streets and in mobile form. There is a hanging piece of cloth on which some scenes of a story are printed. The pardehdar (story-teller) narrates the story with a demonstration of the scenes. This kind of narration is used for epics as well as religious stories.”
Ms. Laleh Taghian, Center of Dramatic Arts, Tehran
The very popular Pardehdari (also called Pardeh-Khani, narrated by a Pardeh-Khan) occurs in eastern and central Iran. A similar tradition exist in Rajasthan, India, where it is called Par (see the section on India), and possibly elsewhere too. These tapestry-like painted or embroidered cloths can be very beautiful, and may be uncovered or unrolled progressively with the story.
Khorasan occupies the east of Iran, and itself has a diverse culture. In the north, bakhshi (epic singers) narrate and sing dastans (stories in Turkish) accompanying themselves on the dotar (long-necked two-stringed lute), and also sing in Kurdish about the historical deeds of local figures. In the east of Khorasan there are no bakhshi.
Traditional Persian Music: Bakhshi - a short but valuable page giving much detail on the customs, training and spiritual role of the bakhshi epic singers who can be found in almost all of Central Asia, among the Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and Turkmen people as well as in Afghanistan, Tajik-Arab and in Xinjiang.
Naghali - A photo of a current Naghal in a coffeehouse, plus brief information from the Data Bank on Traditional/Folk Performing Arts in Asia and the Pacific.
Pardehdari - Brief information from the Data Bank on Traditional/Folk Performing Arts in Asia and the Pacific. Includes a very indistinct photo of Pardehdari; a clearer photo, of Rajasthani Par, can be seen here.
Center of Dramatic Arts, Vahdat Hall, Ostad shahnar St., Hatez Ave., Tehran, Iran.
There was a tradition in the 10th - 15th centuries of prophetic, itinerant, blind bards, called biwa-hoshi, playing the biwa to accompany epic narratives, usually about the adventures and battles of the samurai.
Street-storytelling is traditional in various places around Asia. A custom popular in the first half of the twentieth century, though it started three centuries ago and can be traced back to earlier Asian picture-storytelling traditions, was kamishibai ('paper drama') using sets of large printed or painted cards to illustrate the story, which had around 25,000 practitioners by 1950.
“The kamishibai storyteller [gaito kamishibaiya-san] was also a candy seller. Riding a bicycle equipped with a small stage for showing the story cards, he would enter a village or neighborhood, dismount and loudly strike together two wooden clappers [hyoshigi] or allow a lucky child to do so. The sound was a signal for children to run from their homes and gather around him for story time. Those who bought candy got to stand nearest to the stage. Then, in a dramatic manner, he would start to tell 2-3 kamishibai episodes. He would not tell the whole story! The stories were told as continuing serials, that is, he would always stop at an exciting moment, leaving the children impatient for his next visit. With the advent of television in 1953, the itinerant storyteller gradually disappeared from Japan's streets. In recent years, however, kamishibai have enjoyed a renaissance in Japanese schools, libraries and culture centers.”
“Street storytellers in China clapped together two pieces of wood to announce their arrival and the start of their story, just as wooden hyoshigi clappers are used in kamishibai. In India, China, and Japan, monks utilized pictures to illustrate their lectures and religious stories.”
Linda Freeman, The History of Kamishibai
Kamishibai for Kids - A little history and background, and an illustration of the bicycle-stage, from a USA firm selling sets of the large illustrated cards with the stories.
The History of Kamishibai - A short but more detailed history, with large bibliography and various web-links.
Tokyo Tidbits: Kamishibai - A couple of photos of a table-top kamishibai stage in action.
The International Kamishibai Association of Japan - A brief site with basic information in English. Address is International Kamishibai Association of Japan (IKAJA) 1-2-2-604 Hakusan, Asao-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, 215-0014 Japan.
Jewish culture has strong traditions of storytelling, some of which are common to all Jewish communities, and others which are more localised.
In the schtetls (Jewish villages) of Russia and eastern Europe, a traditional wedding - khasene - lasts for days, as a communal festival. The master of ceremonies is the badkhn - the wedding jester. He performs at each stage of the event, singing, making up rhymes, parody and wordplay about the bride and groom, and telling stories. For instance, at the end of the kale besetzn (seating of the bride - a ceremony after the bride's day of fasting) the badkhn aims to reduce the bride, and audience, to tears with a sad serenade, as her atonement and to mark her sadness at leaving her family and perhaps hometown.
The badkhn dates from the 13th century, deriving from the mediaeval jester troubadour and the ancient Jewish leyts, or fool. He is part of the klezmorim, the itinerant troubadours who play klezmer music at all joyful events.
Groucho Marx's maternal grandfather, Levy "Lafe" Schoenberg, combined the skills of the schnorrer and the badkhn:
“Technically, the schnorrer was a beggar, moving from community to community in search of funds. But he was neither as foolish nor as indolent as the big-city layabouts. Outrageous, funny, daring, he worked for baksheesh by circulating stories, jokes, gossip. At times he made himself the butt of jokes, pretending to be shocked by his own chutzpah: "A schnorrer knocked on the door of a rich man at 6 a.m. The rich man shouted, 'How dare you wake me this early?' 'Listen,' the schnorrer replied, 'I don't tell you how to run your business. Don't tell me how to run mine.'"
As for the jester - badkhn in Yiddish - he, too, was a favorite of the Jewish communities. Badkhns first appeared in the Middle Ages, irritating the rabbis with their impudence and boisterous humor. A scholar of the Jewish past notes certain modern parallels: "The merry maker did not occupy a prominent social position. He was feared on account of the rhymes which he freely utilized to his own purposes an frequently caused embarrassment. People exploited his friendship for their personal advantage, they were amused by his apt parables, paraphrases and merry songs and then proceed to censure him as a sinner." By the 1870s in Germany these Jewish sinners enjoyed some delightful compensations for the risks they took: their hours were their own and they answered to no boss except the public.”
Stefan Kanfer, Groucho - The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx, Penguin 2001
Here the epic singers are called jyrau, accompanying themselves on dombra (a two-stringed lute) or ghijak (the four-stringed instrument of poets). Currently Uljan Baïbussynova teaches epic chant and dombra in Almaty, and she is one of the disciples of the first female jyrau, Chamchat Toulepova. Almas Almatov is perhaps the most eminent jyrau - see the Gallery page for his photo.
The jyrau also engage in contests of skill in wit and virtuosity of improvisational inspiration - for more details see entry for Turkey.
“Each ethnic group has a large store of riddles, proverbs and sayings, which are still an important aspect of daily speech. Riddles were usually exchanged in the evening before a storytelling session. Riddling sessions are usually competitions between two young people who fictionally bet villages, or cattle, or other items of economic life on the outcome. Many cultures have a prohibition on telling riddles during daylight hours.
The Kikuyu had a very elaborate sung riddle game, a duet called the enigma poem or gicandia set text poem of riddles. It is sung in a duet and the players are in a competition. The duet is strikingly different than the normal singing of the Kikuyu performed by a soloist and a chorus. The poem is learned by heart. A decorated gourd rattle accompanies the singing. One gicandi may consists of 127 stanzas.”
“The Swahili people on Kenya's coast have had a rich oral tradition that has been influenced by Islam. Stories of genies are told side by side with stories of hare and hyena. There is also a very rich tradition of popular poetry that has been part of Swahili cultural life for over four centuries.
Kenyan radio and television shows use folklore as part of their daily programming. Oral literature is part of the secondary and university syllabus. Part of the requirement in these classes is for students to collect folklore from their parents and grandparents. Kenyans believe that folklore is an important part of their heritage and culture and are taking steps to preserve and encourage folklore and education. While global culture in the shape of movies, music and literature is replacing folklore, Kenyans are actively involved in its maintenance.”
Kenya Folklore - East Africa Living Encyclopedia - more details on the folklore, importance of proverbs, and a bibliography.
The national epic is Kesar's Saga, or Tales of Kesar - known in Tibet as Gesar of Ling (see Tibet for description and resources).
“Bards from the villages recite the Tales of Kesar, and daughters of each household learn the tales and recite them at home in the evenings.”
Guida M. Jackson, Traditional Epics. OUP 1994.
For information on lamlao - a folk-music form with possibly some storytelling relevance, see Thailand below.
The descendants of the Manding Empire of Mali now inhabit these countries, as well as Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana. In Manding culture all music is played by the jali (also spelled jeli, djeli, yeli), a caste of professional musicians, also called in French griots (pronounced gree-oh). Their art is called jaliya. There are women jalis, called jalimusolu, some of whom are today like superstars. Griots or jalis are praise-singers, historians, and so of course tell the important stories of the culture. Their first recorded mention is in the account of the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited the court of Mali into 1352. It reports that 'the poets... are called jla , singular jl.'
“The griot blends pre-islamic and islamic knowledge systems and values. He cultivates both muslim scholarship and esoteric tradition.”
Tierno S. Bah, Mali: History, the State and Religion
“Those born into a jali family are regarded as jalis whether or not they have ever touched an instrument or sung a note.”
“Until the end of the nineteenth century, when the French put an end to traditional kingship, substituting it with chieftancies, the jalis were attached to the royal courts. They entertained the nobility with their epic songs and stories about the major events in Manding history. They guarded the knowledge of genealogies and the complex 'praise names' attached to every surname.”
Lucy Duran, 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
“Djeli in fact comes from the same root as the word for 'blood', because the first responsibility for the djeli is to sing and praise the bloodline of the noble families, from generation to generation. And in effect it is a caste (not to be totally considered as the caste system in India) in West African society. It has strict rules, genealogical and other, and is a 'closed shop' to use more Western terminology. However in other parts of Africa, further to the East, this system is not in effect.”
Sam Canarozzi, storyteller
“Mali...was the heart of the Mande Empire founded by Sunjata Keita in the early13th century and which lasted nearly 300 years... Jalis...recount the histories of the great warrior-kings like Sunjata. The Sunjata epic is core repertoire for the jalis.”
Simon Broughton, Songlines, #18, p.50, May 2003.
“Although their status is not as high as the freeborn, jalis are highly respected for their skills, nor just as musicians and entertainers, but as trusted messengers and advisors. The jali is considered lower on the social scale because, as the late Gambian kora player Jali Nyama Suso explains, 'a member of the nobility will not talk freely to someone of the same class, who might be a rival, whereas musicians can be trusted because they are no threat'. They have played a vital role in Manding history: 'They're journalists, they interpret events of now and of the past', he remarks. 'The art of the jalis lies in their ability to praise, which gave our kings the courage to fight battles.' Indeed, battles could be won or lost by the sheer power of the jali's word. Nowadays, they may sing for politicians or businessmen instead of kings, but they function in very similar ways. Their gift of speech has made them ideal 'go-betweens' - they patch up quarrels and feuds, arrange marriages, and negotiate the most delicate economic and political matters. In the words of Toumani Diabaté, one of Mali's most brilliant young kora-players, 'They are the needle that sews.'
The jalis operate like a closed trade union, and guard their profession with jealousy. Until recently it was difficult for a non-jali to take up music as a profession, and in practice very few have done so.”
“There are many versions of how jalis originated. Some musicians recount how a certain Sourakata, while mocking the Prophet Mohammed in disbelief, was frozen in his tracks three times. After the third demonstration, he realized the power of the prophet, and his taunts became praises. From then on, the principal role of the jali has been that of 'praise singer'.
The jalis traditionally make their living on the generosity of patrons (jatigui in Bamana and Maninka; jatio in Mandinka, literally meaning 'host'). In precolonial times, the patrons were kings (mansa), or otherwise members of the freeborn including farmers, traders and marabouts - Muslim holy men. Until the time of independence (when jalis were first employed as part of government-sponsored ensembles) they were never paid as such but instead received gifts, sometimes of extraordinary generosity, which might include land, animals, a house, cloth, gold, wives and slaves. Still today, the jalis praise their patrons with phrases like 'the hundred-giver' (kemenila), meaning someone who gives one hundred of something.
Patron and jali have a close, trusting and mutually dependent friendship. In precolonial times, if the jatigui died, the jali might even commit suicide. Lanaya soro man di - 'It's not easy to find a trustworthy person' - is a constant refrain of Manding songs, reminding both jali and patron of their duty of loyalty to each other. Those who consider themselves patrons rely heavily on the advice and diplomacy of their jali. The presidents of Mali, Guinea, The Gambia and Senegal have had thousands of songs dedicated to them. But while the jalis are praise-singers, their relationship is not based on deference. In the words of Jali Nyama Suso, 'I may have patrons, but no-one is my boss.'”
“[All praise songs] tend to follow the same structure. The singing is divided into two sections, a choral refrain or donkili which is precomposed and the improvisation.
The vocal improvisations are formulaic, consisting mainly of praising family surnames and reciting their ancestors. Every family name has an epithet or jammu which tells something of its origin. The name Musa, for example, is praised by saying 'Jealous and able Musa, four-eyed Musa; Bala, the adventure-seeking Musa, which were the praises for Musa Molo, last king of the Mandinka, who died in 1931.”
“Proverbs and pithy sayings are also important. The lyrics are quite moralistic, warning against betrayal, hypocrisy and obsession. Saws like 'Silver and gold cannot buy a good name' litter lyrics as they do conversation.”
“By far the most popular of the three traditional instruments of the jalis is the kora, which is a cross between a harp and a lute with 21 to 25 strings. Unlike the other Manding instruments the kora traditionally is not played by any other ethnic group. Although some of the most famous kora players are from Mali,the kora itself is said to come originally from the area which is now Guinea-Bissau.
One of the oldest and most prestigious of the Manding instruments, formerly played to entertain kings, is an oblong lute which has three to five strings, a resonator carved from a single piece of wood, and a skin sound table. In Bamana and Maninka it is called ngoni, in Mankinka konting. This instrument is also played by griots from other peoples such as the Wolof, who call it khalam (xalam) and the Fula and Tukulor who call it hoddu. As an instrument type the earliest examples known are from ancient Egypt and it can be found throughout the West African savannah... West African slaves recreated this instrument in the New World, where it came to be known as the banjo.”
Lucy Duran, 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
“The kora, the ngoni and the balaphone are the three indispensable melody instruments of the Manding [Mande] griot. All three instruments are found throughout the Mande world, but each has its region of dominance. The kora rules in Gambia, . . . In Mali, the ngoni is king, . . . [and Guinea] is the province of the balaphone.”
“I have been to concerts and performances of teller-musicians, male and female, with the kora, balafon and ngoni. (There is also what the Malians call a 'hunter's ngoni' a smaller model of the same instrument that is easier to master.)”
Sam Canarozzi, storyteller
“The term fasa means both 'praise' and 'epic', and the epics certainly developed from shorter fasa. The epic of Sunjata, which tells the life and exploits of the founder of the Mali empire, is surely the longest account transmitted by the Mande jeli. ...More than twenty versions have been collected... One notes a great homogeneity of epics, in content as well as on the literary level (characterization, episode division, images and reasons, like musical topics).
There are several 'schools' of jeli, actually localised lineages, in the Mande Mountains (south of Mali, north of Guinea), corresponding to the cradle of the empire. ... Certain clans or lineages of jeli (Kouyaté, Diabaté...) were more particularly associated with certain branches of the dynasty of Keita and transmit their points of view on history. Griots of the Diabatés and certain descendants of Keita converge every seven years on Kangaba, a south Malian village, to recite and listen to a secret but particularly complete version of the Sunjata epic.”
“Among the Bambara-speaking people of Mali in Africa, the griots, the celebrated epic bards, customarily "warm up" before their recitations and during breaks in their lengthy performances by singing proverbs in rapid sequence. This practice serves the function of gaining the attention and respect of the audience, who think of proverb sayers as wise men knowing how the society works; hence the listeners will be ready to credit the historical tradition that follows.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica
“Griots are professional historians who serve a ruler in much the same way that modern rulers are served by written constitutions, legal staff, and archival staffs. Griots recall what earlier leaders have done to advise current leaders on how to handle problems.
Griots also serve as orators who relay the words of the kings to the rest of the population, much as ancestors serve as intermediaries between Faro and living humans. One author described the relationship between griots and nobles in these terms: the griot has the power to speak, and the noble has the power to act. Since wider action requires the communication of the noble's will, the griot plays a crucial role in motivating an entire population to coordinated effort.”
Background to Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali
Mali Empire & Griot Traditions - a short introduction to the history and culture of the Manding griot (jali), including their instruments, with a few web-links to more.
Mali: History, the State and Religion - this brief abstract and outline of a paper, by Tierno S. Bah, presented at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, USA, provides a neat survey of some crucial points on the role of the griots and the history of their core subject of Sunjata, the founder of the Mali Empire.
Griot Music from Mali, by Siramori Diabaté - CD released on Pan Records PAN 2104, in 2003. Mali's most celebrated (late) griotte, born 1930, sings in the ancient and profound tradition, giving the words primary importance rather than singing for entertainment. The complex metaphors and alliterative praise names are all transcribed in the liner notes, giving storytellers the chance to understand the true form and import of this bardic tradition.
Grio—Salieu Suso, Kora. CD (scroll to two-thirds down page) 'The West African Jali, or musician, uses the kora to accompany narrations and songs (often improvised) honoring great patrons and recounting historical events. It is the main instrument of Mandinka Griot or Jaliba, who are traditional keepers of history, as well as musicians and storytellers.'
“Until recently Moorish society has had a strict hierarchical class system with musicians - iggawin - occupying the lowest rung beneath the warriors (hassans), merchants and others. Being a hereditary caste, their skills are handed down from father to son, or mother to daughter...
One traditional task of the iggawin was to follow the warriors into battle singing of their bravery and encouraging them into battle. At other times they would entertain their patrons with praise songs about the great deeds of their ancestors or act as social historians, poets and jokers. This is much like the role of the griots or jali elsewhere in West Africa. Before the days of radio it was also their job to act as newscasters, touring the villages reciting news from the outside world to musical accompaniments. They also sang epic songs which were used as teaching stories for the entertainment of children and adults alike. Today, however, professional musicians can be employed by anyone in return for money or other gifts.”
David Muddyman, 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
The bardic art of epic-singing is called Tuul' in Mongolia, and üligers are the orally transmitted epic stories in verse.
“The tradition of professional reciting of epic tales is continued to this day in Mongolia. Among the most popular rhapsodists are B. Urtnasan and of the Urianhai; D. Jamyan of the Dorvod; T. Enkhbalsan of the Zahchin; and D. Olzii, H. Tsherenchimed, Z. Chuluunbaatar, Tc. Tcerendorj of the Halh. Mongolian epic tales are performed in three main centers: the Halh and Oirad in the Mongolia, the Buryat and Kalmyk in the Russian Federation, and the Barag-Ordos, Horchin-Zarud and Xinjiang-Gansu in PRC.”
“One of the most ancient epics is that of the four-year-old deer with 24-branch antlers, the story of Huuheldei Mergen Khan, who goes out hunting one day and kills a deer which happens to have antlers with 24 branches. The beauty of the animal he has killed enchants the Khan and, seized by remorse, he carries the head of the deer to the peak of a towering mountain and for three years offers sacrifices. One day, before the very eyes of the Khan, the deer's head soars into the sky, leaving behind a rainbow-like trail. Huuheldei Mergen, charmed by this sight, destroys his weapons, and jumps from a high cliff in an attempt to commit suicide. However, three flying deer-heads appear and carry him up to heaven. "Geser" is a monumental heroic poem, created by the Mongolian people. This is confirmed by the Mongolian, Ordos and Buryat versions of this epic.” [Please note: if Geser is a version of Gesar of Ling, then that epic is originally Tibetan - see Tibet.]
“By its compositional structure and plot, the epic tale is a highly complex work. Hence every epic, usually named after the main hero, may exist in different versions. The 25 songs in the Kalmyk, the more than 30 songs in the Halh and the more than 60 songs in the Torgut versions of the well-known Jangar epic are in essence different interpretations of the same songs and tales.”
Mr. Yundenbat Sonom-Ish, Executive Director, Mongolian National Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage
“Mongols distinguish between different types of rhapsody, depending on the way the epic genre is to be recreated. A specialist in "recitation" of one or more epics is called tuul'c ("he who knows the epic" [tuul']), whereas someone else, who accompanies himself on the fiddle displaying his musical talent, will be called quurc ("he who knows how to play the fiddle" [quur]). In the high Altay mountains, epic songs and songs of praise are performed by the tuul'c bards, in a tessitura restricted to a pentatonic scale. Vocal timbre can be natural (ayalaq style) or deliberately produced (qaylaq style). The rhythm is syllabic and reinforced by the instrumental accompaniment of a lute (tobšuur) with two nylon strings.”
Alain Desjacques, liner notes to CD 'Chants Kazakh et Tradition épique de L’Ouest'
“Epics are a classic genre of Mongolian folklore. They are rooted in epic songs which depict the velour of courageous heroes of the 10th century, and in the 12th and 13th centuries they flourished and large epic songs and long verse epics were created. In this Mongolia was distinguished among Asian countries, and the epics "Geseriada" and "Jangar" were created, ranking with supreme world poetry such as the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of Greece, and the "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana" of India.
In the development of epics the ideology of the emperor Genghis Khan's state had great impact and played an important part in revealing the powerful and heroic events and aspirations of the steppe nobles.
The inheritance of the Mongolian people's epic has become more and more enriched, and epics such as "Bum Erdene", "Khan Kharankhui", "Daini Khurel" and "Dsul Aldarkhan" which depict the prosperity of the people, were created and handed down to the people of present-day Mongolia by contemporary reciters of epic songs like Jilkher and Parchin. Their successor, epic-teller B. Avirmed, has recited epic literature in our day and for this merit he was awarded the 1991 State Prize of Mongolia.”
D. Shandagdorji, P. Khorloo, N. Zantsannorov, Introduction to Mongolian Art, Folk Tradition, and Music
“As far as we know, having more then 20 cantos of the Jangar epic in his repertoire, singer Arimpil (1923-1994) was the most prominent illiterate singer in the tradition. Using his Hündü Gartai Sabar In Bülüg as a sample (652 lines in verse), we found that Arimpil used incredible number of epithets and other kinds of formulas to compose his poem, though it was a short and simple story (27 minutes in performance). Creating analytical models to match Mongolian versification, we found that epithets cover 173 lines, which occupy 26.5% of the entire poem. Besides epithets, fixed formulas concerning steed, weapon, palace and localities, numerals and directions, and many other things were used in his singing as well. All in all, Arimpil and many other Mongolian epic singers possess traditional skills to compose their poems, and the core of the skills is formulaic diction.”
Chao Gejin, Formulaic Density in Arimpil's Jangar Epic Singing [abstract], Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China
The epic-singers also engage in contests of skill in wit and virtuosity of improvisational inspiration - for more details see entry for Turkey.
Tuul' - Brief information from the very useful Data Bank on Traditional/Folk Performing Arts in Asia and the Pacific. Includes a photo of an epic singer and his lute. Mentions printed and audio-visual resources.
King Gesar of Ling is the longest epic in the world, collected as a work composed of more than 120 volumes, with more than 1 million verses (25 times the length of the Iliad). It originated in Tibet, but spread also to Mongolia. This excellent site gives much detail on the epic and the Tibetan bards that sing it, with photos.
Mongolian National Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Baga toiruu 22, Ulaanbaatar 46, P. O. Box 46/660, Mongolia. This centre's studies include the art and practice of epic.
'Chants Kazakh et Tradition épique de L’Ouest' (Various artists) : Ocora C580051. Collected by Alain Desjacques. Contains five tracks of Mongolian bardic epic singing. This page gives the extensive and informative liner notes. Also visit the site's Vocal Music of Mongolia page for more notes on epic.
Mongolia. Living Music of the Steppes - This page gives a half-minute audio clip of very tuneful epic singing - listen to Audio 1. The page reviews a CD with seven tracks of epic singing.
Introduction to Mongolian Art, Folk Tradition, and Music - a brief overview, including a little on epics.
'JANGAR Epic', compiled by T. Dugersuren, Poligraf Publishing Press, Ulaanbaatar, 2000, 704 pages. US$18.00, ISBN:99929-5-032-2. This book of the epic consists of 35,000 lines, compared to Homer’s Iliad of 15,693 lines.
“The romantic figure of the blind travelling minstrel accompanying his tales of past heroes on the gusle, a type of one-stringed fiddle, features prominently in Serb art and literature as a symbol of national identity and culture unbroken by five centuries 'under the Turkish yoke'. Like all nationalist myths there's a fair amount of truth in it and, although even this particular epic tradition, the most developed in Europe, may only stem from the sixteenth century in its present form, it deals with legends from the remote past as well as historical events dating as far back as the fourteenth century.
Although the tradition of the sung epic flourished throughout Croatia and Bosnia as well as Serbia, it was particularly identified with the tiny mountain kingdom of Montenegro, which in its remote independence and old-fashioned patriarchal society retained the conditions in which it could flourish. It is in Montenegro that most present-day (rarely blind) guslari are still found.
The poems, which many be thousands of lines long, are intoned in a strained and pinched voice rather than sung. The melody is more a set of patterns to carry the words and aid the performer's memory than it is a tune, and a listener who doesn't understand the words will come away with the impression of unvaried and wearisome monotony. But it is in the words that the interest lies. They speak of entirely legendary subjects; or historical figures become legendary, like the prince Kraljevic Marko whom they transform from a minor nobleman of doubtful loyalties into a mighty warrior against the Turks, aided by his horse Sarac, who could speak and drink wine like a man; or the hajduks, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social bandits who took to the hills and swept down to rob and murder rich travellers, at the same time providing an unofficial resistance to Ottoman rule. The most important of them is a loose cycle of poems that cluster around the battle of Kosovo Polje when the Serbians were conquered catastrophically by the Turks in 1389. These tales of fate, heroism and treachery set the agenda for much of Yugoslav literature.
Even now epic poems are still composed about contemporary subjects. They are normally about trivial subjects, such as the untimely death of a promising young footballer, but in 1991 a tape by Djordjije Koprivica appeared on sale with a new epic called 'Devil's Kolo on Goli Otok' (words by Zarko Sovic) which deals with the infamous prison camp of that name.”
Kim Burton , 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
The monotony of epic-singing referred to above is of course from a musical perspective and is a common factor in most epic traditions because it is deliberate. The storyteller puts the audience into a deep trance by the use of poetic metre, and repetitive voice and music. In such a state the audience receives the story deeply, and the teller, who also is entranced, can better remember the thousands of lines of poetry.
Epic Singers and Oral Tradition, Albert Bates Lord. Cornell University Press 1991. ISBN 0-8014-9717-5 (paperback). Chapter 4 is devoted to Avdo Mededovic, the great Montenegrin guslar (1870-1955), telling his life story and his epic achievements. He knew 58 epics, each several thousand lines long. When challenged to repeat an epic of over two thousand lines that he had just heard for the first time he immediately did so while expanding it to three times the length with descriptive poetic ornament. The book also covers the Kalevala, South Slavic, Homeric, British, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Central Asiatic and Balkan epics. Five video clips of a lecture by Lord on the themes of Performance and Performer: The Role of Tradition in Oral Epic Song, along with detailed text extracts from another of Lord's books, can be found here.
The variety of the region’s indigenous musical traditions (such as ahouach, amarg, ganga) come together during the festival of the Argan Tree [in Essaouira]. The Regraga to the north commemorate their discovery of Islam when, according to legend, they sent the famous seven men (sab’atu rijal) on a journey to Mecca to find out about the Prophet and his new religion through a major moussem (festival) that includes more than 40 days of storytelling and troubadour music (halqas, shikhates, and the aita).
Dr. Anouar Majid, Tea and the Atlantic
The whare wananga of the Maori are professionals responsible for keeping and reciting the oral history of the tribe.
“As in Transylvania most village bands in Wallachia are comprised of gypsies: the groups are generally named Taraf and then their village name. The lautari (musicians) are professionals who play a vital function in village life at weddings and other celebrations. In Romanian the verb cînta means both 'to sing' and 'to play an instrument', and the lautari of Wallachia usually do both. Whereas in Transylvania the bands play exclusively dance music, the musicians in the south of the country have an impressive repertoire of epic songs and ballads which they are called on to perform. There might be specific marriage songs or legendary tales like 'Sarpele' (The Snake) or exploits of the Haidouks, the Robin Hood brigands of Romanian history.”
Simon Broughton , 'World Music: The Rough Guide', ed. Simon Broughton et al, 1994.
Comprising most of eastern Siberia, Sakha (pronounced sa-HA) is as big as India and as empty and remote as Iceland. This is the largest of the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation and one of the coldest places on earth. The Yakuts descend from Turkic nomads who were related to the Uighurs and the Kyrghyz.
With a culture related to other Turkic people's, heroic epic is important to the Yakuts, and is called Olonkho (pronounced O-lan-HOE). They average 10 - 15 thousand poetic lines, reaching up to 20,000 or more.
Olonkho are performed without accompaniment, there being no native instruments, usually at festivals, over several nights. The monologues of the Olonkho heroes are sung, the rest is recited in a fast singsong voice, always by solo men. In Olonkho songs the roles are distinguished by various timbres and tones: the songs of the heroes by bass, young bogatyrs by tenor, and the abaasy (evil spirit) bogatyrs of the lower world by a deliberately incorrect rough voice.
Both the Yakut and the Dolgan (a reindeer-breeding ethnic group) greatly revere storytellers. They particularly favour animal tales that tell about the origin of the different clans.
“The narration of the Olonkho starts with kidnapping by the evil character - abaasy - of the hero's sister or with Aiyy people requesting to protect a girl from the abaasy. In some others the hero himself departs to look for a wife. On his way he meets all sorts of difficulties. The hero has to defeat the abaasy - terrible monsters, who are often one-eyed and one-legged. The fight occurs in the form of a single combat: when the weapon is not helping, they use their fists. The hero (although just like abaasy) has a talent of turning into different animals and things, and in those appearances he overcomes huge distances, high mountains, fire seas, etc. Having defeated all his enemies, the hero marries. Then new adventures related to their return start. Finally, the hero returns to his homeland. Since then he is not into heroic deeds any more, but lives quietly, takes care of his homestead and brings into the world big posterity.”
Sakha-Yakutia Culture - a fairly detailed introduction, including a little history, mythology, cosmology, and the storyline and content of Olonkho.
Olonkho - a short overview of the subject. The link to the Ysyakh summer solstice festival, where 'uncontrolled happiness' and Olonkho contests take place, shows some beautiful photos of the Yakut people, though none apparently of epic-singing.
Olonkho text here is the full text of just the first song of Olonkho, nevertheless very long.
All About Yakutia - mainly geo-political facts etc. but there's a summary of the creation myth and some details of the Ysyakh festival.
[See Montenegro entry for more details on guslars and Serbian traditions.]
Epic narratives in verse are called epske pesme, and are performed (often in cafes) by guslars - epic singers who accompany themselves on the one-stringed gusle.
The following description is from a children's educational book of 1913 (follow the link for an illustration):
“...he ushered in a blind minstrel (Guslar). There were loud and repeated expressions of pleasure at this unexpected arrival, for the Guslar was no stranger to the members of this settlement. [...] He was followed by a boy of about twelve years, who acted as his guide as he made his way from village to village, reciting the great national songs and accompanying them on the musical instrument (Gusle) which he carried with him. The children clamored at once for songs; but this was not permitted until the singer had partaken of food and drink. After these were placed before him and the youth with him, the young married women of the Zadruga continued to hover near, to anticipate any wishes and thus show him honor.
When he had concluded, he told something of his journeying and then began the welcome evening entertainment with one of the never-old stories [...] He could not have desired a more attentive audience, as he slowly chanted a couple of lines, then paused, and gave a few strokes on the Gusle from which he got his name, then proceeded. This Gusle, like all of its kind, was a very primitive instrument, made of maple, the cavity covered by a tightly stretched skin, and the strings formed of horse hair. Its dull tone had something strangely pathetic about it, and added a particular emphasis to the words chanted.
When he finished, and had had time for rest, he proved his wonderful memory by giving the long Servian poem--considered by many the finest in the language--of Ban Strahinya and another wonderful horse, and the victory of the two over the terrible Turk, Vlah-Ali. "But the just God was with Ban Strahinya; His grey horse was trained well for the combat; Such a war steed to-day there is nowhere; Neither the Servians nor Turks now possess such!" This last poem contained over eight hundred lines, and the old minstrel was plainly exhausted at the end. As the last line was said all arose and expressed their hearty thanks, one or two almost reverently kissing the old Guslar's hands, and then all separated for the night.”
Clara Vostrovsky Winlow, Our Little Servian Cousin, 1913.
Udovica Jana - or "The Widow Jana," an epic performance by Aleksandar Jakovljevic accompanying himself on the gusle, recorded in 1954 in the village of Orasac, 80 km. south of Belgrade. The audio clip is an extract just five minutes long. There are also pages of informative commentary on this epic and on the traditions of the guslars of the region who sing such epske pesme.
Avdo Kino - In the years 1934-35, Milman Parry's ethnographic research in the former Yugoslavia yielded over 3500 aluminum disks of recordings of South Slavic heroic songmaking, plus a wealth of transcripts. There was also this one short "kino" [film] recording of Avdo Mededovic, whom Parry considered the "most talented" of all the singers he worked with. This two-minute video clip is sufficient to see and hear the nature of epic-singing, but not to give the full sense of the magic and entrancement that the rhythmic chanting is designed to cause in the audience.
The Serbian Oral Tradition - long essay, mainly on epics - their nature, contents and prominent place in the history of Serbia and its culture. It notes that there are references to the guslar tradition going back to the fifteenth century and before. The Encyclopaedia Britannica only refers to it dating from the seventeenth. Oral traditions are often impossible to date, as in general they began long before writing anyway and have not always been valued by literary chroniclers.
Serbian Epic Poetry - nine examples of traditional epics, mostly fragments, with some background information and a glossary.
“Praise poems (isibongo) are composed by praise poets (iimbongi, singular imbongi, in Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu and Swati)) whenever an occasion arises or whenever there is something to recite an isibongo about. An imbongi can compose a praise poem about virtually anything. For example, there may be praise poems about people, animals, natural phenomena, important events (good or bad), life and death. ...One may find isibongo of censure, elegiac ones, besides ones of real praise. Isibongo are composed on the spur of the moment. ...An imbongi wears a special dress, usually animal skins, a hat called isidlokolo in Xhosa. A praise poet may be a special imbongi for a chief or king. The only qualification that one needs is expertise in praise singing.”
S.C. Satyo, International Dictionary of Literary Terms
“Praise poetry is a genre shared by all the peoples of Africa South of the Sahara, and probably by all human beings in the past. Forms of the imbongi, the praise singer, can even be traced back at least in written form to Ur-Nammu, the founder of the third dynasty of Ur [2060 B.C]. When a Sumer king is praised as a 'true off-spring engendered by a bull, speckled of head and body', as a 'mighty warrior born of a lion' the metaphors are similar to those we hear in the praises of Nelson Mandela ['When two bulls clash, with one a speckle-back beast, go round its hindquarters, to check its back is arched.'], as are other common devices of oral literature, i.e. linking, cross-linking, parallelism, cross-parallelism, anaphora, kenning etc.
Many of the stylistic features of these ancient songs can still be found in present day Sotho, Xhosa, Shona or Zulu praise songs. Physical power, courage and bravery are attributes highly valued. Even if 'the traditional praise-singer, the imbongi, is at work in the name of a new chief - the union.' and even if the subject of his song is nowadays often 'a metaphorical warrior in a metaphorical battle', the imbongi remains, he still 'writes with his spear'.”
Peter Horn, The 'imbongi' and the 'people's poet'
Zolani Mkiva - short article (and photo) about this imbongi who travelled the world as Nelson Mandela's presidential praise singer. A feature film was made about him - Mandela's Poet Laureate: Zolani Mkiva.
The 'imbongi' and the 'people's poet' - long article on the relationship between praise singers and South African politics. Many examples of the words of such praises, and various details of the tradition.
“Unlike West Africa, there are no professional storytellers or djelis in Swaziland or the surrounding region (Mozambique, South Africa etc). That is, it is usually the older people, men or women, who are respected and appreciated for their way of speaking and telling stories. But storytelling is an integral part of the educational process and children are told and taught stories from a very early age. Parents, relatives and adults in general tell stories to the young. The way this is done is simple but effective.
During my stay in M'babane, the capital city, I met an older woman who was studying Siswati and Kwazulu, praise chanting, but who of course also knew the traditions of her people and country. I visited this woman's home and her grandchildren were with her that day. She invited me to witness how they told and communicated stories. She would tell the story through, pausing after more or less lengthy phrasings, and then ask the children
