Defence Case: Exhibit A

I promised in my last posting to lay a reasonable Salia Koroma claim to the 'authorship' of the Yohmeh or ballad published in "free translation" in the March 1948 issue of Man. In the absence of Dr Little's research papers a reasonable claim is all I can make here; but I think there're enough clues in the article and my own research to believe Salia our Mende musician.

Where in the world is...? Little's "middle Mende country" comprises some six chiefdoms in present day Bo District. One of these is the Bumpeh Ngawo Chiefdom, about 13 miles west of Bo Town. Now, from the evidence of the book published in 1951 we know that Dr Little passed some research time in that chiefdom. Right about that time a young Paramount Chief, a chief who was to have the most influence as a patron on Salia's career, was the chief. That Paramount Chief was Francis Kposowa, a former teacher, at once modern and very respectful of old chiefly traditions. Salia and his patron were about the same age and from the first time they met at a durbar they had a special bond. This is apocryphal, but it's said that PC Kposowa called his sub-chiefs and elders and presented his special musician, Salia, asking them to accord the musician, wherever he may find himself in that chiefdom, the respect they'd give the PC himself. It was in this same chiefdom that Schulze ( quoted in an earlier post) recorded Salia and noted him touring in his own Land-Rover. I'd believe that the Land-Rover was the chief's. The relationship between patron and artist lasted for almost twenty years, until the chief's death in the late 1960s. It was probably this chief and his court that Little saw been regaled by the accordionist in the evenings.

The One & Only: Of course in Mende country itself there's always been one accordionist: Salia. That may not have been the case in reality, but older people I asked some years back couldn't come up with any other name. Salia said his father had pupils but it would seem that these didn't make a career of their learning, perhaps because they saw little future in the life of a minstrel in the new Protectorate. Salia himself gave up playing full-time for a short period, taking the train to the Colony and joining the colonial police force in Freetown. He returned to the Protectorate shortly before the outbreak of World War II and settled down to what his father had wanted of him from the start. It was this short sojourn in the colony that was the obvious inspiration for the prelude of the ballad that was to fascinate Dr Little and others. Hanging up his uniform to return to the hinterland, Police Constable 377 Salia Koroma could compare Town and Country in the most vividly poetic and personal way. And if there's anything about a Salia composition, it's the prominence given to the singer's personal life and experiences. No other Mende singer did (does) that. But I'm already anticipating the next piece of evidence!

In the next posting I shall be doing some 'intertextual' work to bolster my claim of a Salia 'authorship' of Dr Little's translation and all that flowed from it. ('Intertextual'! There you are, I said it! I was aiming to avoid any technical jargon or buzz-word in this notebook. I'll succeed yet!) That means that, in effect, I'll be taking the Kenneth Little "free translation" and comparing it as a 'text' to the yohmie I have in my possession. This is in order to see where, even in a loose translation, some words and phrasings can be said to be unique to Salia Koroma.

*The photo is of the 1961 Independence Chiefs' Durbar, held on the occasion of the Queen's visit that year. Durbars or chiefs' assemblies were a feature of the British Protectorate. A section of Bo, Durbar Grounds, is named for those chiefs' conventions. Photo:(c) Sierra Leone Web.

A Case for the Prosecution

Which Salia Koroma? Mende Singer, Please: In March 1948, 60 years ago this year, Kenneth Little published a "free translation" of a song by a Mende singer who was then in the "service of a chief in middle Mende country." Three years later he'd publish The Mende of Sierra Leone. That 1948 article was quite logically an outgrowth of his research for the 1951 book. Of course Dr Little was mum on the identity of this musician who "accompanied himself on an accordion" and sang "a traditional form of song known as the Yohmeh, which has a certain similarity to the European ballad."

That the singer's name wasn't mentioned at all is indicative of the anthropologist's main interest in the people he "investigated" (to use his own term). Our Liverpudlian detective- one of the best in the matter- had tracked down a source but in the general interest of the case, the exhibit should be presented without divulging the source. The source (or the informant, in the jargon of the discipline) goes into The Witness Protection system, the reason for which the jury are left scratching their heads. But it's clear to those in the investigation business: The musician could've been only representative of tribal life and his song an artefact of tribal production, exemplifying, in Little's words, "a prominent cultural pattern in Mende life." After all, Anthropology, this science of the primitive, for and by the civilised seeks to define a whole society; its seeks to bring out "a pattern." To do that, the particular is portrayed as the universal; the artist, an individual with his idiosyncratic observation of his own society is projected as the norm. And the informant, quite obviously for his own protection, is sent off to wander down an ever-narrowing tunnel of cracked mirrors set up by the Detective Sub-Inspector.

Salia 'goes on patrol' down the tunnel: Dr Little had no idea just how narrow that tunnel would get. In 1966 Leonard W. Doob published an excerpt from Dr Little's article as a "Mende Poem," a very lax title, if you can imagine one. Given what 'Sub-Inspector' Little had handed him, Doob perhaps had few options as to the choice of titles. Or perhaps he'd painted himself into a very tight corner by the title of his collection of poems. No matter! Other publications would take that and run away with it, all of them fixated on the poetic prelude of the ballad.

For me, though, taking the cake was a book full of irony as it was with utter ignorance, and this for something that was ostensibly to impart knowledge and awareness. In the 1990s an anthology of poems for secondary schools was in use in Sierra Leone. The title of that precious anthology escapes me now; I gave it nothing more than a passing glance then. In any case, I was leafing through this book one day. It had the usual suspects of first and second generation African poets writing in European languages: your David Diops, your John Pepper-Clarkes, etc. You know, the usual suspects. Well, there, on a page all its own, sticking out in its monstrous anonymity was... Of course, it was our "Mende Poem!"

The girl who owned the book had no idea who the composer was, and her teacher hadn't told the class, quite obviously being as empty as his/her charges. I wonder if she believed me when I told her who had composed the 'poem," that he was now an old man living about 250 miles from where she was in Freetown.

How could she have known, poor girl, drunk on everything but what belongs to her? Our investigating officer, who had also prosecuted the case for the Crown, had presented the case he wanted. In the process, recognition had been withheld from whomever it was due. Case closed, what else do you want?

Yes, that Salia. Get him out of there! I'll be laying out the case that the "singer...in the service of a chief in middle Mende country" was none other than Salia Koroma. It's going to be a meticulously pieced-together case that I'll be presenting. I can't do it justice at a go. So it's going to be little piece by little piece. You'll see the beauty of it. To close my case I'll present that famous "Mende" poem, as composed and sung by Salia Koroma. I'll say: "Behold!" Or more appropriately: "Hark!"

The New Masters of the Universe

It's always interesting to see the development of an artist's ideas over any length of time. With this new posting we get to see how one particular Salia Koroma theme evolved over the length of over forty years. In 'Ko Sao' Salia identified with the changes that his generation was going through. In 'Jia Yengele' (Walk softly) posted here the theme of change's treated a bit differently.

In the recording I'm posting here, the strutting younger man of yore is now a fuzzy memory, a memory rooted in the time he caroused with his patrons all over Mendeland. In 'Jia Yengele' the old man looks back at changes during his life. He reflects on the system of inverted values that have come to characterise society; it's a place he doesn't fully recognise; a place more restless than it had ever been. Here's a generation bereft of sound values, ignorant of its past, and fed on the pap that their story began with the hook-up with the desultory history of the Sierra Leone Colony. From a hierarchical, if stultifying, system in which everyone didn't always have their place in the sun, they'd been incorporated into a disorderly, even chaotic one. To this generation, Salia Koroma becomes a prophet, telling them to be careful for something comes. How could he have known that some five or so years after this recording, this chaos and tumult would turn into full-blown mayhem?

At the end of 'Ko Sao,' Salia Koroma used the metaphor of the fish basket stuck in a good fish hole (the accordion in the Bondo) and that of a strutting cockerel. No such arrogance now; and certainly no linguistic showing-off now. At the start and close of 'Jia Yengele' an old man calls for help. Given that those chiefly patrons who treated him as if he was royalty himself were now all dead, he turns to the new Masters of the Universe as we know them in Sierra Leone, those who're men enough to storm the House (of Parliament).
That, in itself, is an inversion of values, enough to make someone who'd hobnobbed with the samanga cry!


Jia Yengele from Nikiibu on Vimeo.

Dilemma, dilemma.

Well, I'm facing the most delicious of dilemmas, if you can imagine. I'm having to choose whether to make a logical conclusion to the 'Ko Sao' posting or to put up one of my favourite Salia Koroma recordings.

Let me explain. I'm tempted to put up next a recording that Salia did in about 1986, at the age of 83, that is thematically related to 'Ko Sao.' In that song we see a stark contrast in the singer's world view as compared to the one in 'Ko Sao.' We see a young man's swagger become an old man's shuffle ( a very old man's shuffle). From the younger man's urgent playing style we arrive at a more measured style; the tired voice contrasts with the former firm voice. But it's the difference in points of view that's of most interest.

Now to the other problem. It's a problem only because I wanted to showcase this Salia Koroma composition on the 60th anniversary of its (translated) publication in an academic journal. Of course, Salia wasn't credited as the "professional... Mende singer in the service of a chief in middle Mende country... who accompanied himself on an accordion..." (Man, March 1948, No.26). I want it up before the year is out.

Would you believe it? There it is again- thinking through! So I'll go with the thematic tie-in first. Much has been said about that theme and its social and personal contexts in the last two Salia Koroma postings. So when I put up the song within the next few days it'll need nothing more than a brief preface. The other song needs more introduction because it presents more problems. So as soon as the first song is out of the way I'll start a gradual introduction to the song that celebrates its 60th textual publication this year. I hope to give it as a New Year offering to the spirit of our late and unappreciated poet, Salia Koroma.

Can any good thing come from Nazareth?

It'd seem premature now for stock-taking, wouldn't it? After all, it's only been a little over a month since this trip started and I believe there's still some road ahead.

Setting out wasn't all that easy for me in the first place. What, me? Add to the dross that's out there? Add to the rot and sheer horror?

The answer (if I've to tell you) was, well, why not? At least it'll be my rubbish, my rubbish to afflict you with, and that's something. At least I'll be attempting to tell our own story, in our own voice, in a language that's ours, in an accent that we understand, with a flavour that speaks to who we're, a story whose every nuance we discern and apprehend no matter how it's couched.

That explains, to a large extent, the place I've given Salia Koroma. I've seen a 'video' or two of S.E. Rogie's music floating on the effluent that is Youtube, and God knows the images have nothing to do with the music to which they are tacked. What has a music with sometimes purely carnal love as its subject (that expression means I'm been tactful, not moralistic) to do with images of mutilation? Some lazy, not to say brain-dead, sap out there told themselves: 'well, why not, for can anything good come from... there?'

So what I'm doing with Salia Koroma is my way of telling our story. But above all, it's my way of thinking through what engages me in Salia's work. It's my attempt to crystallise, systematise, and articulate, for myself, as best as I can, something that I love. That way I can move beyond the tautological fascination that people tend to have with what engages their heart.

BOOKREST 2

"Argument:

Man flees suffocation.
Man who, with his incredible appetite, seals himself in without having done stocking up will free himself by his own hands, rivers suddenly risen.
Man, whose edge is grown dull through forebodings, who deforests his inner silence and arranges it into dramatic parts, the latter is the maker of bread.
To some, prison and death. To the others, the transhumance of the Word.
To exceed the limit of creation, to raise the blood with action, duty of all light.
We hold the ring where are chained side by side, here the fiendish nightingale, and there the angelic key.
On the jagged peaks of our bitterness, the dawn of conscience rushes forward and deposits its silt.
August mellowing. One dimension lasts through the ripening of the other. Hostile dimensions. Banished from the harness and the nuptials, I strike the iron of unseen hinges."

--Char, Fureur et mystère (translation by Nikiibu, selection from the Nov/Dec. Reading)

New Ideas for Changing Times

I wrote in the previous post that I'd revisit the song "Ko Sao" to clarify issues raised by the singer, or rather to give context to the song. I'd attempt that here.
I wrote in the posting First Among Equals that Salia Koroma was born just seven years after Governor Cardew promulgated his protectorate over the land lying outside the Sierra Leone Colony. That Salia Koroma lived well into his tenth decade made him a witness to and an actor in the many changes that were to occur in Mende society. This longevity, spanning the early British influences in the hinterland, spanning Independence, coups and counter-coups and the start of the civil war, permitted Salia Koroma to see value systems evolve and change.

"Since they brought in this N.A., how the princes have sunk into deep slavery:" Among these changes were those that directly impacted on the system of hierarchical relationships that had existed before the Protectorate. First to be targeted were the powers wielded by the chiefs; larger political units were carved up, or vassal units of a large chiefdom were granted outright autonomy on the basis that their chiefs had "signed" treaties of friendship. Next to be targeted was the system of domestic slavery that had been the main source of princely wealth. The 1927 (yes, that recently!) Abolition Ordinance brought an end to slavery in what was then the Protectorate. At about the same time, what we know today as the N.A. system was brought in, effectively making chiefs functionaries of the colonial system ( and then the central government today.) There were cosmetic changes as well: whereas the symbol of princely office in Mendeland had been the ceremonial ivory tusk(buli), the colonial system issued each chief a staff as the new symbol, a pale imitation of the royal sceptre that obtained (obtains) in Britain. Things haven't changed with Independence.

"Since Freetown came, this Sierra Leone, everyone's a freeman:" These changes in power relationships were to have profound effects on society at large. There were educational opportunities as well as economic opportunities opened up by the colonial system to all in society, changes that helped define a new pattern of ties and kinship. Between freemen and former slaves, between husbands and wives, and between parents and children new power relationships were in negotiation. The chiefs could no longer be the only wealthy people in society. Trade and mining could now make every Lahai, Vamboi and Vandi a somebody. And with the advent of national politics, government ministers and even backbench M.P.s could give the chiefs a run for their money as to who best can give favours. Serious competition!
Children could strike out on their own, far away from the native village and make a life for themselves. An industrious wife in the countryside could gain a level of financial autonomy by gathering palm kernels and selling these at a produce store in the next town. Authority at all levels was, if not threatened, at least in an unstable stage of renegotiation as a direct result of the new shifts in societal and individual attitudes. The railway and the lorry made the first restless horde of young people criss-crossing the country feel themselves to be colonial governors or District Commissioners (D.C.'s) 'going on patrol,' touring the counrty.
This is what Salia Koroma made the very stuff of his songs:the realities of the individual and those of the community at times intersecting, often barely touching. These shifts were to become the context in which Salia, as an artist, worked, and these were to become the very content of his work. To do otherwise would've made his work irrelevant.
A New Language for the New Man: "Ko Sao" picks up new language to reflect a new reality. Only alien words would adequately bespeak an alien attitude: 'Patrol' (travel), 'Fit-yai' (Krio, to disrespect). And the overarching language would be money, penneh (penny, money). For the singer, his attitude as an individual in the new reality of colonialism is grounded in the symbolically vivid language and vision of his beloved Mende country: "Folo geh loh a ngevo..." (The sun's end is the dry season...) Each term of the comparision makes the careful listener ask, shouldn't it be the other way round? Perhaps Salia Koroma asked himself that question, because in later compositions, he, this gifted artist, could no longer find his being and purpose in his patron. He becomes the thorn that makes the chiefs, the branches, dreaded; and the patron can only be considered important because Salia Koroma sang for them.
Attitudes had indeed changed.


***Most of the photos in the 1926-28 time frame in this slideshow are from the Internet Missionary Photography Archive (IMP-SOA);the others are from various other collections. In each case the photograph(s) belong(s) to the original copyright holder.

A Swaggering and Restless Generation

Not your grandmother's ways...
I'm putting up a complete Salia Koroma piece in this post, complete with a video montage. (Finally!) The song-"Ko Sao"- is in the vein of the many wonderful three-minute long gramophone records he did between the 1940s and 1960s.
What's remarkable about these vignettes is the tightness with which the various strands are woven. A story is told in mostly plain language and no aphorisms, with Salia Koroma focusing on the theme of conservation and a restlessness devoid of progress. The philosophising will come with old age. What we end up listening to in each of these economical compositions is something that is as coherent as it's charming.
"Ko Sao"(But no!), though probably recorded in the 1940s, based on the sentiments expressed, is the composition of a younger man. The song is divided into two parts. In the first half of the song, Salia Koroma contrasts his generation with that of his grandparents'. In the second half, the singer declares a personal manifesto in light of his generation's way of looking at life. And this personal credo is expressed in poetic terms. Miss that and you miss the whole song.
Another post will follow soon, giving a little more context to the themes in the song.
Enjoy, you Happy Few!

Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com

Tales of wars...

The Gendemeh Famine* came, people survived it.
Here we're, going strong.

The Kaiser's War came: they fought it;
Here we're, going strong.

Hitler's War came: it was fought;
Here we're, going strong.
(.......)
That's why today, with things so hard
If you're really brave
You'll have your own tale to tell tomorrow.

--Salia Koroma

*Gendemeh Famine, c. 1909/10. Translation & artwork by Nikiibu.

BOOKREST 1

this yielding enchantment...

"The man and the woman brought together by the agency of love remind me of the hull of a boat moored by its hawser to the spell of the pier. This burble, this yielding enchantment, these incessant nips, the nearness of the abyss, and above all, this fugitive assuredness: a tie-up between the storm and the lull."

-Char, fragment 64, A une sérénité crispée (in Recherche de la base et du sommet)
Translation and sketch by Nikiibu

First Among Equals

What was it that made Salia Koroma stand out among his peers? There were other accomplished Mende musicians during the many decades that Salia Koroma lived, but for some reason these musicians' singing careers were for the most part rather short. I can name here Isata Nyambe and Gbakie in the 1960s and 1970s.In the 1980s and early 1990s there were Ami Kallon and Jenneh Koroma. And all these musicians sang in the same balladry tradition of Salia Koroma.
But for popularity and sheer length of career Salia Koroma outshone each and every one of them. And he was as popular with notables as he was with commoners because his material had a richness that surpassed that of the others, a lyricism that still astounds the listener today.
Precisely on account of the time of his birth, his longevity, and because of the length of his career, Salia Koroma bridged the gap between pre-colonial and post-colonial Mende country in its balladeering tradition. Salia was the transmitter of that tradition in more than a figurative way, having been handed the baton by his minstrel father who had in all likelihood served the chiefs of pre-Protectorate Mende country. One shouldn't forget that the British Protectorate over the hinterland of Sierra Leone was only seven years old when Salia was born, so that when Bobboi Kandoh handed his boy Salia Koroma that accordion he was effectively handing over to the 9-year old the language, expressions, experiences and world view of pre-1896 Mendeland. Every Salia Koroma composition is a foray into a world that had virtually disappeared, hence the difficulty of the language.

An Overview of Salia Koroma's themes: Salia Koroma relates the past to an evolving society, exploring at the same time, however blindly, the future. His songs are woven out of the substance of experience, reflecting on the relationships existing between humans, between humans and a world that exists beyond the visible and the concrete world around them. Christian and Islamic ideas had intruded into the Mende world by Salia's birth, but their influences are hardly felt in Salia Koroma's songs. Salia counted himself a muslim; however the Mende perception of the spirit world is prominent (if not the only one) in Salia's songs. In effect, the idea of a partly seen, partly unseen cosmology rooted in an authentic African experience (expressed in a language that channels that experience) precludes every other world view in Salia's songs.
The songs as individual artistic expressions thereby become a residue of past human experiences as well as a treasury of social values in a world in full mutation. And the social values are what, exactly? Courage, industry, open-handed generosity and an ethos of communal goodwill; duty and deference to family and authority, in other words, the civility that marks out a well-ordered society.
Contrasted with that is the individualism that undermines and that often negates the older values. Salia Koroma, however, wasn't hypocritical enough to count himself always on the side of the older tradition, having participated fully in the new independence occasioned by the crumbling 'feudal' system that had existed prior to the advent of the Protectorate. (My next Salia post will illustrate these points with a 'video' montage of a complete Salia Koroma composition.)
I'll close this post (and this Themes section) by adding that the songs (Songs of Old Age? Songs of Experience?) underline the pitiful loneliness of old age, the irony of man's tragic condition of suffering and death played against a decor of vaingloriousness. The adventurer (I'm still talking about Salia Koroma, our minstrel), at the end of a long, hectic existence, now witnessing the passing away of one esteemed patron after the other, ponders his own mortal condition and declares that it wasn't worth it.

*** **** ***
**For the photo at the top of this page, I'd wish to thank Chad Finer at Sierra Leone I 1968-70, who's granted me permission to use his Salia Koroma picture. I've taken the liberty to crop the original for the purposes of this post. I shall put up the full picture at a later date. Chad Finer served in the Peace Corps in Kenema in the 1960s, where he took this picture of Salia Koroma in 1969 (Salia would've been 66 years old).

"When the great court gathered..."

Salia Koroma, M.A., O.R.R.S.L.
Salia's contribution to the cultural heritage of Sierra Leone is a well-established fact today, evidenced by the award of two honours before the singer's passing. The first recognition was a civil decoration, the Order of the Rokel (Republic of Sierra Leone), in the early1980's. A decade later, about two years before his death, Salia was awarded an honorary M.A. by the University of Sierra Leone. In a 1985/86 Government of Sierra Leone publication, Salia Koroma was listed among the 50 people who've contribution to the forging of the Sierra Leone nation and that of a distinct Sierra Leonean cultural identity.
Heady stuff for the nine-year old boy who'd left his native Njaluahun in 1912 in search of a father he believed would enrol him in one of the many mission schools that were sprouting all over Mende country at the turn of the century. For his school Salia was handed an accordion and told to go play for the Samanga, the Worthies of Mendeland.
With a hot warrior in your camp you go into battle without trembling If national and academic honours came late in his life, Salia's unique abilities were recognised right from the start in Mende country itself. And to this day he remains the single most favoured singer. It was quite common to hear contemporaries of the singer, our grandparents who spoke no other language but Mende, say this about Salia Koroma: "But the man knows the Mende language," or "What a clever man." What they noticed in what we thought was old people's music was Salia Koroma's artistic use of Mende, his ability to say so much in a little turn of a phrase. But Salia's primary audience were the chiefs and their courts, whose patronage, it would appear from the internal evidence of the songs, he didn't have to seek. That's how hot an artist he was. But such an evidence would be self-serving, wouldn't it? So we'll quote Gary Schulze who recorded Salia Koroma in 1962 for the Smithsonian Folkway Label (liner notes):

Salia Koroma, a man in his fifties,is one of the best known Mende singers in all of Sierra Leone. His instrument, the accordion, is of western import, but his songs deal with traditional themes of love, war, and death.He often reverts to a classical form of the Mende language not always readily understood by the younger generation.When Salia appears in a chiefdom, people journey from many miles around to hear him. He travels in his own Land-Rover, is in great demand by the Paramount Chiefs of Mendeland, and has made many commercial recordings of his songs, which he composes
himself.

Thanks isn't going to hurt, I'm sure.

Before I put up my next post, thanks are in order for Cocoa at Chocolate On My Cranium. This is a site I stumbled upon (as one often does for so many things on the net), and I've had loads of fun playing around with my site all because of the very excellent and dummy-proof instructions on her blog about customising the look and feel of a blog site. I filched quite a few design ideas from her. Also check out the ladies(?) at Smitten Blog Designs, and the fellow at Instigatorblog.com.

Come Right In...

This blog's finally up and running, and you're very welcome.
I've been working on this site for some time now, fiddling with this and that, all in an effort to come up with, firstly, something visually pleasing. I'm still working on that end (I'm one of the fussy ones).
As with form, so with content. In this instance I wrestled with the precise focus of this blog. Of course I had some ideas as to what I wanted to present, but choosing one over the other was the problem. In the end I've opted to cover a broad range of topics, with a limited focus on Salia Koroma, the greatest poet-musician Sierra Leone has had to date. In a sense, then, this site will be a Salia Koroma Vector.
So this certainly isn't another African music blog; that ground's well covered, thank you, Sir, Madam. And this isn't another public confessional.
This is just the start. I'm hoping this blogging thing will be a long, fruitful (and mostly enjoyable) journey. It might very well turn out to be not unlike the proverbial lorry that plies the route to Kpetewoma, strenuously lurching from side to bone-jarring side as it negotiates the potholes. You might call them craters; I'll call them harmless potholes. Hand your bag, bundle, whatever, to the motor-boy. Hop in. It's very empty now, our Kpetewoma lorry, but we hope to pick up other passengers along the way.
The plan's to give you a post or two each week. Do come back; I'll give you lots of Salia Koroma goodies.
And don't forget to leave your feedback: constructive comments, critiques, etc. If you don't get it, the only feedback I want is the one that feeds the ego you don't know I have. Your scorn, though, you can keep for yourself.

Seneo! Welcome!