May 15, 2009
Moving House...
Nikiibu Notebook will be moving into new digs within the week. This means that if you come here in the future, you'll be redirected to my new Wordpress address. Meantime, the usual tidying-up and preparations for the move are going on between here and the new address. I hope you continue to be among the Happy Few.
April 30, 2009
Vagrancy, Permanence and the Sense of Home 3
The nomad has, as one of his rewards, the landscape that opens itself up for discovery and an enlarging of the mind's horizon. And as he goes along we get a sense of his feelings in the way he reacts, by what he says about what he sees. Does he breeze through the land barely noticing things, or is he intensely aware of his surroundings?
Salia as our nomad in Fishing for Our Father meanders his way across the land, naming watersheds and situating them spatially. This spatial orientation reflects man's relationship to what he knows (and might even come to love). As the Mende saying goes: "When you don't know someone, you call them, 'Friend.'" (If you knew them you'd definitely call them by their names and not some condescending "my friend.") Salia knows the country and he names it appropriately. As he goes in circles like an eddy following the rivers and streams, he reflects on life, on the relationship between the cosmic and temporal realms. He digests and integrates what he comes across, hence the admixture of the outside world and the inner thinking of the nomad. But isn't that what we all do, taking in and integrating the situations we encounter in real life?
We can call Salia Koroma the singer-poet of the land on the strength of this one song. We see in his encyclopaedic enumeration the lyrical and elegiac, the national and personal come together beautifully. We see in this song, with its incantatory litany of place names and geographical features, an artist deliberately mapping out the spiritual and secular domains of man, and also the national and personal landscapes. In this light we see how deserved his national and academic honours were in his last years. This is a love song to our land and it touches us where it should; we feel the squelch and smell the mustiness of the rain-drenched earth; we see earth-coloured rivers, and we feel the dampness of our country in the rainy season. This was Salia Koroma's gift to us, that we see and feel differently and more intensely about the land he so loved and knew.
Salia as our nomad in Fishing for Our Father meanders his way across the land, naming watersheds and situating them spatially. This spatial orientation reflects man's relationship to what he knows (and might even come to love). As the Mende saying goes: "When you don't know someone, you call them, 'Friend.'" (If you knew them you'd definitely call them by their names and not some condescending "my friend.") Salia knows the country and he names it appropriately. As he goes in circles like an eddy following the rivers and streams, he reflects on life, on the relationship between the cosmic and temporal realms. He digests and integrates what he comes across, hence the admixture of the outside world and the inner thinking of the nomad. But isn't that what we all do, taking in and integrating the situations we encounter in real life?
We can call Salia Koroma the singer-poet of the land on the strength of this one song. We see in his encyclopaedic enumeration the lyrical and elegiac, the national and personal come together beautifully. We see in this song, with its incantatory litany of place names and geographical features, an artist deliberately mapping out the spiritual and secular domains of man, and also the national and personal landscapes. In this light we see how deserved his national and academic honours were in his last years. This is a love song to our land and it touches us where it should; we feel the squelch and smell the mustiness of the rain-drenched earth; we see earth-coloured rivers, and we feel the dampness of our country in the rainy season. This was Salia Koroma's gift to us, that we see and feel differently and more intensely about the land he so loved and knew.
Vagrancy, Permanence and the Sense of Home 2
A major motif running through the song Fishing for Our Father is vagrancy. It can be said, rightly, that the theme of vagrancy runs through all Salia's songs. In Ko Sao, he mentions the "patrol" fad that had seized his generation; in Yohmie Salia refers to himself as a nomad/homeless person, and then a kingfisher "building its nest on the wing." And I'm mentioning here only the songs I've put up so far.
In Fishing for Our Father the bondsman voluntarily becomes a nomad, or so it seems. Ostensibly, it's to purchase his freedom through hard work and suffering. It's a solitary enterprise in which those who choose not to participate can freely opt out. The imaginary slave sets out on an epic quest, through a world marked by green boughs floating on rushing flood waters. It's a spiritual world. (Note that when Salia defines the njagbo, he does so not in terms of its physical characteristics, but rather in terms of its sacredness.) It's remarkable that it's a world empty of human beings, the one Salia composition in which the land is a character, so to speak. Here it's the slave-fisherman and his reflections on the world and on his own plight in a cruel and desolate landscape that dominate ("Fire! Fire! No escape this way, and we're all headed toward it").
A nomad, as we see in this composition, is a dream seeker. A nomad sets out with two possibilities ahead of him- the promise of discovery and making the most of that discovery, or at the other end, failure. A nomad sets out to barge into the sacred realm. For the bondsman in this song, freedom will be gained only when he finds and invades the sacred element that is the njagbo. Will he find it? If on the other hand he doesn't, what becomes of that dream?
In Fishing for Our Father the bondsman voluntarily becomes a nomad, or so it seems. Ostensibly, it's to purchase his freedom through hard work and suffering. It's a solitary enterprise in which those who choose not to participate can freely opt out. The imaginary slave sets out on an epic quest, through a world marked by green boughs floating on rushing flood waters. It's a spiritual world. (Note that when Salia defines the njagbo, he does so not in terms of its physical characteristics, but rather in terms of its sacredness.) It's remarkable that it's a world empty of human beings, the one Salia composition in which the land is a character, so to speak. Here it's the slave-fisherman and his reflections on the world and on his own plight in a cruel and desolate landscape that dominate ("Fire! Fire! No escape this way, and we're all headed toward it").
A nomad, as we see in this composition, is a dream seeker. A nomad sets out with two possibilities ahead of him- the promise of discovery and making the most of that discovery, or at the other end, failure. A nomad sets out to barge into the sacred realm. For the bondsman in this song, freedom will be gained only when he finds and invades the sacred element that is the njagbo. Will he find it? If on the other hand he doesn't, what becomes of that dream?
April 20, 2009
Vagrancy, permanence and the sense of home 1
The next series of 'video' montage postings will be dealing with a single song, which I've translated as Fishing for Our Lord. This is a rare treat because I shan't be putting up every Salia Koroma song in its entirety given the length of most of the ballads. With this particular song, I've chosen to edit it into about five sections. This first part deals with the prelude and a third of the quest for the njagbo. Be on the lookout for the other parts.
On the surface, it's a rather monotonous song with its refrain: "I didn't see any njagbo there," or "It didn't have any njagbo attached." Salia himself may have realised this, for in this 1980 version he chose to preface the song (in Krio), essentially telling the casual non-Mende listener that he's dealing with many things and not just repeating a line over and again. (I edited out that spoken preface here.) It's a very complex song thematically. In my next few postings I shall be discussing the song.
*** For the time being, pay attention to the lines about him not wanting to be any one's slave companion had he lived in the days when the old Mende wars raged. Note the hypothetical case. Some lines later when Salia ups and sets out fishing, the language changes in a very subtle way. He's no longer supposing; he's there; the conditionality of the earlier language is gone. What we see is that the first scenario (old wars/slavery days) is a poetic device, a peg on which he's going to hang many themes and explore them systematically. Note also the anachronisms. In the olden days there'd have been no airplanes, no electricity and things like that. But as I said, it's a poetic device, a clever way to treat disparate themes.
Once again, you very Happy Few, enjoy!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
On the surface, it's a rather monotonous song with its refrain: "I didn't see any njagbo there," or "It didn't have any njagbo attached." Salia himself may have realised this, for in this 1980 version he chose to preface the song (in Krio), essentially telling the casual non-Mende listener that he's dealing with many things and not just repeating a line over and again. (I edited out that spoken preface here.) It's a very complex song thematically. In my next few postings I shall be discussing the song.
*** For the time being, pay attention to the lines about him not wanting to be any one's slave companion had he lived in the days when the old Mende wars raged. Note the hypothetical case. Some lines later when Salia ups and sets out fishing, the language changes in a very subtle way. He's no longer supposing; he's there; the conditionality of the earlier language is gone. What we see is that the first scenario (old wars/slavery days) is a poetic device, a peg on which he's going to hang many themes and explore them systematically. Note also the anachronisms. In the olden days there'd have been no airplanes, no electricity and things like that. But as I said, it's a poetic device, a clever way to treat disparate themes.
Once again, you very Happy Few, enjoy!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
April 11, 2009
The Gramophone
I don't quite remember how we discovered it, my brother and I. Did we find it after we saw him or before we saw him? I'm not even sure I saw him, a child's memory can be so unreliable; and yet I think we saw him. I recall the crowd that suddenly filled one of our neighbours' front veranda, the orangey wash of the street light from the pole close by casting shadows everywhere. Night had just fallen and all the boys hadn't made their ways home yet from the football games for a wash. We were small and we had to find our way through the bigger bodies. Even for the games, we were mostly ball fetchers when the older boys were playing, or they'd ask you to play some "borbor-pain" role as their goalie. The hotness of the day that had just closed still sat on almost everyone, giving the veranda a more packed feeling than it really had. The adults were shouting at us to get out. Somehow, someone had spotted him on Tikonko Road and before he could sneak away that person had cried: "Salia Koroma's here!" They'd corralled him over, a crowd had gathered, and there he was. He had his instrument. But he didn't play. He didn't play for just any Joe Vamboi, Joe Vandi and Joe Vivii. But who cared?
But then I may be imagining that first encounter. I doubt it, though.
It was probably after that encounter that we discovered the gramophone. We'd climbed up into the rafters and seen it. From all the dust that was covering it, it was hard to say it was black. Well, it wasn't easy getting the dust off it; we never did get it off, as a matter of fact. (How can one talk matter-of-factly in such a case? You tell me.) The black cloth covering was peeling off and it was showing one dovetailed corner of the wooden frame in which the mechanism sat. Standing beside it was a Peak milk carton box with a stack of records in it, some bigger than others. How could we tell between 45s and 78s? That they were big and small was enough for us. Most of them, if my memory serves me right, had yellow labels. Was it the gramophone that had the logo of the dog sitting in front of a megaphone? Probably the records. HMV, it said.
We figured out how to work it. But the sound was disappointing, like playing a record on dead batteries. After that discovery, we couldn't leave the thing alone. It was a toy.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave my gramophone alone."
That was Av...h, our paternal grandpa. For some reason, we never got round to calling our paternal grandparents "Mama, and Maada," what we should have been calling them in the first place, titles which we had no problem calling our mum's parents. We called them by their first names. Blame papa; he called them by their first names, the only child that he was, so we did likewise.
Whether Av...h never told his son, or papa never took the complaints seriously, we continued to climb up into the rafters. It was quite easy. We just brought a dinning chair close to one of the windows, put a bench on top, stood on the bench, got a toehold on the sill and then in the strong wire mesh on the window, and, there you are! We never got a complete play from any record, as we always managed to under-crank the gramophone.
One day we were determined to get a full play and we duly set at getting our goal. The crank handle went slack, followed by a long sound of unwinding mechanism and a 'boing!' Yes, complete with an exclamation mark, take my word for it. That was the end of the gramophone. The records, mostly Salia recordings, were next to suffer from our mischief. They were gathering dust. We were then listening to Ochestre Muye and Sabannoh 75 records that were played for us children to dance to on some evenings. Ochestre Muye, Sabannoh 75 and others, with their Congolese-inflected music played on a modern electric record-changer, had consigned my grandfather's ancient gramophone to oblivion and the abuse of children. It was as if Salia were too ancient for anything new and fancy. So the Salia records became our Frisbee, with the result that you can well imagine.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave that gramophone alone." I know very well about the gramophone, but I never left those records alone, it would appear.
But then I may be imagining that first encounter. I doubt it, though.
It was probably after that encounter that we discovered the gramophone. We'd climbed up into the rafters and seen it. From all the dust that was covering it, it was hard to say it was black. Well, it wasn't easy getting the dust off it; we never did get it off, as a matter of fact. (How can one talk matter-of-factly in such a case? You tell me.) The black cloth covering was peeling off and it was showing one dovetailed corner of the wooden frame in which the mechanism sat. Standing beside it was a Peak milk carton box with a stack of records in it, some bigger than others. How could we tell between 45s and 78s? That they were big and small was enough for us. Most of them, if my memory serves me right, had yellow labels. Was it the gramophone that had the logo of the dog sitting in front of a megaphone? Probably the records. HMV, it said.
We figured out how to work it. But the sound was disappointing, like playing a record on dead batteries. After that discovery, we couldn't leave the thing alone. It was a toy.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave my gramophone alone."
That was Av...h, our paternal grandpa. For some reason, we never got round to calling our paternal grandparents "Mama, and Maada," what we should have been calling them in the first place, titles which we had no problem calling our mum's parents. We called them by their first names. Blame papa; he called them by their first names, the only child that he was, so we did likewise.
Whether Av...h never told his son, or papa never took the complaints seriously, we continued to climb up into the rafters. It was quite easy. We just brought a dinning chair close to one of the windows, put a bench on top, stood on the bench, got a toehold on the sill and then in the strong wire mesh on the window, and, there you are! We never got a complete play from any record, as we always managed to under-crank the gramophone.
One day we were determined to get a full play and we duly set at getting our goal. The crank handle went slack, followed by a long sound of unwinding mechanism and a 'boing!' Yes, complete with an exclamation mark, take my word for it. That was the end of the gramophone. The records, mostly Salia recordings, were next to suffer from our mischief. They were gathering dust. We were then listening to Ochestre Muye and Sabannoh 75 records that were played for us children to dance to on some evenings. Ochestre Muye, Sabannoh 75 and others, with their Congolese-inflected music played on a modern electric record-changer, had consigned my grandfather's ancient gramophone to oblivion and the abuse of children. It was as if Salia were too ancient for anything new and fancy. So the Salia records became our Frisbee, with the result that you can well imagine.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave that gramophone alone." I know very well about the gramophone, but I never left those records alone, it would appear.
April 05, 2009
"As we went Vonjo wept..."
1- On the way, Vonjo was crying. Musu Tolleh was crying.**
I said:
Musu, why're you crying? Indeed you've done a foolish thing.
If the hat on the head complains about foetid air,
What's the loincloth hanging around the hole to say?
...the trouble you've started isn't likely to bring you down."
As we went Vonjo wept. I said:
"Don't cry my Father.
Don't you know that with a valiant warrior in your camp you go to war without fear, Vonjo?
I'm here behind you.
There's no rock in Mendeland to sink a great man.
Don't fear!
The minnow-fish won't spawn a degbe;
So a poor man won't sire a prince.
The baboon isn't just any other animal;
Oh! A bush cow doesn't bolt down a hole at all."
(-Gangu Vonjo)
2- The wind that'll blow tomorrow is in the heavens
but it won't blow before its time;
Tomorrow's light is in the heavens
but it won't shine just yet;
Tomorrow's wind is in the heavens
but it won't blow on anyone before its time.
(-Seigbema)
3- "As God's my witness," a trapper scolds his son
"Since I gave birth to you you've refused to work for me. See the rope I'm making.
Who would you have to fight over it when I'm gone?"
-All that comes from poverty. Not so my people?
"The mature raffia-palm on the edge of the swamp-
When I clean it and tap it and I die
You and who will own it?"
-All that comes from poverty. Not so my people?
"See the weir on the stream over there?
When I shore it up with fresh palm branches and I die
You and who will own it?"
-All that comes from poverty. Not so my people?
(-Kabaima)
** Vonjo (Nyagua III) has been summoned to appear before the District Commissioner in Kenema. He and his retinue of courtiers, wives and musicians are been transported under military escort. Vonjo is probably thinking that the first Nyagua's fate is going to befall him. Salia tries to lift his spirits here.
April 02, 2009
A Man, an Axe, a Forest
"Man's debt to man will be forever in arrears," so wrote the New York Times literary critic William Du Bois in his 1948 review of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. Our debt to the artists that we love will be always in default, it would appear then. The artists- singers, novelists, sculptors, painters, and poets- that we love, how do we apprehend them? (And I'm playing on both senses of the word.) How do we understand and appreciate them? How do we capture their essence and a sense of whatever message they may be trying to pass on? How do we repay them?
For my part, we can only start to do something close to settling the account by a constant quest of the essence that they have, a regular, insistent questioning of what these artists present to us. Then and only then do we begin the process of apprehending. But there's a fugitive aspect to the whole enterprise. For just when we believe we have them cornered and bagged, they escape our grasp and blend in with the forest and a mocking tail beckons us still. Perhaps that's why we love these artists, because they're so elusive. Sometimes we're tempted to take the easy way out. They cease to be a quarry; instead we see them as the forest that gives them shelter. We're stumped by the opacity of that mass of trees. We take an axe to the forest presented before us and we start hacking at the towering trees, thinking that this way we'll finally bring light to the dark undergrowth. "You don't hand a man an axe in a forest earmarked for farming," so said Salia.
What if we tap around, in the dark, patiently trying to find our way into the light?
But isn't that what they do as well, these artists that we frequent? They're questioning. Always questioning. They repeat themselves in ingenious ways, hoping that taking a new direction would lead somewhere truthful and full of light and understanding. So I'll come back to Salia Koroma, constantly, always questioning; not with an axe in the forest that he presents. With him I'll be able to identify, even in my blind ignorance, a little bit of the Sierra Leonean landscape that he presents: a bamboo grove over a clear-running stream; a kolanut tree, an orange grove, an overgrown whetting/foundation stone, the remains of a round-house with its thatched roof caved in and overgrown, a termite-eaten mortar and pestle lying in the reclaiming forest, all a palimpsest of a once thriving village. With Salia as guide I'll come across the people that made up/that make up the Sierra Leonean landscape: the deceitful, the cunning, the cruel and power-drunk, the envious, the lustful, the ambitious poor, the section chief playing paramount chief, the jealous husband, the much put-upon junior wife in a polygamous household...
Salia Koroma is a discovery for me; or perhaps I should say rightly that he's a voyage of discovery. Discovery of new meanings. Discovery of new levels of meaning to what I think I already know. This is a an enterprise of appraisal. It's a not a homage. An homage would mean my eyes will be too close to the ground to appreciate, to see. An homage presupposes an awe-stricken attitude. No genuflections here, my brother. No alo akbas here, my sister.
For my part, we can only start to do something close to settling the account by a constant quest of the essence that they have, a regular, insistent questioning of what these artists present to us. Then and only then do we begin the process of apprehending. But there's a fugitive aspect to the whole enterprise. For just when we believe we have them cornered and bagged, they escape our grasp and blend in with the forest and a mocking tail beckons us still. Perhaps that's why we love these artists, because they're so elusive. Sometimes we're tempted to take the easy way out. They cease to be a quarry; instead we see them as the forest that gives them shelter. We're stumped by the opacity of that mass of trees. We take an axe to the forest presented before us and we start hacking at the towering trees, thinking that this way we'll finally bring light to the dark undergrowth. "You don't hand a man an axe in a forest earmarked for farming," so said Salia.
What if we tap around, in the dark, patiently trying to find our way into the light?
But isn't that what they do as well, these artists that we frequent? They're questioning. Always questioning. They repeat themselves in ingenious ways, hoping that taking a new direction would lead somewhere truthful and full of light and understanding. So I'll come back to Salia Koroma, constantly, always questioning; not with an axe in the forest that he presents. With him I'll be able to identify, even in my blind ignorance, a little bit of the Sierra Leonean landscape that he presents: a bamboo grove over a clear-running stream; a kolanut tree, an orange grove, an overgrown whetting/foundation stone, the remains of a round-house with its thatched roof caved in and overgrown, a termite-eaten mortar and pestle lying in the reclaiming forest, all a palimpsest of a once thriving village. With Salia as guide I'll come across the people that made up/that make up the Sierra Leonean landscape: the deceitful, the cunning, the cruel and power-drunk, the envious, the lustful, the ambitious poor, the section chief playing paramount chief, the jealous husband, the much put-upon junior wife in a polygamous household...
Salia Koroma is a discovery for me; or perhaps I should say rightly that he's a voyage of discovery. Discovery of new meanings. Discovery of new levels of meaning to what I think I already know. This is a an enterprise of appraisal. It's a not a homage. An homage would mean my eyes will be too close to the ground to appreciate, to see. An homage presupposes an awe-stricken attitude. No genuflections here, my brother. No alo akbas here, my sister.
March 22, 2009
"Are you being called Nyagua III?"
I made a promise in my last post to introduce two new elements to the Notebook. The Analecta is one of those elements. There's no need here to define what analects are, or to hold forth about the word. That'll be quite clear as we go along.
From time to time I shall be bringing you excerpts from the songs and stories of Salia Koroma: maxims and parables, quips, and reflections on the relationships between individuals and on those between man and his society; they touch on the relationship between rulers and subjects, between the fortunate and the less fortunate, and between the artist and the society in which he lives.
In each case I'll be doing my best to reference each saying to a particular song and ballad. Some are rather deep; those that seem light-hearted aren't necessarily so. Taken as a whole, the analecta show an artist who thought deeply on his subject matter; they show us an artist with a clear philosophical outlook on his art and on life. As he sought to enliven the ennui of the ruling class he served for most of his career, Salia was engaged also in educating his patrons and his fellow countrymen and women. These sayings show someone finely attuned to his people's cultural foibles and attitudes. What follow are the first segment.
*** **** **** ***
1-When a love affair's about to end, go plead with the talebearer.2-Things may be at their sweetest but they won't last. If you wish the world all for yourself, can you support it? If you've the world all for yourself, then know that God doesn't love you.
By yourself, the beasts will have you for their evening meal.
Fear! God will never love anyone to that extent.
3-Many rips require many patches.
4 -A noble person is the Town Drum, but a heathen won't beat it.
A noble person is the town's refuse dump, but a child won't throw their rubbish there.
A noble person in the town is a pile of dry leaves.
5-You don't hand a man an axe in a forest to be felled for farming. My father, there's no way you hand a man an axe in a forest to be felled for farming.
When I spoke these words of wisdom, the elders told me I was talking rubbish.
( all the above from Seigbema)
There I stood before him and asked him a riddle.6-The court had just gathered when I arrived in Kpanguma from Kenema.
There I met Gangu Vonjo installed as a prince. They were calling him Nyagua III.
There I met Gangu Vonjo installed as a prince. They were calling him Nyagua III.
I said-
"Is it you that's been elevated? Are you being called Nyagua III here in Kpanguma?
Well, if you don't own a gun don't flinch from wielding the sword.*
Oh, Gangu Vonjo! You'd be found wrong."
(-Gangu Vonjo)
*In a single line, Salia gives a complete history lesson.
Nyagua was sent into exile in the Gold Coast following the so-called 'Hut' Tax War of 1898, where he died in 1906. (In Mendeland it was called The White man's War, Puu Goie.) Did Gangu Vonjo know his history when he chose the title Nyagua III? In Mendeland it was common knowledge that Nyagua wasn't involved in the bloody uprising that started on April 27 1898. Had Nyagua failed to put up resistance, trusting in the treaties he'd signed with the British, or had he weighed the arms at his disposal against what Governor Cardew's Frontier Police had? Had he shied from the sword because he didn't have the Gatlin gun? Rulers make hard decisions. Will Nyagua III be like Nyagua?
Nyagua was sent into exile in the Gold Coast following the so-called 'Hut' Tax War of 1898, where he died in 1906. (In Mendeland it was called The White man's War, Puu Goie.) Did Gangu Vonjo know his history when he chose the title Nyagua III? In Mendeland it was common knowledge that Nyagua wasn't involved in the bloody uprising that started on April 27 1898. Had Nyagua failed to put up resistance, trusting in the treaties he'd signed with the British, or had he weighed the arms at his disposal against what Governor Cardew's Frontier Police had? Had he shied from the sword because he didn't have the Gatlin gun? Rulers make hard decisions. Will Nyagua III be like Nyagua?
March 12, 2009
Things to come
I shall be adding two new 'pages' to the Notebook in the coming days and weeks. They aren't things I came up with just like that, off the top of my head, so to speak. I'd been waiting for the moment to introduce these elements to NN, and I think now's the time to do some spicing up. So look out for what comes next.
February 25, 2009
"What has the sinker seen in the pool?"
You're a conceited lot! Indeed. "What has the sinker seen in the pool that it keeps bobbing wildly on the water?" Of course that line is not in the song the prelude to which I posted ("Salia sings of..."). The line is from another song, and though the subject matters of the two songs are different, for me, at least, it distills the attitude of those who'd look down on people from the countryside. That line signifies a general restlessness and a lack of depth (pun intended) that characterise townies as shown in this Salia Koroma composition. What have they seen in the town, popping in and out but still clueless as to the real meaning of what's important? They'd make sweeping statements about what they have, what they know, about the backwardness of the country and country folk. Other than the spirit of contempt, what else animates these rootless people? Those are the central questions Salia seems to be asking 1940s Sierra Leone (Colony and Protectorate; Town and Country). And these questions are valid sixty years on.
The need to know, the urge to tell... It's the place of Salia Koroma, the singer/poet to tell us the truth. And it isn't Truth with a capital T. That sort of truth, not even the poet/singer possesses. What he can boast of knowing, our composer, are those little truths that accrue from a keen and patient observation, little insights beyond the reach of the restless and the vain. Insights that need to have resonated with the singer/poet first. Insights that are a sincere, truthful and eloquent rendering of the troubadour's personal emotions and experiences. Otherwise he won't be speaking to us, no matter how imaginatively he seeks to engage us.
For Salia, this personal and general awareness gleaned from observation finds its value and weight in the restatements of a line and variations of that line. This anaphoric use becomes more than a poetic device; thus we're given a gradual unearthing of truths that are no less wonderful than would've been a blinding revelation. These restatements seem to be saying: 'You don't know what you're saying; if you did, you'd have observed that...' But we don't always see (or we refuse to see most of the time), so the artiste finds himself as if condemned to repeat what should be clear for all to see:
A coat lined with buttons... You're a conceited lot! For vanity to trump yours, I give you nothing humbler than a raffia grub. The other day I saw you strutting in your 'one-'n-six' check shirt. Have you had a look at the guinea hen? And you call yourselves civilised because you've a soldier in his shiny black boots walking around with his chest in the air, looking fierce. It's my guess you haven't seen a bush cow. It wears boots too, and it's no less brutal than your fancy soldier. As for the hats worn by your colonial bosses, look around. See that anthill? Or the monkey in the tree? Your colonial master's given your police (askari, Swahili word) a uniform fit for a baboon. Why the swagger, then?
Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature! This is what Salia knows intimately. And there's an imperative for him to impart this knowledge. He has to say it; he has no control over that. Hasn't he told us that he's a vagabond precisely because of the ballad? He's a dove who settles in a tree to recount his stories and flies off at the end of the day, head pounding and stomach rumbling. He's a kingfisher always in flight. Ah, but how he knows his stuff! How he knows his stuff, this dove, this snail, this immoral woman, this kingfisher, this Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature!
Nya ngi Yohmie gohloh/Sia jemeko ndogboh goila, eh-
Siiki lomi/Ndomi bengoh jemie ma, eh!
(I know the Yohmie/As the kingfisher knows the bush-
The silk shirt/How that shirt becomes the kingfisher!)
The need to know, the urge to tell... It's the place of Salia Koroma, the singer/poet to tell us the truth. And it isn't Truth with a capital T. That sort of truth, not even the poet/singer possesses. What he can boast of knowing, our composer, are those little truths that accrue from a keen and patient observation, little insights beyond the reach of the restless and the vain. Insights that need to have resonated with the singer/poet first. Insights that are a sincere, truthful and eloquent rendering of the troubadour's personal emotions and experiences. Otherwise he won't be speaking to us, no matter how imaginatively he seeks to engage us.
For Salia, this personal and general awareness gleaned from observation finds its value and weight in the restatements of a line and variations of that line. This anaphoric use becomes more than a poetic device; thus we're given a gradual unearthing of truths that are no less wonderful than would've been a blinding revelation. These restatements seem to be saying: 'You don't know what you're saying; if you did, you'd have observed that...' But we don't always see (or we refuse to see most of the time), so the artiste finds himself as if condemned to repeat what should be clear for all to see:
-"You who said there're no riches in the bush..."
-"Friend, you act as if there're no riches in the bush..."
-"They act as if there're no riches in the bush..."
-"You lie when you say there're no riches in the bush..."
A coat lined with buttons... You're a conceited lot! For vanity to trump yours, I give you nothing humbler than a raffia grub. The other day I saw you strutting in your 'one-'n-six' check shirt. Have you had a look at the guinea hen? And you call yourselves civilised because you've a soldier in his shiny black boots walking around with his chest in the air, looking fierce. It's my guess you haven't seen a bush cow. It wears boots too, and it's no less brutal than your fancy soldier. As for the hats worn by your colonial bosses, look around. See that anthill? Or the monkey in the tree? Your colonial master's given your police (askari, Swahili word) a uniform fit for a baboon. Why the swagger, then?
Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature! This is what Salia knows intimately. And there's an imperative for him to impart this knowledge. He has to say it; he has no control over that. Hasn't he told us that he's a vagabond precisely because of the ballad? He's a dove who settles in a tree to recount his stories and flies off at the end of the day, head pounding and stomach rumbling. He's a kingfisher always in flight. Ah, but how he knows his stuff! How he knows his stuff, this dove, this snail, this immoral woman, this kingfisher, this Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature!
Nya ngi Yohmie gohloh/Sia jemeko ndogboh goila, eh-
Siiki lomi/Ndomi bengoh jemie ma, eh!
(I know the Yohmie/As the kingfisher knows the bush-
The silk shirt/How that shirt becomes the kingfisher!)
February 04, 2009
Salia Koroma Sings Of His Adventures
Here it is. Any commentary I shall be making on this 'video' montage will come in other posts. If you have something to say about the song, how you interpret it, from what angle you see it, feel free to express yourself. Note the colonial-era words like askari (which sounds like "asikai," in the usual way in which Mende assimilates foreign words by inserting vowels between consonant clusters). Note also the juxtaposing of everything new in the then-Protectorate and what had always existed- the land, its diversity, its creatures (even the most seemingly insignificant), its bounty. Keen observation meets a gifted lyricist's verve here.
Enjoy once more, you Happy Few!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
Enjoy once more, you Happy Few!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
January 30, 2009
Closing arguments?
Now to recap one or two points before I put up the 'video' montage of our next Salia song. I've argued that the song that was published in translation almost sixty-one years ago was sung by Salia.
Combine and recombine: Quite naturally, there're some differences between the translated published song and what I shall be putting up. But as I pointed out, that's hardly surprising with Salia. There's always some difference between various versions of Salia's songs. I have in my possession two versions of The Flight from the Wonde. One opens in Teyama (Taiama) and ends in Pewahun; the other version opens in Kono country, then goes through Mano Dasse, Teyama, and ends in Pewahun. I have three versions of Mende Gendei, and I'm sure there're more than three out there. This tells us that Salia, perhaps depending on circumstances such as who he was playing for, how tired he was, or how much of a hurry he was in to get to the next 'gig,' could lengthen or shorten his compositions, combine and recombine certain elements of his songs. But in the main, the song remains the same across versions.
Translations: And now I've to tackle the question of translation. Overall, it's unnecessary to argue whether Dr Little's translation was good or bad; we don't have the recording he did that day in 1947. Suffice to say, for me at least, it's good, the translation, I mean; and he thought a loose, or "free" translation would serve his purposes best. Anyone who's listened to Salia for a while, especially to that song, coming across Dr Little's translation would just straight away tell themselves- 'That's Salia, of course.' My translation has chosen to adhere as closely as possible to the patterns not only of the Mende language, but especially of Salia's lyrical use of the same. Salia always has a surprise in his usages, as if he's toying with your understanding of the various levels of meaning of a word or an expression. I've taken note of that. But as the saying goes, "the translator is a traitor." A 100% faithfulness is therefore out of the question. But Im pretty close, if I can say so myself! Let me know where and how you'd put it differently.
Editor's notes: In Little's article, one of the footnotes was at pains to point out the similarities between that Mende song and Giovanni Bocaccio's Decameron (1353), and Apuleius's The Golden Ass (2nd century AD), among others. But of course, all Salia's ballads are similar in "manner and incident" to the stories in The Decameron. As for Apuleius's novel, you'd have to listen to the ballad "Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow" to be actually blown away by Salia Koroma. When, in the future, I put up that song I shall try to draw the (very minor) similarities (and the great gap)between the story in The Golden Ass and the one in "Feh, Jinna Mangoe, feh!" (Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow.)
Combine and recombine: Quite naturally, there're some differences between the translated published song and what I shall be putting up. But as I pointed out, that's hardly surprising with Salia. There's always some difference between various versions of Salia's songs. I have in my possession two versions of The Flight from the Wonde. One opens in Teyama (Taiama) and ends in Pewahun; the other version opens in Kono country, then goes through Mano Dasse, Teyama, and ends in Pewahun. I have three versions of Mende Gendei, and I'm sure there're more than three out there. This tells us that Salia, perhaps depending on circumstances such as who he was playing for, how tired he was, or how much of a hurry he was in to get to the next 'gig,' could lengthen or shorten his compositions, combine and recombine certain elements of his songs. But in the main, the song remains the same across versions.
Translations: And now I've to tackle the question of translation. Overall, it's unnecessary to argue whether Dr Little's translation was good or bad; we don't have the recording he did that day in 1947. Suffice to say, for me at least, it's good, the translation, I mean; and he thought a loose, or "free" translation would serve his purposes best. Anyone who's listened to Salia for a while, especially to that song, coming across Dr Little's translation would just straight away tell themselves- 'That's Salia, of course.' My translation has chosen to adhere as closely as possible to the patterns not only of the Mende language, but especially of Salia's lyrical use of the same. Salia always has a surprise in his usages, as if he's toying with your understanding of the various levels of meaning of a word or an expression. I've taken note of that. But as the saying goes, "the translator is a traitor." A 100% faithfulness is therefore out of the question. But Im pretty close, if I can say so myself! Let me know where and how you'd put it differently.
Editor's notes: In Little's article, one of the footnotes was at pains to point out the similarities between that Mende song and Giovanni Bocaccio's Decameron (1353), and Apuleius's The Golden Ass (2nd century AD), among others. But of course, all Salia's ballads are similar in "manner and incident" to the stories in The Decameron. As for Apuleius's novel, you'd have to listen to the ballad "Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow" to be actually blown away by Salia Koroma. When, in the future, I put up that song I shall try to draw the (very minor) similarities (and the great gap)between the story in The Golden Ass and the one in "Feh, Jinna Mangoe, feh!" (Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow.)
January 23, 2009
Defence Case: Exhibit B
{It's been over a month since the last post, a lifetime in the world of blogging. I missed the deadline I'd given myself to post the ballad I strongly believe Kenneth Little should've attributed to Salia Koroma. My apologies.}
Introduction: For the next piece of evidence pointing to Salia as the singer in Dr Little's 1948 publication, I'm going to depend on the article itself and other Salia songs. And I'm doing this in spite of the fact that Little had opted for a "free" translation instead of one that tries to be faithful to the original 'text.' I'm going to highlight some motifs in the translation and show that these are found throughout Salia's work.
In the second instance I'll point out what may be called discrepancies between the 1948 Man publication and the song I'll be putting up. Expect me to counter such an objection with concrete evidence showing there's no difference. I'll demonstrate, with two little snippets, that these kinds of 'discrepancies' are found in various versions of Salia's works, and that they don't point to different composers.
The personal is always a feature of Salia's compositions. His life was never out of bounds; the singer takes centre stage even when the stories he narrates show him in not very flattering light. In fact that's the case with all the ballads. In this story he runs away from a wronged husband; in another he's trying to put some distance between himself and a Koranic teacher and a poor Syrian trader, both of whom insist on going on the road with him; in another he's running away from an autocratic chief; in yet another, he's fleeing from a witch he had fallen in love with; or he's fleeing from the Wonde Society. The stories are countless, and in each it's his wit that ultimately saves him. In each song, he escapes to compose another song on another episode in "The Adventures of Salia Koroma." And they all have another feature that Little points out about the published song: the humour that runs through the narration
The Fast Woman-She's a permanent motif running through Salia's work, to the point that a paean's often sung to her wiles, her strength, and her insight. These unattached or ready women would've played a big part in Salia's life as a man on the road; at least his songs give that impression. Dr Little translates "poegbua nyaha" as "prostitute," but I believe that's pushing the meaning of that word. The nearest meaning would be "loose." "Poegbua" means to have an illicit affair, so that a married man or woman having an extra-marital affair would've "poegbuanga," had an affair. In the version of the song I shall be putting up, Salia calls himself a "poegbua hindo" (fast fellow) out looking for a "poegbua nyaha" (fast woman). He wouldn't be calling himself a prostitute looking for a prostitute, would he?
Patrol: This word came up in my first Salia Koroma song, Ko Sao. Here it is in Little's translation. It's a recurrent word in the Salia body of work. There's nothing more to say here.
Discrepancies? The song in Little's translation is arranged differently from the one I'll be putting up, but that's nothing new in Salia's work. As illustration, I'm putting up two abridged versions of the same song: "Fishing for Our Lord." The older version, transferred from a hissing 78 LP, has about 35 seconds of poetic prelude before going into the body of the song, the Fishing Expedition (a search for freedom). But scattered throughout that version are poetic lines. In the second version (playing first), recorded in 1980, Salia has gathered up all those lines and brought them to the fore to form 2 solid minutes of poetry. In the first version, the search lasts for 6 minutes; in the second version, it's 8 minutes. The fishing itself lasts longer in the older version. In the older version, the specific body of water he wants- njagbo- isn't defined and characterised until he crosses two rivers, whereas in the more recent version, we're told what the njagbo stands for in Mende cosmology before the slave wades into any water in search of freedom. The older version has three movements, viz: the reason for the expedition and the search for a specific but hard to find waterway; the catch or lack thereof; and the legend of Fawonde. The 1980 version, on the other hand, has four parts: the prelude; the reason, and the search; the frustrating catch; and the legend of Fawonde.
"Fishing for Our Lord"
In the illustration, there're only about two minutes each of the versions of "Fishing for Our Father." The older version plays second. My next post will include the Prelude to the Yohmie (with subtitles) that has made so much ink to flow over the past sixty years. You'll love it when I do.
Introduction: For the next piece of evidence pointing to Salia as the singer in Dr Little's 1948 publication, I'm going to depend on the article itself and other Salia songs. And I'm doing this in spite of the fact that Little had opted for a "free" translation instead of one that tries to be faithful to the original 'text.' I'm going to highlight some motifs in the translation and show that these are found throughout Salia's work.
In the second instance I'll point out what may be called discrepancies between the 1948 Man publication and the song I'll be putting up. Expect me to counter such an objection with concrete evidence showing there's no difference. I'll demonstrate, with two little snippets, that these kinds of 'discrepancies' are found in various versions of Salia's works, and that they don't point to different composers.
The personal is always a feature of Salia's compositions. His life was never out of bounds; the singer takes centre stage even when the stories he narrates show him in not very flattering light. In fact that's the case with all the ballads. In this story he runs away from a wronged husband; in another he's trying to put some distance between himself and a Koranic teacher and a poor Syrian trader, both of whom insist on going on the road with him; in another he's running away from an autocratic chief; in yet another, he's fleeing from a witch he had fallen in love with; or he's fleeing from the Wonde Society. The stories are countless, and in each it's his wit that ultimately saves him. In each song, he escapes to compose another song on another episode in "The Adventures of Salia Koroma." And they all have another feature that Little points out about the published song: the humour that runs through the narration
The Fast Woman-She's a permanent motif running through Salia's work, to the point that a paean's often sung to her wiles, her strength, and her insight. These unattached or ready women would've played a big part in Salia's life as a man on the road; at least his songs give that impression. Dr Little translates "poegbua nyaha" as "prostitute," but I believe that's pushing the meaning of that word. The nearest meaning would be "loose." "Poegbua" means to have an illicit affair, so that a married man or woman having an extra-marital affair would've "poegbuanga," had an affair. In the version of the song I shall be putting up, Salia calls himself a "poegbua hindo" (fast fellow) out looking for a "poegbua nyaha" (fast woman). He wouldn't be calling himself a prostitute looking for a prostitute, would he?
Patrol: This word came up in my first Salia Koroma song, Ko Sao. Here it is in Little's translation. It's a recurrent word in the Salia body of work. There's nothing more to say here.
Discrepancies? The song in Little's translation is arranged differently from the one I'll be putting up, but that's nothing new in Salia's work. As illustration, I'm putting up two abridged versions of the same song: "Fishing for Our Lord." The older version, transferred from a hissing 78 LP, has about 35 seconds of poetic prelude before going into the body of the song, the Fishing Expedition (a search for freedom). But scattered throughout that version are poetic lines. In the second version (playing first), recorded in 1980, Salia has gathered up all those lines and brought them to the fore to form 2 solid minutes of poetry. In the first version, the search lasts for 6 minutes; in the second version, it's 8 minutes. The fishing itself lasts longer in the older version. In the older version, the specific body of water he wants- njagbo- isn't defined and characterised until he crosses two rivers, whereas in the more recent version, we're told what the njagbo stands for in Mende cosmology before the slave wades into any water in search of freedom. The older version has three movements, viz: the reason for the expedition and the search for a specific but hard to find waterway; the catch or lack thereof; and the legend of Fawonde. The 1980 version, on the other hand, has four parts: the prelude; the reason, and the search; the frustrating catch; and the legend of Fawonde.
"Fishing for Our Lord"
In the illustration, there're only about two minutes each of the versions of "Fishing for Our Father." The older version plays second. My next post will include the Prelude to the Yohmie (with subtitles) that has made so much ink to flow over the past sixty years. You'll love it when I do.
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