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.

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?

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!

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"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.

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

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.)

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.

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.

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!

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