We need straight look on why many African traditions have never wrote down their daily lives, pre-historical philosophy of Africa, which could have given us total pre-historical Africa, and not the usual hostile haters of the west.

The great Mande Peoples of West Africa are well known for their Oral History which has cult following, butcan we takethat as 90% correct, or corrubted historical perspective, where each following generation left-out what they didn't like.

Now, I cannot claim to be an expert on Mande People, nor oral historian, but I always have reservation on it, and see how it creates myths.

Discuss..........

Pre-historical Africa or even the empire of Mali, which lasted in various forms from the 13[suP]th[/suP] to the 17[suP]th[/suP] century, was known to be one of the best examples on oral language based society where daily lives where transfered father to a son, this played a unique role in regional oral tradition.
Do we have villagers who can recite the epic of Sunjata? Or know it's realities?
May be U can give us, little knowledge on tp this very important aspect of African past....

Actually the Mande had a class of historians, called griots, who were trained from a very young age to orally record the history of the people. I don't see this as being any more accurate or inaccruate than written history. Most of written history was recorded by a class of scribes who could have also easily changed the wording and meaning of the stories to suit their views. This is what has happened with the bible but it doesn't make it anymore invalid. History, written or oral, will always be coloured with the views of the people who handle the issue at the time. There is not objectivity in any kind of history.

When I read stories like Sundiata, I just look for the underlying meaning of the story not the specifics. I believe that there was a Sundiata and he didcreateMali's Empire. I'm not really concerned with whether or not he was originally born a cripple, or his mother, Sogolo was the daughter ofthe buffalo woman.

Aryek...........Very good points..........I think that shoud be how we view this.

Do U speak one of the Mandé languages? What I have read about, rich in history!

And......

What about this.....

What does that tell us, about pre-colonial Africa?

How can we record their histories, so we keep them static and not changing every generation?

What do U think about the epic's take on human relations with each other?

What does that tell us, about pre-colonial Africa?

How can we record their histories, so we keep them static and not changing every generation?

Teach them to our children!

The Japanese do the same thing, their griots are trained and told the history to keep it recorded. If we didn't do things this way I honestly belive that the europeans would have stolen so much more from us and our situation would be 10x worse than it is now. They would have raided the libarys and burnt what they didn't keep, then, like they do now, they'd change up the stories and retell them as though theycreated it.

By keeping the histoy with one or a few peoplesitssafe and secure, the tribal leaders keep many secrets and are walking upholders of an African Rennessance.

Credo Mutwas book makes an intresting read... has anyone read into Sudanese stories and beliefs? I'd love to hear that.

The Sphinx.........I agree. I think what we need is a new goals that will do so.

Charter schools? They worked for the Turks in Germany, still they consider Turkey as their primary home, and have built their own charter schools in Germany.....during the 60's.

Cool... I read Inbaba My Childen. Don't think I've lost myself in a book like that for a while, it was amazing. Probably cause I've been reading factual stuff for quite a bit but WOW it'd be so cool to see those stories on screen, prehaps in cartooon form or something. I really got lost in that one, might read it again.