In my History class this year we were learning about Medieval Africa and about their culture, part of their culture is Oral History. For a long time Sub- Saharan Africa in ancient and Medieval times had not yet developed a written language but instead they passed their history down orally through time. There would be storytellers called Griots who would memorize the history of a certain village or empire and pass it down to an apprentice. The stories were told in different ways one of them being through music.
The Griots that told history with music normally played an instrument called the Kara (harp-lute) which looks like a harp like banjo. A reference to the video bellow (or above), only Griots that came from the music telling could play music and if you wanted to play music and you weren't from that family you were not allowed to but today we have more freedom to play music when and how ever we want.
Another fact about that Griots that I have learned in my history class is that maintaining this history in forms of storytelling , song, instruments, dancing and poetry can be miss told or lost. Griots in ancient and medieval times were hired by villages, rulers and wealthy patrons and most often changed their stories to please their patrons and only speak of the great doings and not of the misfortunes. Also if a Griot dies without fully passing down their knowledge to an apprentice a lot of history could be greatfull lost. Today our society is lucky that we wrote all of our accomplishments and failures that today we get to look back and learn from the past.
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