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Article: Griots at War: Conflict, Conciliation, and Caste in Mande.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- African Arts
- Article date:
- September 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Regents of the University of California. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Griots at War
Conflict, Conciliation, and Caste in Mande
Barbara G. Hoffman
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. ix + 298 pp. b/w photographs, bibliography and index. $39.95 cloth.
Most readers are familiar with works dedicated to the role of the Mande griot as the performer of epic histories in West Africa. More recently, the term "griot" has been applied liberally to World Beat African musicians and even to storytellers and musicians in the Black Atlantic world. This new and contemporary use of "griot" clouds our understanding of jell (griot) and jeliya (griotness), in the Mande world. In her ethnography of Mande jeli, ...