Epic of Askia Mohammed, The

Hale, Thomas (ed.) with Nouhou Malio. The Epic of Askia Mohammed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996. 88 pp.

This is a carefully edited, annotated and word for word translation of a relatively short West African oral epic about Askia Mohammed, the most famous and respected leader in the Songhay Empire. The empire, centered along the Niger River near the modern-day border of Mali and Niger, reached its apogee under Askia Mohammed who ruled from 1493 to 1528. The narrative consists of episodes in the Askia's life, genealogies of prominent families, praise-names for the ruler, proverbs and numerous rhetorical devices. A Western reader might find the text itself disjointed, replete with unfamiliar names and places, and lacking a coherent, chronological narrative structure. Through an excellent introduction and extensive annotations, however, Thomas Hale succeeds in capturing the flavor of a West African oral epic without compromising its unique content and nature.

The narrative recounts select events in the Askia's life, especially his overcoming adversity in childhood, his celebrated pilgrimage to Mecca, and triumphs over enemies and rivals. Fortunately, the introduction provides a useful resume of the plot as the account is constantly interrupted with topical, temporal and spatial shifts. Rather than giving a straight-forward chronology or a comprehensive summary of the Askia's life, the complex textured epic stresses Askia Mohammed's powers, good deeds and positive legacy. The text bears comparison with the well-known epic of Son Jara (or Sundiata), the Mande leader of the Malian empire two centuries before. In both cases, the rulers' lives have been shaped in the epics to fit a certain ideal or pattern, and they emerge as legendary heroes, far greater than the actual historical figures. The narratives also reveal almost as much about present-day concerns and attitudes as about historical events and processes.

Nouhou Malio, the griot or oral historian who narrated this text, belongs to a hereditary guild or union in West Africa consisting of wordsmiths who possess a functional monopoly over the use of certain kinds of speech. Griots function variously as "talking books," itinerant minstrels, mediators, and advisors to rulers within most of the major ethnic groups in West Africa. Hale explains well the origins, training, social position, and difficulties of working with griots. He also gives insight into the fieldwork experience, detailing precisely how the narrative was recorded several times, checked, and translated and contextualized with the assistance of some native speakers of Songhay.

The book makes an African oral epic accessible to a Western audience in printed format while retaining much of the quality of the original performance. In addition to providing an invaluable insight into Songhay history and culture for a general reader, the book would also serve well as a text in courses dealing with folklore, literature and oral traditions, both in Africa and in other parts of the non-Western world.

Andrew F. Clark University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Fall 1997
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