By Emmanuel Mihiingo Kaija
Across the vast expanse of Alkebu-lan—from the arid Sahelian plains of Mali and Niger, through the verdant forests of the Congo Basin, to the rolling hills and lakes of Uganda—the drum has long been a living archive of knowledge, a transmitter of memory, ethics, history, and practical guidance. Far from mere musical instruments, drums, along with other oral instruments such as xylophones, ngomas, balafons, and talking drums, have historically functioned as codices of communal intelligence. In these societies, oral epics delivered by griots, praise-singers, drummers, and ritual specialists codified knowledge about lineages, migration patterns, trade networks, warfare, agriculture, ecological cycles, medicinal plants, governance, social ethics, and ritual practices.
Oral Epics as Knowledge Systems
Among the Mandinka of Mali, the Sunjata Epic, centered on the 13th-century founder of the Mali Empire, is more than a story; it is a comprehensive repository of sociopolitical, ecological, and ethical knowledge. Griots such as Kouyaté, Diabaté, and Camara families, who have preserved these narratives across generations, encode genealogies stretching back more than 700 years, describing the rise of Niani, Kangaba, and Ségou as urban centers, and detailing trade across the Niger River to Timbuktu, Gao, and the Sahelian caravan routes.
Within the epic, references to seasonal rains, the cultivation of millet and sorghum, the domestication of cattle, and riverine fishing techniques indicate a sophisticated understanding of agroecology. Notably, the text mentions climatic cycles observed in the Niger River floodplains, guiding agricultural timing, and ensuring food security across centuries. Scholars such as Graham Connah (2001) and Djibril Tamsir Niane (1965) have documented that these oral epics retain accurate historical data on battles, succession, and diplomacy—demonstrating the epistemic rigor of oral knowledge.
In Uganda, the Baganda epic traditions, performed by abakopi (praise-singers) and drummers in the royal court of Buganda during the 17th and 18th centuries, meticulously record clan lineages, chieftaincy appointments, and ritual obligations. The Lubiri palace in Mengo, with its courtyard drums and ritual spaces, served as a hub for preserving these epics. The narratives guide contemporary understanding of land tenure, succession law, and conflict resolution, illustrating that oral literature was a functional legal and political archive.
The Tools, Places, and Practitioners
Drums such as the dùndún (talking drum) of Yoruba-speaking peoples, the ngoma drums of the Luba and Chokwe, and the kpanlogo drums of Ghana carry encoded speech patterns and rhythmic grammar that transmit information across distances of up to several kilometers. In Niger and Mali, griots historically used balafons, koras, and calabashes during ceremonies in towns like Koulikoro, Bamako, Timbuktu, and Djenné. These instruments were not merely decorative; their tonal patterns conveyed genealogical sequences, messages of war, warnings of migration, and announcements of royal decrees, functioning as portable archives of knowledge.
Griot families meticulously trained apprentices, sometimes over decades, in memorization, vocal modulation, historical chronology, and symbolic interpretation of rhythm. Knowledge transmission was highly structured: the Camara family of Kankan in Guinea, the Diabaté lineage of Kita, and the Kouyaté griots of Bamako exemplify these rigorous educational frameworks. In East Africa, similar systems existed: the Bakiga and Batooro oralists in the Kigezi highlands of southwestern Uganda preserved clan histories and agricultural rituals orally, teaching younger generations the timing of planting potatoes, sorghum, and bananas in relation to rainfall and lunar phases.
Colonial Disruption and Knowledge Suppression
Colonial intrusion, beginning in the late 19th century, systematically undermined these knowledge systems. French administrators in Senegal, Mali, and Niger replaced griot archives with written reports, censuses, and colonial chronicles, often dismissing oral epics as “primitive folklore.” British colonial authorities in Uganda suppressed clan epics and ritual knowledge in favor of English-language education. Missionary schools across West and Central Africa further marginalized oral epistemologies, prioritizing literacy over kinesthetic, musical, and performative knowledge.
Objects and spaces crucial to knowledge transmission—drums, balafons, ritual masks, royal courtyards, village assembly spaces, and sacred groves—were either confiscated, destroyed, or repurposed. Despite these disruptions, knowledge persisted underground: drums continued to speak in clandestine ceremonies, songs persisted in market spaces in Ouagadougou, Kumasi, and Goma, and storytelling thrived among children in villages from Kano to Kisoro.
Modern Efforts: Uncovering and Retelling
Today, scholars, communities, and digital archivists are actively uncovering and retelling these oral epics. In Mali, projects led by UNESCO and local griot collectives have recorded over 400 hours of Sunjata performances, transcribing them in Bambara, French, and English. In Uganda, ethnomusicologists from Makerere University and Kyambogo University collaborate with elders to digitize Bakiga and Baganda clan narratives, linking them with material culture artifacts such as royal drums, spears, and regalia stored in the Lubiri palace and regional museums.
Digital archiving initiatives, including the Endangered Languages Project and the African Storytellers Network, enable these epics to reach international audiences while preserving linguistic nuance, drum patterns, and performative gestures. Linguists analyze tonality, cadence, and metaphor to reconstruct the epistemic structure of the narratives, ensuring that knowledge is not flattened but contextualized in its cultural, temporal, and ecological frameworks.
Retelling these epics is also pedagogical. In Senegal, Mali, and Uganda, schools now incorporate oral epic excerpts into history, ethics, and ecology curricula, allowing students to learn mathematics through rhythm, moral reasoning through story, and ecological timing through narrative cycles. This approach demonstrates that indigenous knowledge is not static but dynamic, practical, and deeply integrated into daily life.
Conclusion: Living Archives and Knowledge Reclamation
The drums of Alkebu-lan are living archives, repositories of wisdom that have survived centuries of displacement, marginalization, and attempted erasure. By uncovering and retelling oral epics—through documentation, digital archiving, translation, and educational integration—scholars and communities restore African agency in knowledge production and demonstrate the sophistication, relevance, and durability of indigenous epistemologies.
From the courtyards of Niani to the hills of Kisoro, from talking drums of Kano to the balafons of Kita, these epics reveal genealogical, historical, ecological, and ethical knowledge encoded in rhythm, story, and performance. Their retelling today is both a scholarly necessity and a cultural imperative. The drums speak again—not only echoing the past, but guiding contemporary society, reconnecting communities with ancestral wisdom, and asserting that African indigenous knowledge is alive, actionable, and indispensable.
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