Aspects of African Civilization
(Person, Culture, Religion)

When I was appointed to the executive council of UNESCO, I was given the mission of speaking to Europeans about African tradition as culture. This was difficult because the Western tradition had established once and for all that where there is no writing, there is no culture. The result was that when I proposed for the first time to take oral traditions into account as historical sources and sources of culture, I didn't provoke anything but smiles. Some people even asked sardonically what African traditions could possibly have to offer Europe! To one interlocutor who asked me one day, "What indeed can we obtain from Africa?" I remember answering: "Laughter, which you have lost." Perhaps today one could add as well: a certain human dimension, which modern technological civilization is in the process of erasing.

The fact of not having a literature does not prevent Africa from having a past and a knowledge. As my teacher Tierno Bokar says: "Writing is one thing and knowledge is another thing. Writing is a photograph of knowledge, but it is not knowledge itself. Knowledge is a light which is in man. It is the heritage that consists of everything the ancestors have been able to know. This they transmit to us in seminal form, just as the potential for a baobab tree is contained in its seed."

Of course, this knowledge inherited and transmitted by word of mouth can either develop or wither away. It develops wherever there exist centers of initiation and young people to receive that formation. It is lost wherever initiation disappears.

African knowledge is immense, varied, and covers all aspects of life. The "knower" is never a "specialist". He is a generalist. For example, the same old man knows as much about pharmacopoeia, "earth sciences" (the agricultural or medicinal properties of different kinds of soil), and "the science of water" as he does about astronomy, cosmogony, psychology, etc. It is therefore possible to speak of a single "science of life" conceived as a whole, in which everything is related, interdependent and interactive.

In Africa, everything is "History" [Histoire]. The great History of life is made up of sections which are, for example, the history of soils and waters (geography), the history of plants (botany and pharmacopoeia), the history of "the threads in the bowels of the earth" (mineralogy), the history of the stars (astronomy, astrology), the history of waters, etc.

These knowledges are always concrete and tend toward practical uses.

Knowledges have an order. One begins at the bottom, that is to say, with beings and things that are less developed or less animated when compared to man, and ascends upwards toward man. The earth, considered as "navel" of the world, is the principal habitat of three sorts of beings, or three modes or manifestations of life:

1. At the bottom of the ladder, one finds inanimate beings, called "mutes", whose language is thought to be hidden, being incomprehensible or inaudible to ordinary mortals. This is the world of all that lies on the surface of the earth (sand, water, etc.) or in its interior (minerals, metals, etc.).

2. Next come "animate immobile" beings. These are living things that do not move about from place to place. They are plants that are able to extend and spread out their branches in space, but whose stem or trunk cannot move.

3. Finally, "mobile animate beings", from the most minuscule of animals to man, including all classes of animals.

Each of these categories is subdivided into three groups:

1. Among mute inanimate beings, one finds solid, liquid and gaseeous (literally: "smoking") inanimates.

2. Among immobile animate objects, one finds creeping plants, climbing plants, and plants that stand vertically, the latter constituting the highest class.

3. Mobile animate beings include land animals (among them animals without bones, those that shed their skin, etc., and animals with bones), aquatic animals and flying animals.

These nine classes of beings correspond to specific moments in the educational process, but these modules are not necessarily successive or progressive. Education is connected to life and dispensed according to the circumstances that present themselves. If, for example, a serpent suddenly leaps out of the bush, this will provide an opportunity for the old master to give a lesson about the serpent. His discourse will vary depending on whether his listeners are children or adults. He could speak about the legends of the serpent, or remedies which can cure its bite. If he is surrounded by children, he will very gladly elaborate on the harm a serpent can do so they will learn to be careful.

The study of the earth, the waters, the atmosphere, and all that they contain insofar as they are manifestations of life constitutes the ensemble of human knowledge bequeathed by tradition. But the greatest of all these "histories", the most developed, the most significant, is the history of man himself, who is at the summit of "mobile animate beings".

It is the knowledge of man and the application of this knowledge in practical life that makes man a "superior" being on the ladder of living things. But one can only say this about man if he is in the state of "neddaaku" (Fulani/Peul) or of "maayaa" (Bambara), that is to say, in a fully human state.

The history of man includes, on the one hand, the great myths of the creation of man and of his appearance on earth, including the significance of the place which he occupies in the fabric of the universe, the role which he ought to play (essentially the role of axis of equilibrium), and his relation to the forces of life which surround him and live in him. It includes, on the other hand, the history of the great ancestors, innumerable educational and initiation stories and symbolic tales, and finally, history pure and simple, including the great royal traditions, the historical chronicles, the epics, etc.

Tradition transmitted orally is so precise and so rigorous that one can, with various kinds of cross checking, reconstruct the great events of centuries past in the minutest detail, especially the lives of the great empires or the great men who distinguish history. It is noteworthy that, based on diverse oral traditions, I was able to reconstruct The History of the Fulani Empire of Massina of the 18th Century. In a similar way, comparing oral traditions allowed my friend Boubou Hama of Niger to produce his voluminous works on the history and traditional knowledge of African people.

In oral civilization, speech engages man; speech IS man. Whence the profound respect for traditional stories bequeathed by the past. One is permitted to embellish their form or poetic phrasing, but their framework remains unchanged over the centuries, serving as a vehicle for the prodigious memory which is very characteristic of peoples in oral traditions. In a modern civilization, paper substitutes for speech. It is paper that engages man. But can one say with absolute certainty that the written source is more worthy of confidence than the oral source, continuously monitored by the traditional milieu?

At this point, it is useful to explain that in Africa, the side of things that is visible and apparent always corresponds to an invisible and hidden aspect which is like its source or principle. Just as the day emerges from the night, all things consist of a diurnal and a nocturnal aspect, a visible side and a hidden side. Indeed, each visible science always corresponds to a much deeper science, theoretical and, one could say, esoteric, based on the fundamental conception of the unity of life and of the interrelation, within the fabric of this unity, of all the different levels of existence. Here there is a domain which, just because it is less immediately exploitable, does not mean that it is any less worthy of being closely examined and explored before the last depositories of this science disappear.

As we have seen, African knowledge is a global knowledge, a living knowledge, and it is because the old people are themselves the last depositories of this knowledge that they can be compared to vast libraries whose multiple shelves are connected by invisible links which constitute precisely this "science of the invisible", authenticated by the chains of transmission through initiation.

In the past, this knowledge was transmitted regularly from generation to generation by rites of initiation and various forms of traditional education. This regular transmission was interrupted because of an exteral, extra-African action: the impact of colonization. The colonial powers arrived with their technological superiority, their own methods and their own ideal of life, and did everything in their power to substitute their own way of life for that of the Africans. Just as one never seeds fallow ground, the colonial powers were obliged to "clear" the African tradition to be able to plant their own tradition.

Thus from the outset the Western school began to do battle with the traditional African school and to hunt down the keepers of traditional knowledges. This was the époque when all healers were thrown in prison as "charlatans" or for "practicing medicine without a license." It was also the era when children were prevented from speaking their mother tongue in order to shield them from traditional influences, to such an extent that at school, a child who was caught speaking his mother tongue had to wear a board called a "symbol" on which was drawn the head of a donkey, and he was not allowed to eat lunch.

The seeds of this new tradition, once sown, have grown and borne fruit. It is for this reason why African youth, born of the Western school, have a pronounced tendency to live and to think "à l'européenne", for which they cannot be reproached because they don't know any other way. The student always lives according to the rules of his or her school.

During the colonial period, transmission by initiation, which used to take place on a great holiday and at regular intervals, sought asylum by going underground. Little by little, the removal of children from their families had the result that old people no longer found around them young people who were able to receive their teachings. Little by little, initiation left the cities and took refuge in the bush. But the final blow was delivered by the advent of an independence based exclusively on European ideas and ideologies. Whereas colonialism actually created skepticism and penetrated little into the countryside, the same European ideas, conveyed by modern political parties, mobilized the masses in even the farthest corners of the bush, so much so that the handing down of tradition almost couldn't find any place to be practiced any more.

At a time when diverse countries of the world, through the intermediation of UNESCO, devote money and effort to saving the great Nubian monuments threatened by the rising waters behind the Aswân High Dam, is it not more urgent still to save the extraordinary human culture and stock of knowledge accumulated over the course of millennia in these fragile monuments which are men, when the last depositories of this knowledge are in the process of disappearing?

It is not known exactly how long Fulfulde has been written in Arabic characters. At any rate, this writing was never systematized. A definitive linguistic study performed in the Western way preliminary to establishing for each phoneme a precise character was never done, so writing varied with each region, if not with each marabout , since each one adopted his own system for writing certain phonemes. The result was that a typesetter or writer, not having memorized his text, could no longer read it after six months had passed. The only known exception is the Fouta Djalon region [1], where, thanks to the fact that writing has been practiced there for a long time, we are almost able re-read it ourselves, albeit with difficulty.

Before beginning to serve at I.F.A.N. (l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire) in Dakar, where I concentrated on these problems, I had contacts with linguists such as Colonel Figaret, Gibert Vieillard and Gaden, who are great "Fulanists", i.e., specialists in the Fulani language. But each one of them had his own way of transcribing this language, and the systems differed further according to whether they were created by French or English professors.

From this period onward, I took it to heart to work so that all Africa would have at its disposal, for any given idiom, an appropriate alphabet, elaborated taking into account the linguistic progress made by European specialists. For a long time the great difficulty lay in the fact that the colonial system of national education did not favor the preservation of ethnic languages and applied all its effort to replacing them with its own language. I described in my answer to the previous question the fate that awaited students who were caught speaking their mother tongue.

In the end, this paternalistic practice had a practical side that was highly beneficial for Africa. What with tribal rivalries, certainly no African language could have been imposed as the only language on the whole of Africa. A Bambara, for example, would not for anything in the world adopt the Fulani language as the language of culture, and vice versa, because for each of these peoples, it would mean abdicating their own personality for the benefit of another. The French language, however, being the language of power, was not embarrassed by these considerations and imposed its authority. It was the same for English in the Anglophone countries.

Admittedly, the colonial language neither encouraged nor developed the idiosyncrasies of different peoples. On the other hand, it was able to create a linguistic unity which would have been difficult to realize by other means, so that my friend Felix Houphouët-Boigny and myself are able to communicate with each other thanks to the French language. If this language had not been there, we would be as foreign to each other as a Russian can be to a Senegalese!

Considering the unity created by the French language, which is, however, a foreign language, what I had in mind was to try to create linguistic unities for the ethnic groups spread across Africa. Let us take the case of the Fulani, for example. All the Fulani tribes, which are dispersed from Guinea as far as Eastern Africa, speak a common language. The cultural unity of their ethnic group could be realized if they had a single system of transcription, which could emphasize all the dialectical richness of the language and at the same time correct the differences that have arisen over the course of time with dispersion. The Fulani language could thus become one of the basic languages of culture. The same applies to Bambara, which also extends over a very large territory; for Hausa, Songhai, etc.

Thus, by standardizing the writing of the principle languages of Africa, one could begin to create large ethnic units that spread out across diverse republics, since these ethnic groups extend over different countries. There would be unity in the diversity.

I must, however, strongly emphasize that my intention has never been to oppose the cultural and political use of the French language. For us, French a remarkable instrument of linguistic unity and communication with the world, providing us access to a world of universal scientific and economic perspectives. This is why I wish with all my heart the long life and success of "la francophonie", the French-speaking community.

On the other hand, the rehabilitation of the principle African languages would make it possible to highlight the original tradition of each ethnic group, to think in its language, to collect traditions in its language without losing their flavor or their finer points as inevitably happens in translations which "are missing the salt" compared to the original.

This is why I asked UNESCO to reconsider, within the framework of its assistance to Africa and the struggle against illiteracy, the problem of the transcription of African languages in a standardized alphabet with Latin characters, the latter being more widely used and more easily applicable to modern studies than Arabic.

For me it is a question of helping Africa preserve and develop its own personality, and allowing it to speak for itself. It is indeed up to Africans to speak about Africa to foreigners, and not up to foreigners, however knowledgeable they may be, to speak about Africa to Africans. As a Malian proverb says, "When a goat is present, one should not bleat in his place!" Indeed, they too often attribute intentions to us which are not ours. They interpret our customs or our traditions according to a logic which, though it may be logical, is not logical for us. Differences in psychology and understanding distort interpretations coming from outside.

Let us give an example: for a European, to look somebody directly in the eyes is a sign of frankness and honesty, whereas in Africa it is an impertinence. As a sign of respect, the African lowers the eyes, while the European looks right at you. In both cases, the objective is courtesy, but the means and the behavior differ. With us, to honor someone you take off your shoes. The Europeans remove their hats, and the ultimate in discourtesy, for them, is to keep one's hat on. When my friend Boubou Hama was introduced for the first time to his "commandant de cercle" [2] as the best primary school teacher in Niger, he took off his shoes to honor him. Far from being touched, the commandant de cercle reproached him for this ridiculous mania for taking off his shoes when he had the insolence to keep his hat on!

The explanation and interpretation of African traditions must therefore be left to Africa itself – without disregarding the remarkable work in this field done by certain high quality ethnologists.

Sooner or later, neglecting our languages would cut us off from our traditions and even modify the structure of our spirit. It would irreversibly amputate one of the riches of humanity – a style of life deeply human, fraternal and balanced – something that is increasingly rare in modern humanity.

After eliciting many smiles and much sarcasm, the idea I launched at UNESCO made its way little by little and found its culmination in 1966 with the Congress of Bamako organized by UNESCO. Representatives from the majority of West African nations gathered for the purpose of standardizing the transcription of African languages. Today, the majority of francophone West African states have adopted the alphabet conceived in Bamako and it has been officially recognized by their governments.

Senegal was at the forefront in deciding that African languages would thenceforward be taught in the university. Certain African linguists who received a Western scientific education, such as Paté Diagne and Alfa Soo, to mention only two of them, focused their effort in this direction and have already completed important work. For my part, I have had published by UNESCO a Fulani initiation story (containing practical, psychological and esoteric teaching), which included both the original Fulani version (in the standardized alphabet) and a French translation.

"Why write African languages?" one may ask. Because only they allow us, insofar as they are tools for meditation, to penetrate the true soul of Africa. No matter how beautiful a translation, it will always be missing a "certain something" that results from the particularities of the original language – the color, the configuration of the contents of its spirit, its conception of things and its manner of speaking about them.

The word is creative. It keeps man in his own nature. As soon as a man changes language, he changes state. He is cast in a different mold.

The Fulani are accustomed to saying that the individual is made up of three essential things: his physical aspect, his speech, and his work (his trade). He can lose one or two of these three qualities without ceasing to be himself. But the day he loses the third, he becomes "someone else." He is no longer his ethnicity. The great African capitals are well acquainted with this type of "hybrid" man.

Of these three qualities, however, the essential quality is language. One knows, for example, of Bambaras who, upon losing their idiom, were so perfectly "Fulanicized" that they were mistaken for Fulani, and vice versa.

If I devote all my efforts to safeguarding the Fulani language in particular and African languages in general, it is precisely to avoid this depersonalization. Not out of chauvinism, but because the beauty of an oriental carpet comes from the variety of its colors. This also goes for humanity.

Shortly after Mali became independent, I was charged by the government of my country with reorganizing the Institut Français d'Afrique Noire (I.F.A.N.) Center in Koulouba-Bamako. I turned it into an "Institute for the Social Sciences" with the hope that its geographical location in Bamako would make it possible for this center to illuminate all of West Africa and to work in close collaboration with centers in these countries.

The various meetings and conferences held in Ibadan, Lagos, Accra, Abidjan, Bamako, Niamey, Timbuktu and Ouagadougou, in which the majority of the francophone and anglophone countries of West Africa participated, allowed us to agree on procedures for joint work. Based on the results of the work of these assemblies, UNESCO accepted the principle of taking oral traditions into account as historical sources for drafting the General History of Africa [4], editing currently in progress. In 1964, the General Assembly of UNESCO decided to include in its priority program assistance to national centers of research on oral traditions.

Unfortunately, because of political and economic circumstances, Mali was not able, at that time, to play the role which I had dreamed for her. Instead, thanks to the presence of the president of the National Assembly, Boubou Hama, researcher, former director of the I.F.A.N. in Niamey, writer, poet, historian, philosopher and above all very eminent traditionalist, thanks also to the benevolent attitude of President Hamani Diori and his government, the Republic of Niger offered to launch, in addition to its own "National Center for Research and the Social Sciences" (formerly I.F.A.N.), a new "Regional Center for the Documentation of Oral Tradition" (C.R.D.T.O), invited to become an international African institution.

Soon I must undertake a round of visits to the governments of the West African states, financed in part by UNESCO, to obtain their support for this large regional Center, whose provisional seat is Niamey.

In the course of my last discussion with my friend, the President of the Republic Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who was then Minister of Education of his country, I was able to see that he intended to attach great importance to research on, and to the use of, oral traditions, because they can contribute to a deeper understanding of the African soul as well as safeguard its identity, without neglecting, as I have always said, the scientific and technological progress which our times impose on humanity.

For its part, the government of Niger, with the assistance of F.A.C. (a section of the United Nations), undertook the construction in Niamey of a vast building whose functional design and style were in harmony with the site, for a sum of 68 million francs C.F.A., to provide an adequate place of work for a regional center.

This Center has as its as its most important function the systematic and intensive collection, by personnel trained for this purpose, of oral traditions as sources of culture and vehicles of thought and African civilization, from the traditional depositories who are beginning to die off.

This collection should make it possible to deepen and disseminate our understanding of African cultures in an hour when all Africans feel the need to become fully conscious of their origins and their history in order to better direct their contemporary development. It should also allow the editors of the General History of Africa to take into account oral sources which have not yet been utilized.

The Regional Center (C.R.D.T.O.) also has as its objective:

• The development of the scientific study of African languages for their use as a means of, and as subjects for, teaching, along with the elaboration of books, teaching materials, and other works essential for this purpose. This work falls under the heading of the literacy program in African languages;

• The development of the systematic employment of African languages in radio, television, cinema and theater;

• The publication of books, reviews and newspapers in African languages, as well as the translation of representative works from other cultures into African languages.

Since its creation, the Center not only organized a meeting of the directors of the various national centers in other countries to standardize their work, it also completed various projects, among them: providing training for sound recording technicians, making a very large number of sound recordings of the traditions of the various ethnic groups living in the Savanna, and producing a film about a Hausa storyteller.

Numerous publications are already finished, among them The Way of Fulani Education; The Genealogical List of Gobir, some of my own work, and a large number of collections of the historical traditions of ethnic groups in Niger, Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, etc.

We also bring to your attention the provision of research grants to various nationals and aide for procuring hardware (especially sound recording equipment) for the national centers of other countries.

Projects currently underway which conform to the objectives laid out above include the intensive pursuit of the collection of tradition, the creation of an Institute to provide services for the elimination of illiteracy and to disseminate elementary knowledge of hygiene, agriculture, and practical sciences, and work to promote the employment of African languages in the economic and cultural life of the population.

I believe it is useful to report that, for his part, President Boubou Hama, on his own initiative, has undertaken the task of salvaging manuscripts written in Arabic by African authors. Currently, this collection already numbers more than 1,200 very rare manuscripts from all over Africa.

To conclude, I express the hope that the heads of African states will reserve a warm welcome for this proposal for joint work which will be submitted to them. The enterprise is important, generous, and indispensable. It gives us the hope of putting new life into Africa, of bringing its past, its glories, and its values to light, and of allowing it finally to contribute its share to the cultural patrimony of humankind.

The educational life of the Fulani is made up of three great phases: the teaching and education of youth, extending from birth to 21 years of age; the teaching dispensed to adults between 21 and 42 years of age to deepen the knowledge they already have; and finally, beginning at age 43, the individual becomes a teacher in turn, and is obliged, until he is 63 years of age, to pass on that which he has received. After age 63, a man can either continue to teach or stop. In any event, he is considered to have duly fulfilled his role as a man.

Thus education is dispensed by the elders (the "old", a term which is far from being pejorative as it sometimes is in Europe). It can include a practical, hands-on component "out in the field" (herding, hunting, and sometimes even farming in areas where the Fulani do not have "rimaybes", agricultural servants). It also contains a very important oral component.

Teaching is not presented in a systematic way as it is in the modern West, i.e., in a curriculum of progressively ascending grades evenly distributed over time. Here, elementary, middle, and higher education are dispensed at the same time, depending on events and circumstances, and always constitute a lesson of language in action.

The sight of an event prompts the master to draw a lesson from it for his students according to their ability. For example, the sight of a caravan of tiny ants transporting a grasshopper will allow him to give a whole course, not only on the ant and the grasshopper, but also on the usefulness of solidarity and the great strength which is created by the union of small assembled forces. It is thus a matter of teaching by symbols and parables.

The initiation narrative Kaïdara is an example of precisely this type of teaching through symbols. In this tale, we are introduced to three heroes setting out on a voyage, or rather a quest, whose goal is the full realization of the individual achieved by piercing the mystery of things and of life. Indeed, man is considered capable of living in three states: a superficial, course state, completely external, called "the bark"; a middle state, already more refined, called "the wood"; and finally an essential, central state, called "the heart".

Two of the three heroes in this story represent "the bark" and "the wood". They will not finish their voyage. One will be shed, like skin or bark, the other burned, like wood. Only the third, Hammadi, who represents "the heart", will arrive safe and sound, having victoriously passed the subtle tests scattered along his way. In the end, he will profit not only from his own voyage, but also from those of his two companions, recovering both the bark and the wood, thus reconstituting in himself the tree of knowledge. Each of these three travelers therefore symbolizes a state of our total being.

They undertake a voyage in a "subterranean" world, i.e., the world of significances hidden behind the appearance of things, the world of symbols, where everything has meaning, where everything speaks to one who knows how to hear. During this voyage, they encounter events or animals each of which is a symbol to be deciphered. There are thus eleven levels before arriving at the heart of "the country of Kaïdara", the center from which well up all the forces of life.

Among the symbols encountered and the teachings dispensed on their way, there is nothing which cannot be interpreted in view of its application to everyday life. Let us take for example the chameleon which our travelers encounter in the course of their "descent" into the country of Kaïdara.

Like any symbol, this one has both a positive and a negative interpretation by reason of the dualism inherent in all things. As I said in my response to question number one, just as the day is composed of a dark face (the night) and a luminous face (the day), all things have two aspects, one diurnal and the other nocturnal.

In its auspicious or diurnal aspect, the chameleon represents an extremely prudent and sensible being, one who is skillful and whose ideals remain firmly in place. Indeed, the chameleon never turns his head to look to the right or to the left. Nobody can make him deviate from the direction he has taken. Only his eyes turn to look around him. Here the eyes symbolize the means which allow him, without turning away from his goal, to examine surrounding conditions. Moreover, in the interest of its evolution the chameleon takes on the color of the environment, i.e., it adapts to the conditions of the places it crosses through so as not to clash with them. It does this not out of hypocrisy, but wise prudence.

The chameleon does not get mixed up in dubious affairs. Indeed, he never takes a step except very carefully to see whether the ground is going to give way under his feet. His prehensile [6] tail enables him to "cover his rear" and make sure he has something to fall back on. Indeed, he can balance his small body out in empty space as long as his tail remains solidly attached to a branch. His tongue, which is very long, allows him to feel out his prey before throwing himself on it, a symbol of the prudence of a man who does not act without due consideration, and who does not start something until he is sure of success. The chameleon says, "I send out my tongue to check out the lay of the land, while retaining the option of at least bringing it back in again if I am not able to bring home the prey." This admonition to prudence is addressed to everyone, but particularly to chiefs and kings so they do not imprudently engage the destiny of their people.

In his nocturnal, or negative aspect (negative in that a quality is lacking, just as darkness is lack of light), the chameleon symbolizes hypocrisy, sloth, apathy and stubbornness, while the eyes turning in all directions symbolize indiscretion.

At another point in their journey, our heroes encounter a bustard [7] with only one leg, flapping its wings [8]. They repeatedly fling themselves at it to try to catch it, each time in vain. Every time it escapes them. This incident symbolizes the struggle to "gain the world" and the bustard symbolizes the material wealth one believes one can easily earn. Because it has only one leg and is in a bad way, one imagines that it is easy prey. You pounce to catch it, and each time it slips between your legs. Those who seek wealth or power, if they are friends at the beginning, always end up enemies, and fall down. Thus our three heroes knock heads and fall back on their rears. [9] The appetite for material gain induces them to start all over again, and they fall three times in a row because one is seldom able to benefit from a lesson the first time.

In the underground world of Kaïdara, all the events, animals, and symbols encountered are like mirrors which reflect back to man his own image from different angles. For the Fulani, as certainly for many other African traditions, natural entities provide the symbols for their teachings, and the world around them becomes like a large book which one ought to learn how to decipher.

When our three heroes arrive at the heart of the country of Kaïdara beyond the eleven symbolic steps, the Highest Power (actually Kaïdara, representative of Guéno, supreme and unknowable God) reveals some of his secrets to them and places at their disposal, for their return trip, some gold, that is to say, a means to power, material as well as spiritual (the interpretation can play at various levels). Only Hammadi, the victorious hero, will demonstrate that one can do great and useful things with gold. His two companions will provide proof that a misused fortune, i.e., one used only for egotistical and personal ends, will become an instrument of ruin.

On another plane, this gold also represents knowledge can be used well or badly. It also symbolizes the great wisdom and nobility of man, the true nobility that permits a man in rags to stand before a man dressed in silk and not be timid. Gold is corrosion-proof; oxides cannot eat away at it. So it is for the soul of a man who has attained full interior realization. This is the man one calls "the complete man" (neddo in Fulani).

As a matter of fact, the return trip to the ordinary world of men represents the most significant phase of the journey for our three heroes. The special and decisive tests that await them are related to the use they make of their gold. Only Hammadi will pass the tests successfully, thanks to the counsel of a little old man in rags (who is none other than Kaïdara in disguise) to whom he agrees to give his gold in exchange for his teachings. He will return to the world of men, having gotten back not only his own gold, but also the gold of his two companions who died on the way. Thus because he listened to the advice of an old man and did not do anything that was forbidden, Hammadi, without having sought it, earned in the end the nobility coveted by one of his companions and the wealth coveted by the other.

As we said, several levels of interpretation are possible for this tale, which has the property of being applicable to any circumstance in life to learn a lesson from it. Applying its symbols to the problems that preoccupy us here, one can say that when we accept the counsel of the old and refrain from doing what is forbidden, we will not abdicate the essense of our personality or make a tabula rasa of everything in the interest of totally foreign customs, since we have at home a legitimate foundation upon which we can build our society and our personality. According to a Malian proverb, "A piece of wood remains in the water in vain; it will never become a caïman [10]."

A country may well import foreign plants to adapt them to its soil if it wishes. It is indeed its duty to do everything to enhance the value of its soil so that it bears many plants and good fruit. The danger lies in wanting to change the ground, to put another in its place; in wanting, for example, to bring a Nordic soil to Africa to boost millet production. It is highly probable that nothing very nourishing will come of it.

Let us find our ground, it will nourish us! And perhaps even offer its savory fruits to other nations that have lost the taste for them. Let us find our own African personality, and perhaps then we will be able to talk about African unity. Let us find ourselves, and perhaps then we will be able to extend to the foreign friend, no longer the hand of a beggar, but the hand of a brother.

Oral tradition is collected in the presence of the old, so the first thing I would advise young people is to learn how to approach the old people they want to visit. They should make inquiries about local customs in advance. Indeed, not all old people are approached in the same manner.

The common denominator is that, first and foremost, one must adopt a respectful attitude and present oneself as a student, not as an expert.

Our young people must learn how to hide their curiosity as they do in the French schools, to listen with infinite patience to what seems at first sight to be nothing but the verbiage of old men. Old people never "bare all" right off the bat. They weigh and evaluate the person they are talking to in order to assess their real qualities.

One should listen to the remarks of the old from start to finish, without interrupting them with requests, questions, or by making comparisons to something else one already knows. One has to "put logic in one's pocket" and simply listen. It is only after having registered everything that they can, when the elder falls silent, or at the time of another interview, pose relevant questions or ask for explanations about passages that merit clarification.

One should never forget that people can achieve a common goal without taking the same road. It is all symbolism at the top of the mountain, which can be reached by different paths. Therefore, one should not transform into a strict rule the signs of respect taught in Europe, which do not apply and can even be diametrically opposed to the way things are done here. We already referred, in our response to Question 2 about linguistics, to the fact that in the West, to look somebody in the eye is a sign of honesty and frankness, whereas in Africa it is unqualified insolence. Never forget either that in Africa, we take off our shoes to honor someone, whereas the Europeans remove their hats. I do not mean by this that our young people should be strictly obliged to take off their shoes, only that when they see others do so, they should at least not laugh at them.

Laughter, while it constitutes an agreeable behavior during hours of recreation, becomes a reason to stop the lesson during teaching. You do not laugh when an old person is teaching. If you do, he stops talking.

In short, avoid smiles, meaningful glances, and noisy manifestations of surprise. Avoid showing off your own knowledge.

In Africa as everywhere else, is not the true scientific attitude that of the researcher who is able to forget what he knows in order to improve his chances of learning what he does not know?

1. Marabout is the Bambara term for Moslem clerics are Koranic teachers, and therefore able to read and write Arabic to a greater or lesser extent. The Fouta Djallon region is located in the Guinea highlands southwest of Mali.

2. Mali was called the French Soudan during the colonial period. It was divided into administrative districts called "cercles", each administered by a "commandant de cercle". The French colonies in West Africa achieved independence in 1960.

3. "Old" is used here as an honorific.

4. The first eight volumes of The General History of Africa were published by Unesco in both French and English between 1981 and 1989. There are now at least 14 volumes. For more information on oral tradition in Mali, see Bâ, Amadou Hampaté. 1981. "The Living Tradition", General History of Africa: Methodology and African Prehistory, Vol. 1, J. Ki-Zerbo, ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press and Unesco): 166-205.

5. Available in English: Bâ, Amadou Hampaté. 1988. Kaïdara. Translated by Daniel Whitman; with "Kings, sages, rogues – the historical writings of Amadou Hampate Ba" by Whitman and an interview with Amadou Hampaté Bâ conducted in French at his home in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (1979). (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press). 159 p. Paperback $12.50 from amazon.com

6. Adapted for seizing or grasping by wrapping around.

7. Any of a family (Otididae) of large Old World and Australian game birds frequenting open, grassy regions.

8. "battre de l'aile", literally "beating the wings", means to be in a bad or shaky state.

9. "tomber sur le dos de qn." means to attack, fall on somebody, or go for somebody; to jump down somebody's throat. Here they "tomber à la renverse sur le dos," meaning they fall backward on their backsides, but if they ended up as enemies, one can imagine they also jumped down each other's throats.

10. An African crocodile.