Alex Haley - Roots - The Saga of an American Family

As the next moon of training began, drumtalk reached the jujuo telling of new visitors to be expected within the next two days. The excitement with which the news of any visitors would have been received, after so long since the fathers and brothers had come to see them, was doubled when the boys learned that the sender of the message was the drummer of Juffure’s champion wrestling team, which was coming to conduct special lessons for the trainees.

Late in the afternoon of the next day, the drums announced their arrival even earlier than expected. But the boys’ pleasure at seeing all the familiar faces again was forgotten when, without a word, the wrestlers grabbed them and began to flip them onto the ground harder than they had ever been thrown in their lives. And every boy was bruised and hurting when the wrestlers divided them into smaller groups to grapple one another, as the champions supervised. Kunta had never imagined there were so many wrestling holds, nor how effectively they could work, if used correctly. And the champions kept drumming into the boys’ ears that it was knowledge and expertness and not strength that made the difference between being an ordinary wrestler and a champion. Still, as they demonstrated the holds for their pupils, the boys couldn’t help admiring their bulging muscles as much as their skill in using them. Around the fire that night, the drummer from Juffure chanted the names and the feats of great Mandinka wrestling champions of even a hundred rains in the past, and when it was the boys’ time for bed, the wrestlers left the jujuo to return to Juffure.

Two days later came news of another visitor. This time the message was brought by a runner from Juffure—a young man of the fourth kafo whom Kunta and his mates knew well, though in his own new manhood, he acted as if he never had seen these third-kafo children. Without so much as a glance at them, he ran up to the kintango and announced, between deep breaths, that Kujali N’jai, a griot well known throughout The Gambia, would soon spend one full day at the jujuo.

In three days he arrived, accompanied by several young men of his family. He was much older than any of the griots Kunta had seen before—so old, in fact, that he made the kintango seem young. After gesturing for the boys to squat in a semicircle about him, the old man began to talk of how he became what he was. He told them how, over years of study from young manhood, every griot had buried deep in his mind the records of the ancestors. “How else could you know of the great deeds of the ancient kings, holy men, hunters, and warriors who came hundreds of rains before us? Have you met them?” asked the old man. “No! The history of our people is carried to the future in here.” And he tapped his gray head.

The question in the mind of every boy was answered by the old griot: Only the sons of griots could become griots. Indeed, it was their solemn duty to become griots. Upon finishing their manhood training, these boys—like those grandsons of his own who sat beside him here today—would begin studying and traveling with selected elders, hearing over and again the historical names and stories as they had been passed down. And in due time, each young man would know that special part of the forefathers’ history in the finest and fullest detail, just as it had been told to his father and his father’s father. And the day would come when that boy would become a man and have sons to whom he would tell those stories, so that the events of the distant past would forever live.

When the awed boys had wolfed down their evening meal and rushed back to gather again around the old griot, he thrilled them until late into the night with stories his own father had passed down to him—about the great black empires that had ruled Africa hundreds of rains before.

“Long before toubob ever put his foot in Africa,” the old griot said, there was the Empire of Benin, ruled by an all-powerful king called the Oba, whose every wish was obeyed instantly. But the actual governing of Benin was done by trusted counselors of the Oba, whose full time was needed just for making the necessary sacrifices to appease the forces of evil and for his proper attentions to a harem of more than a hundred wives. But even before Benin was a yet richer kingdom called Songhai, said the griot. Songhai’s capital city was Gao, filled with fine houses for black princes and rich merchants who lavishly entertained traveling tradesmen who brought much gold to buy goods.

“Nor was that the richest kingdom,” said the old man. And he told the boys of ancestral Ghana, in which an entire town was populated with only the king’s court. And King Kanissaai had a thousand horses, each of which had three servants and its own urinal made of copper. Kunta could hardly believe his ears. “And each evening,” said the griot, “when King Kanissaai would emerge from his palace, a thousand fires would be lit, lighting up all between the heavens and the earth. And the servants of the great King would bring forth food enough to serve the ten thousand people who gathered there each evening.”

Here he paused, and exclamations of wonder could not be restrained by the boys, who knew well that no sound should be made as a griot talked, but neither he nor even the kintango himself seemed to notice their rudeness. Putting into his mouth half of a kola nut and offering the other half to the kintango, who accepted it with pleasure, the griot drew the skirt of his robe closer about his legs against the chill of the early night and resumed his stories.

“But even Ghana was not the richest black kingdom!” he exclaimed. “The very richest, the very oldest of them all was the kingdom of ancient Mali!” Like the other empires, Mali had its cities, its farmers, its artisans, its blacksmiths, tanners, dyers, and weavers, said the old griot. But Mali’s enormous wealth came from its far-flung trade routes in salt and gold and copper. “Altogether Mali was four months of travel long and four months of travel wide,” said the griot, “and the greatest of all its cities was the fabled Timbuktu!” The major center of learning in all Africa, it was populated by thousands of scholars, made even more numerous by a steady parade of visiting wise men seeking to increase their knowledge—so many that some of the biggest merchants sold nothing but parchments and books. “There is not a marabout, not a teacher in the smallest village, whose knowledge has not come at least in part from Timbuktu,” said the griot.

When finally the kintango stood up and thanked the griot for the generosity with which he had shared with them the treasures of his mind, Kunta and the others—for the first time since they came to the jujuo—actually dared to voice their displeasure, for the time had come for them to go to bed. The kintango chose to ignore this impertinence, at least for the time being, and sternly commanded them to their huts—but not before they had a chance to beg him to urge the griot to come back and visit them again.

They were still thinking and talking of the wondrous tales the griot had told them when—six days later—word came that a famous moro would soon be visiting the camp. The moro was the highest grade of teacher in The Gambia; indeed, there were only a few of them, and so wise were they—after many rains of study—that their job was to teach not schoolboys but other teachers, such as the arafang of Juffure.

Even the kintango showed unusual concern about this visitor, ordering the entire jujuo to be thoroughly cleaned, with the dirt raked and then brushed with leafy branches to a smoothness that would capture the honor of the fresh footprints of the moro when he arrived. Then the kintango assembled the boys in the compound and told them, “The advice and the blessings of this man who will be with us is sought not only by ordinary people but also by village chiefs and even by kings.”