Finding Griot

“It is said that the day you no longer know where you’re going, just remember where you came from.”

— Sotigui Kouyate, La Voix du Griot (The Voice of the Griot)

Enitan awoke to the sounds of screams; shouts for help and ardent pleas to God rose with the thick plumes of smoke filling the night sky. Wisps and tendrils of gray clawed around Enitan's door and snaked their way through the cracked windows of the hut. The air was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. His vision blurred as he hacked and wheezed. Was he dreaming? Nana used to tell him to grind the heel of his left foot into the ground, and if it hurt, no dream had taken him. Blood trickled where a small stone embedded itself in the bottom of Enitan's foot. No dream had taken him.

Splinters and slithers of wood exploded as Enitan burst through the hut door and into the open. His senses were immediately overpowered. The heat. The screaming. The brightness of the flames against the back drop of the dark Ghana night sky. His heel. The blood.

"Get more water," came the cries from where the intense heat and light emanated. A collection of bodies struggled on the ground next to empty pales. "Nyame! Nyame!," the elderly man on the bottom of the pile pleaded for God to intercede. Could the men on top not see they were needed in stopping the inferno? "Save the griot! Save the griot!" a woman prayed to no one in particular as she dug her heels into the ground.

Realization began to dawn on Enitan. The traveling storytellers had been in town for three days, not to tell stories and enlighten the tribe with music or mathematics, but on business. They sought young men who they might take along on their travels to teach the ways of storytelling, to test mental acuity - to challenge philosophically. Not everyone was happy about their presence, but this? This was a step too far. Enitan's heel still smarted, but he ran for water. He baled as fast as he could. He found an opening in the fire and stormed one of the engulfed huts. The elderly dark man on the floor rolled a long instrument and uttered one inaudible word as he breathed his last. Enitan dragged the man's lifeless body out of the hut as he coughed away the smoke that was still attacking his eyes. In his hand he hoisted the instrument. Enitan had only seen a kora once before. The long instrument had the body of a gourd and a long wooden neck that reminded him of the men who taught his religious classes. The long taut strings were still mostly in tact. One had popped and slashed across Enitan's arm when a spark jumped and singed the bottom of the kora, now a simmering dark spot. The cut was not deep, but he had seen enough blood for the day and enough death to last him a life-time.

One by one the dead were laid to rest. Men who traveled from far away with one quest, to pass on a gift that was passed on to them, were no longer to transfer the wisdom of the past, no more to solve the complexities of science and mathematics, and never more to bring levity to such a hardened and serious people. Among the dead was a familiar body - not arrayed in colorful patches, feathers, or shells - but with the simple skins and pelts of the beasts of burden. Enitan knew him. He was the elderly man wrestled to the ground; the man who started the fire - the murderer.

Following the week of celebrations and mourning, the village elders called a meeting. "We must find more griots to train our young men," said the largest of the men who sat on the drum shaped seats, the bonfire to their backs. In the flickering light of the flames, expressions of agreement and contempt could not be hidden. But no one said anything. The horrors of the last week stifled any dissent that might have previously been leveled at such a call. No one wanted to see their young eligible men carried away by fanciful stories, but it would be a small price to pay for the sins they had committed against their own countrymen. The large man stood and plead with the village men, "Who will go for us?"

The young men could all feel the stares, contemptuous and hopeful. Many of them flitted their attention, however briefly, towards a young lady they hoped to woo. The shape of a stuck gourd lifted above the crowd. "I will go and find a griot. I will bring him back," Enitan said, almost shocked at the conviction in his own voice. The eyes of the dead man on the floor of the burning hut played through his memory. Gasps and the sounds of heels grinding into the forum floor were preceded by the booming voice of the larger town elder.

"Nyame go with you boy, and may he shield you from the sun," said the elder as he beamed with pride in his youngest child.

In the first village Enitan only found women. They had no men to do any teaching. The wisest and the strongest were all carried off by a neighboring tribe. The weakest were left in a mound on the outskirts of the small town.

The second village was worse. No one was left. A fire still burned with the ashes of leather-bound tomes. Farm animals roamed the dirt paths between the tents scouring for crumbs.

The third village, still worse, bustled with the activity of forced labor. Upon sneaking into the makeshift hovels, Enitan found broken men. Former griots who felt they had no choice but to stay for the welfare of their enslaved compatriots. All he received were well-wishes and some small instruments to carry away to the longed-after griots.

Enitan was at the end of his rope when he reached the final village. No one was out for the morning. No women had gone to draw water. The men had not left to hunt or work the fields. He was tired; tired from a long search - tired of searching. Enitan found a rock upon which to sit and laid his head on folded arms. The mark in his heel found a pebble. The wound opened. As he moved the kora and other small instruments to the side so he could nurse his cut a voice sounded with joy.

"Griot! Griot! Griot! The griot is here!" exclaimed a young girl. She threw her doll into the air and jumped to catch it as she scurried back into her hut. Slowly, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, and small children filed out of the straw huts. Enitan looked around him in confusion. There were no griots in sight.

"Who? Where, little girl? Where is the griot? I have sought him for a long time. I've been through village after village. I need him to come to with me," Enitan pleaded to the confusion of the little girl. He told the story of what he found in his travels and the tragedy that befell the griots in his village that led him on this journey.

"You, sir. You're the griot," she said with wonder in her eyes. "You've traveled far. You've survived so much. You have the instruments. You tell the stories. You're the griot." She plucked the newer of the kora's strings and fingered the black spot at the base of the instrument, smiling up at Enitan. "It's you. We've waited so long." The voice of the dying griot in burning hut came back to him more clearly than on that fateful night. "Learn."

Enitan reentered his village to shouts of exultation. The older women and mothers set out foods and blankets they had prepared in his absence. The young men in his caravan ate like kings for the first time ever. No one asked who they were, where they had come from, or why these young men had come to their village. They were honored guests. Enitan's tribe was beyond those trivialities, but the large elder saw no occasion for joviality.

"Enitan, my son!" called the village elder. "Tell us, where have you been? What did you see? Where are the griots to train our young? I see only young men who have no experience. They do not know the mathematics. They have not loved. They have not lost. Where is the griot?" he asked in desperation.

Enitan smiled, dug his heel into the ground, and told the story.