Page 101 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

he carried “two short lances, one of gold and the other of silver, with
iron tips.” Anybody who wanted to address Mansa Sulayman had to
speak to Dugha, who would pass on the message.
While Ibn Battuta was in Mali, he attended the celebration that
follows Ramadan (the Muslim holy month of fasting). Dugha was the
main performer. During the two-day festival, the mansa would come
out and take his place on his raised throne. The usual bodyguard was
present with its ceremonial swords and lances. On the day described by
Ibn Battuta, Dugha came out with his four wives and about 100 young
women dressed in fine clothes and wearing gold headbands decorated
with silver and gold ornaments.
Seated at the center of everything, Dugha performed just as jeliw
do today. He played the bala (a kind of xylophone) and sang praise
songs that commemorated the mansa’s military campaigns and praised
his ancestors from the time of Sunjata. The women (a female jeli is a
jelimuso) sang a chorus and strummed on single-stringed harps. There
were 30 boys playing drums while others performed as acrobats and
twirled swords.
At the end of Dugha’s performance he was handed a purse from
the mansa, with a public announcement that it contained 200 mithqals
of gold dust. The other court officers also rewarded Dugha with the
amounts appropriate to their rank. Even today, when anyone hears a jeli
praising their ancestors, they are expected to give him money.

STringed inSTruMenTS

When Ibn Battuta mentioned seeing stringed instruments at the Mali
royal court, he gave no details. So there is no way of knowing which
ones he actually saw. Several of the Mande stringed instruments are
types of calabash harp. Calabashes are the dried shells of gourds. In
Mande society, in addition to being used as containers of all sizes, they
serve as resonators for various kinds of musical instruments.
Used in a harp, the calabash is like the body of a mandolin but the
sound hole is on the side. The resonator has a long bamboo neck that is
usually spiked all the way through the calabash. It holds anywhere from
three to 21 strings, depending on the type of harp.
Many of the large harps have a “buzzing leaf” attached to the
top of the neck. The buzzing leaf is a curved rectangle of tin with a
v-shaped piece cut out of the front side and tiny metal rings inserted

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