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 Book |
| Title: | Chanter le baja ni: Abirè le Voyant Dogon |
| Authors: | Beek, Walter E.A. van Saye, Atimè Dogolu Ongoiba, Oumarou Sambo |
| Year: | 2020 |
| Issue: | 37 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Language: | French |
| Series: | ASC occasional publications |
| City of publisher: | Leiden, The Netherlands |
| Publisher: | African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL) |
| ISBN: | 9789054481805 |
| Geographic term: | Mali |
| Subjects: | Dogon history songs funerals songs (form) |
| Abstract: | In the 19th century a blind singer roamed the plains and cliff side area of the Dogon in Central Mali. His name was Abirè Goro, and both as a singer and a prophet he gained a huge reputation that still reverberates among the Dogon, who not only still remember and quote his many local predictions, but still sing his main legacy, a cycle of songs called the baja ni. As part of the funeral rituals, these chants are sung during a full night, in a performance lasting seven hours. The texts relate about history of the villages, local wars, village life, but are mainly songs of mourning, expressions of the essence of life as seen by the Dogon: life, death and destiny, the joy of life and the ways to cope with its inevitable demise. |
