Cultural Achievement of West Africa [Review]

Storytellers/Musicians/Poets who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.

• Kora

• Griot

• Kinship

• Clan

Like a xylophone it is made of wooden bars laid across a frame. The musician strikes the bars with a mallet, or hammer, to make melodies.

• balafon

• kora

• ngoni

• guitar

is a harplike instrument with 21 strings. The body is made of a gourd that has been cut in half and covered with cow-hide.

• balafon

• kora

• ngoni

• guitar

is a small stringed instrument made of hollowed-out wood carved in a shape similar to a canoe. It is the most popular traditional stringed instrument in Mali today.

• balafon

• kora

• ngoni

• guitar

a type of folktale that features an animal or human character who typically engages in trickery, violence, and magic. The trickster is usually punished.

• griot

• genealogies

• Folktales

• trickster tale

a story that often provides a moral lesson and is passed down orally, becoming part of a culture’s tradition

• griot

• genealogies

• Folktales

• trickster tale

popular or short sayings of wisdom or truth...

• genealogies

• verbal

• transmitted

• proverbs

to pass something on to someone else...

• verbal

• transmitted

• evolved

• proverbs

a song style in which a singer or musician leads with a call and a group responds.

• applique

• proverbs

• Folktale

• call-and-response

Which of these is the best example of an oral tradition...

• a great-grandmother's photo album

• a grandfather playing a game with his grandchildren

• a grandmothers' diary found at the base of ancient ruins

• a grandfather telling a story about his childhood