2021 May

“Sound and Witness: Oral/Aural Histories and Materiality” was a panel presented as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2021 Spring Fellows Colloquia on April 23rd, 2021 and included the following presentations:

Ensemble Pictures: Matȟó Nážiŋ’s Little Bighorn Muslins and the Response-ability of Testimony
Ramey Mize, Douglass Foundation Fellow in American Art, The American Wing

Of Marble and Marronage: Silencing the Past in Nineteenth-Century Freetown
Caitlin Meehye Beach, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Investigating the Buzz: Reading African Instruments for Changes in Aural Practices Over Time
Althea SullyCole, Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow, Department of Musical Instruments

Moderator: Elyse Nelson, Assistant Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Link to the original event: https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-speaks/fellows-colloquia/sound-and-witness?&eid=A001_%7B67EFAB55-5DB3-421C-A4BE-3438C90F4F00%7D_20210301151200

This presentation is an introduction to some of the overarching themes in the study of music from the Mandé region of West Africa. The Mandé region refers to the geographic scope of the Mandé empire, which existed from 1235-1469 A.D. In present-day terms, this region encompasses Mali, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, and Guinea-Conakry. As one of the most prosperous kingdoms not only on the continent but in human history, the Mandé empire had an indelible and widespread cultural impact on the wider region. Its legacy may be observed today through a set of shared cultural practices among the many ethnic groups present during the Mandé empire known simply as the Mandékan. Notably, the empire solidified a caste system which established patrilineal lines of craftspeople, known in Maninka as nyamakala. Included among the nyamakala are jeliw: musicians, instrument-builders, storytellers and genealogists. In this presentation, I will give an overview of jeliw history, performance practices and instruments from the beginning of the Mandé empire to the present.