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30 December, 2011

Yere Majigi

Donso music is usually associated with donson’goni, the six-stringed harp-lute played by the musicians of the brotherhood. Sometimes I saw a few drums being added, but only with a secondary role. The foreground is taken by the bard’s voice, and instrumental music often represents just a background for his praises and epic songs. With surprise I…

24 December, 2011

Another Way of Hunting, or Meat for Christmas

So it is the day before Christmas, both my friend’s shotgun and mine are being repaired and we have no meat for tomorrow. I could buy yet another hen, but I am frankly tired of being a hunter who buys overpriced chicken. Around December they reach three or four times the normal price, and I…

18 December, 2011

How to Make Gunpowder

Go-Seydou Traoré is a blacksmith, he works iron and wood following the Mande tradition of numu families. He has big, strong hands, and makes chips fly around when he cuts the hard wood he makes mortars from. But he is at the same time a very gentle and sensitive person, who often comes by to…