OLAC Record oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1035225

Metadata
Title:		Fishing technique descriptions
		A variety of fishing techniques
		Documentation of Baga Mandori (Atlantic, NIger-Congo) (ISO 639-3:bmd)
Contributor (recorder):		Frank
Coverage:		Guinea
Description:		This bundle contains two different recording sessions with different speakers that describe a set of fishing techniques.
		This project delivers the first in-depth linguistic documentation of any of the Baga languages spoken in the Basse-Côte region of Guinea-Conakry, West Africa. Baga Mandori (also Baga Ma(n)duri), the focus of this project, belongs to the Atlantic (Niger-Congo phylum) group of languages and is part of the Mel cluster. Baga Mandori represents one of the two linguistic communities – the other being Baga Sitemu – that still use a Baga variety in intra-communal communication to some degree. The language is, however, under pressure by Soso, a Mande language and the dominant lingua franca of the region. This project will employ an immersive research approach, which aims to deliver a diverse and integrated multimedia documentary archive that will combine linguistic documentation with community training and participation. Linguistic documentation will be in the form of a trilingual dictionary (Baga Mandori-English-French), an extensive grammatical outline, an orthography, and annotated and transcribed audio-visual material from a variety of linguistic genres.
		p001 is the main researcher in this project which he runs from the University of Florida. He is emplyed as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for African Studies. This is his second language documentation project. In the first documentation project he documented the Atlantic language Nalu (naj) spoken in close proximity to Baga Mandori (bmd).
		He says that fishing is more profitable than farming and he sells the fish (I assume after smoking and preserving it) in Guinea-Bissau in big quantities. He goes there once a year. He plans to also start buying fish from other fishermen in order to sell them with the fish he is selling. His fishing base is close to Dobali (Karabo campement , Dobali). His family does palm oil and salt production for sale as well. He is a soccer commentator, and I have heard him comment on a soccer game. He claims that he never received money for doing that. He does it for the village. He has been a member of the sèrè [senale] for the past seven years. This sèrè comes together to organize group work for the village and support each other for marriage arrangements. He is not initiated in a secret society. He goes to Kamsar for 1-2 weeks each 1 to 2 months. When he goes to Guinea-Bissau he stays about 1 day.
		Denilson is a nickname taken from a famous soccer player Denilson, although it is not clear to me which one and I forgot to ask. When I asked him about his grandmothers, he told me that he never met his grandmothers. He lives in Kamsar with this brother. He resides mainly in Kamsar. In his own estimation about 10 months, the rest of the time he is either in his home village (2 or 3 weeks, 3 or four times a year) or in Conakry. It is in Conakry where he goes and buys the clothes he sells on the market. He said he goes to Conakry about once a month. Apart from Kamsar where he did most his schooling after grade 10, and where he now lives, he lived for approximately five years 2008-2013 in Dalaba for his studies. Before that he resided in Kanfarandé for grades 3-10. He has been to Labé once for a few weeks.
		This consultant has gone to university for an equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree (Licence) in, in his words, "Sociologie specialisé en development locale et des organisations administratives." The consultant lives in Conakry now, where he went for his studies. The other places of residences reflect his school years. Kanfarandé is where the first part of the secondary education of children in the sub-prefecture of Kanfarandé takes place, if they do not go to Kamsar. From there students move on to Kamsar to study for their Baccalaureat. He mainly travels back to the village for visits, but he says that he travels for 'missions" around Guinea maybe once or twice a year. He has been to Kankan, (2 months), Gueckedou (1 week), Benin, Cotonou (2 months); the last trip was on a sort of national scholarship. As an additional note, the nick name is a short for Saïdou, where the last syllable "dou" is altered to Dös.
		He said that he was born around the end of the last world war. I am posing 1945 as his approximate year of birth. He only does fishing for sale in small quantities. The farming is only for subsistence. His family makes palm oil. During Sekou's time, like so many other's his age he was part of a cultural dance/musical group. His group had taken the name of a musical instrument, [pörörö]. His first wife, he says is a pure Baga, but she grew up outside of the community (in a Diakhanke village) and does not really speak the Baga as a native. Interestingly, he claims that his second wife, the Nalu one, speaks Baga better than his first wife. He also said that she is initiated into Mnyaando and speaks Nalu fluently. He says he leaves for outside, if he goes he goes to Kamsar or Conakry, but in some years he does not leave at all. His leaving is mostly connected to health issues. In his age, i.e. right now he spends more time in Kamsar owing to his health. He spent about 7 months each year for the past two years there. He also says that he is initiated and that he sometimes has to leave owing to secret society buisness.
		When he introduced himself at the beginning of the interview he mentioned that he is of the family (clan?) /kaskönta/. He said that at the time of the second world war he was already a grown man. He claims to be the oldest man alive in the area now. Only at Kaweswes there is a man older than him. He claims to be 90 years old. Let us assume, that he was 15 at the end of the second world war, which would make him to be somebody in his eighties. He nowadays doesn't move around a lot, but when asked specifically he mentioned that when he was younger he did move goods to Guinea-Bissau for sale. Although at those times, owing to the war (I assume the war with the Portuguese) one could not go far into Guinea-Bissau and he limited himself at /kasini/ (Cassine?). For communication he used Soso. He went to Conakry three times in his live. [For many of the older generations in this area, Conakry does not seem to be a favorite destination. Guinea-Bissau seems to be much more on their radar, FS (p001). He is part of what he calls the council of elders and he is initiated into a secret society. He says that he did not play soccer, but he was involved in creating the Dobali soccer field. He later brought is ID card, which says that he was born in 1930., which makes him 84 years old.
Format:		audio/x-wav
		video/mp4
		image/jpeg
Identifier:		oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1035225
		PD-50029-13
Identifier (URI):		https://lat1.lis.soas.ac.uk/ds/asv?openpath=MPI1035225%23
Publisher:		Frank Seidel
		University of Florida
Type:		Audio
		Video
		Image
OLAC Info
Archive:		Endangered Languages Archive
Description:		http://www.language-archives.org/archive/soas.ac.uk
GetRecord:		OAI-PMH request for OLAC format
GetRecord:		Pre-generated XML file
OAI Info
OaiIdentifier:		oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1035225
DateStamp:		2016-11-05
GetRecord:		OAI-PMH request for simple DC format
Search Info
Citation:		Frank (recorder). n.d. Frank Seidel.