OLAC Record: Documentation of Baga Mandori (Atlantic, NIger-Congo) (ISO 639-3:bmd)

OLAC Record
oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1046446

Metadata

Title: The three stones of Bitonko

Documentation of Baga Mandori (Atlantic, NIger-Congo) (ISO 639-3:bmd)

Contributor (recorder): Frank

Coverage: Guinea

Description: The day before we had asked p024 and p026, if they were willing to tell us the history of Bitonko as they knew it. They were generally willing, but especially p024 was reluctant to commit fully to this program. He mentioned that forces from the sacred forest did not permit to tell everything, as this would endanger the ownership of the territory. He said that he was told this in the forest and used according to p003 terms that stem from the secret language of the sacred forest. p024 denied to be initiated, although I do have my doubts about this. The next day they were joined by several people who had heard about this session and all wanted to listen or participate. It is interesting that in the debriefing of the session, when I talked to p002 and p003 about how the session went, they mentioned that they were getting frustrated because of the evasive answers and stories the interlocuters gave. Also, I was told that the Vice-President of the district was probably present in order to make sure that nothing was said that could jepoardize the efforts to secede from Dobali and create an own district for Dobali. This dispute was going on during the whole time I was there and seemed to have been settled (at least temporarily) by the time I left. I think this might be a great piece to study the rhetorical skills necessary to practice the obfuscation practiced in what Sarro (2009) calls a "culture of secrecy".Mo

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.

History of Bitonko and the three stones as told by four elders

We established that he was about 7 years old when Sekou Touré took power, which puts his age at around 65. Nowadays he mostly stays at Dobali, but he used to go to Dabanku or Kamsar often. If he goes now he maybe stays for 2 to 3 days. Dabanku is close to Kolaboui. He is a member of the Sèrè 'Ali Boniya' (Which is a former mayor of Boké). The Sèrè is for mutual support and he has been a member for 9 years. He claims to have been a soldier for 12 years and worked as a nurse. He got apprenticed in the camp near Bitonko. But later in the interview when I came back to the issue he indicated that he was not part of the military and that he did not recieve a salary for his work. He does not move around much, but can go to Conakry, Kamsar, or Boké for medicine. He moves around the immediate region to treat people, when needed. He had just come back from Sansalé to treat somebody there. He lived in Bissau in 1989 to work as a "medicin".

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).

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.

He also studied the Coran near Boffa (Kourèralandè) with Al Hadj Ibrahima for 7 years. He works as a marabout and he has done that for 25 years now. He is not part of a Sèrè or any other association, but he runs a Coranic school with 20 students. He is not initiated. He started his Coranic school in 1984. He says that he travels a lot between Bitonko, Kamsar, Conakry, and Guinea-Bissau where he provides "maraboutage" services. He leaves between 2-5 times for 1-2 months.

We established that he was about had his first child around the time when Sekou Touré took power, which makes me think he is around 65. He gave his age as 70 years. He stays mainly in Bitonko, but he can go for a short time to Kamsar, if necessary. He said that a family father can only leave for two reasons: sickness or the necessitsy to manage some personal affairs. For the latter one takes about 2-3 days, in the former case that can be of longer duration.

He said that he is 80 years old. However, we established that he was born around the time when Sekou Touré took power, which puts his age at around 55. In the interview he made an interesting comment claiming that his father only knew Baga, which is then countered by his claim that his father had married a Susu wife. His mother was from Boffa. He stays mostly in Bitonko during the year. He sometimes goes to Boke, Kamsar, Conakry, Fria to visit relatives. He moves around alot in the region (Kamsar and Boke, is where he sells his goods (groundnuts). Each month he leaves Bitonko maybe 2-3 times to move around in the region. He also goes to Bissau to visit relatives (he visits the capital and/or villages/cities close to the border). He says that there are no Baga villages in Bissau, but some familymembers went to reside with the Nalu and Balanta.

p026 spent a substantial part of his life outside the village. He says he worked in Conkary, Nzérékoré, Koundara. He worked for TP (Travaux publiques) at first from 55' to 60', then he worked as a French Mining Company for '61 to 63', then he was a teacher at Nzèrèkorè until '66 (2 years at Nzéékoré, and 2 years at Bintonko), then he says he worked in a storage facility (Magazin générale) for the state at Koundara (Commerce d'état) for 6 years. After that he came back to stay in Boké around 1975 (he says he did not work, and relied on his children ever since then), he only came back to live in the village 2 years ago. He says that his children work the fields for him (groundnuts, rice). He says it is for subsistence. He says that he once travelled to Senegal with goods that he had bought in Koundara to sell there. He never fished. He never was involved in Palm Oil production. He is not part of a Sèrè. He says he has not been initiated here.

We established that he was about 15 years old when Sekou Touré took power (his fourth young brother was born then), which puts his age at around 73. He is the Imam that preaches at Difiare. He got his title of Fode at Boffa. He has been Imam 17 years at Difiare, before that he had been Imam at Bitonko for about 3 years. He leads (with p047) the Koranic School at Bitonko with currently about 10 students. Even though they run the school together, the students are divided between them. The 10 are the students attributed to his household. p047 was his student. He took over from his father 2 or three years before Sekou Touré died. He played soccer, but was never paid for it. He is not part of a Séré but of the Islamic League. He is not initiated. He does not remember the last initiation, the religious center was apparantly at Dobali. He claims that nothing was done at Bitonko. He does not move around much, but if he goes he goes to Boké, Kamsar, Kanfarandé for personal affiairs. He lived 3 years at Difiare.

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.

Format: video/mp4

Identifier: oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1046446

PD-50029-13

Identifier (URI): https://lat1.lis.soas.ac.uk/ds/asv?openpath=MPI1046446%23

Publisher: Frank Seidel

University of Florida

Subject: Literature

Oral History

History of Bitonko

Type: Video

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

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OaiIdentifier: oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1046446

DateStamp: 2017-07-14

GetRecord: OAI-PMH request for simple DC format

Search Info
Citation: Frank (recorder). n.d. Frank Seidel.

http://www.language-archives.org/item.php/oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1046446
Up-to-date as of: Mon Oct 18 15:27:40 EDT 2021

Metadata
Title:		The three stones of Bitonko
Title:		Documentation of Baga Mandori (Atlantic, NIger-Congo) (ISO 639-3:bmd)
Contributor (recorder):		Frank
Coverage:		Guinea
Description:		The day before we had asked p024 and p026, if they were willing to tell us the history of Bitonko as they knew it. They were generally willing, but especially p024 was reluctant to commit fully to this program. He mentioned that forces from the sacred forest did not permit to tell everything, as this would endanger the ownership of the territory. He said that he was told this in the forest and used according to p003 terms that stem from the secret language of the sacred forest. p024 denied to be initiated, although I do have my doubts about this. The next day they were joined by several people who had heard about this session and all wanted to listen or participate. It is interesting that in the debriefing of the session, when I talked to p002 and p003 about how the session went, they mentioned that they were getting frustrated because of the evasive answers and stories the interlocuters gave. Also, I was told that the Vice-President of the district was probably present in order to make sure that nothing was said that could jepoardize the efforts to secede from Dobali and create an own district for Dobali. This dispute was going on during the whole time I was there and seemed to have been settled (at least temporarily) by the time I left. I think this might be a great piece to study the rhetorical skills necessary to practice the obfuscation practiced in what Sarro (2009) calls a "culture of secrecy".Mo
		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.
		History of Bitonko and the three stones as told by four elders
		We established that he was about 7 years old when Sekou Touré took power, which puts his age at around 65. Nowadays he mostly stays at Dobali, but he used to go to Dabanku or Kamsar often. If he goes now he maybe stays for 2 to 3 days. Dabanku is close to Kolaboui. He is a member of the Sèrè 'Ali Boniya' (Which is a former mayor of Boké). The Sèrè is for mutual support and he has been a member for 9 years. He claims to have been a soldier for 12 years and worked as a nurse. He got apprenticed in the camp near Bitonko. But later in the interview when I came back to the issue he indicated that he was not part of the military and that he did not recieve a salary for his work. He does not move around much, but can go to Conakry, Kamsar, or Boké for medicine. He moves around the immediate region to treat people, when needed. He had just come back from Sansalé to treat somebody there. He lived in Bissau in 1989 to work as a "medicin".
		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).
		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.
		He also studied the Coran near Boffa (Kourèralandè) with Al Hadj Ibrahima for 7 years. He works as a marabout and he has done that for 25 years now. He is not part of a Sèrè or any other association, but he runs a Coranic school with 20 students. He is not initiated. He started his Coranic school in 1984. He says that he travels a lot between Bitonko, Kamsar, Conakry, and Guinea-Bissau where he provides "maraboutage" services. He leaves between 2-5 times for 1-2 months.
		We established that he was about had his first child around the time when Sekou Touré took power, which makes me think he is around 65. He gave his age as 70 years. He stays mainly in Bitonko, but he can go for a short time to Kamsar, if necessary. He said that a family father can only leave for two reasons: sickness or the necessitsy to manage some personal affairs. For the latter one takes about 2-3 days, in the former case that can be of longer duration.
		He said that he is 80 years old. However, we established that he was born around the time when Sekou Touré took power, which puts his age at around 55. In the interview he made an interesting comment claiming that his father only knew Baga, which is then countered by his claim that his father had married a Susu wife. His mother was from Boffa. He stays mostly in Bitonko during the year. He sometimes goes to Boke, Kamsar, Conakry, Fria to visit relatives. He moves around alot in the region (Kamsar and Boke, is where he sells his goods (groundnuts). Each month he leaves Bitonko maybe 2-3 times to move around in the region. He also goes to Bissau to visit relatives (he visits the capital and/or villages/cities close to the border). He says that there are no Baga villages in Bissau, but some familymembers went to reside with the Nalu and Balanta.
		p026 spent a substantial part of his life outside the village. He says he worked in Conkary, Nzérékoré, Koundara. He worked for TP (Travaux publiques) at first from 55' to 60', then he worked as a French Mining Company for '61 to 63', then he was a teacher at Nzèrèkorè until '66 (2 years at Nzéékoré, and 2 years at Bintonko), then he says he worked in a storage facility (Magazin générale) for the state at Koundara (Commerce d'état) for 6 years. After that he came back to stay in Boké around 1975 (he says he did not work, and relied on his children ever since then), he only came back to live in the village 2 years ago. He says that his children work the fields for him (groundnuts, rice). He says it is for subsistence. He says that he once travelled to Senegal with goods that he had bought in Koundara to sell there. He never fished. He never was involved in Palm Oil production. He is not part of a Sèrè. He says he has not been initiated here.
		We established that he was about 15 years old when Sekou Touré took power (his fourth young brother was born then), which puts his age at around 73. He is the Imam that preaches at Difiare. He got his title of Fode at Boffa. He has been Imam 17 years at Difiare, before that he had been Imam at Bitonko for about 3 years. He leads (with p047) the Koranic School at Bitonko with currently about 10 students. Even though they run the school together, the students are divided between them. The 10 are the students attributed to his household. p047 was his student. He took over from his father 2 or three years before Sekou Touré died. He played soccer, but was never paid for it. He is not part of a Séré but of the Islamic League. He is not initiated. He does not remember the last initiation, the religious center was apparantly at Dobali. He claims that nothing was done at Bitonko. He does not move around much, but if he goes he goes to Boké, Kamsar, Kanfarandé for personal affiairs. He lived 3 years at Difiare.
		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.
Format:		video/mp4
Identifier:		oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1046446
Identifier:		PD-50029-13
Identifier (URI):		https://lat1.lis.soas.ac.uk/ds/asv?openpath=MPI1046446%23
Publisher:		Frank Seidel
Publisher:		University of Florida
Subject:		Literature
		Oral History
		History of Bitonko
Type:		Video
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:MPI1046446
DateStamp:		2017-07-14
GetRecord:		OAI-PMH request for simple DC format
Search Info
Citation:		Frank (recorder). n.d. Frank Seidel.