UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Previously Published Works Title Violence in Two African Epics: A Comparative Study of Chaka and Sundiata Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2tx4v0vg Author KONATE, Siendou Publication Date 2012-12-19 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Violence in Two African Epics: A Comparative Study of Chaka and Sundiata KONATE Siendou Université de Cocody-Abidjan
[email protected] December 19th, 2012 Abstract: This paper discusses heroic violence in the epics of Sundiata, the Emperor of Old Mali, and Chaka the Zulu king who revealed himself as a military strategist to English colonizers of southern Africa. Notwithstanding the violence treasured by the griot in one epic (Sundiata’s) and decried by the Christian author in the other (Chaka’s), the truth remains that the heroic exploits of these two historical figures are capitalized by their contemporaries as a source of reference for their present daily experience. Keywords: Mande, Zulu, heroism, violence, griot, history, contemporary Introduction Reliance on oral culture (i.e. the spoken word and its related culture) as a medium of expression on the African continent is no secret. Unlike certain nations that privileged writing in order to confer a perennial character to acts and deeds of their people –that is to make their trace indelible on the pages of History–, some African language communities relied on memory and the spoken word to tell about themselves, what they feel and what things and people should be. In addition to the above-mentioned historical categories, orality was used to tell what occurred, what the people who had come to pass as the great figures and torches of their communities did.