ABSTRACT
A Malian woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a traditional gown of embroidered damask, crosses a road early one morning in a busy neighborhood of Paris. She has spotted a fellow Malian, recognizable by his dress and way of walking, and she approaches him. During a brief exchange of greetings in Bamana-Mali’s main language-she learns the man’s surname. As if on cue, she stretches out one arm with a theatrical gesture, and in a piercing, declamatory style that can be heard over the roar of traffic, she sings an age-old song from the Mande tradition, whose title may be translated as “Calling the horses”:
Horses, oh! Jimbe! The horses of Silamakanba Koita! A patron of a jeli is better off than someone who has no jeli. I bless the person who has shown me love. If you are a true noble, you will love those who love you. Horses, oh horses!! War goes well for you. You seized him, you killed him. War is not good for cowards!
