premium133 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

i love this !!! people of MALI say: HELLO

artsybeads18 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

yay! this is gorgeous, debbie :)i loved watching this in ur class.

Outreachat (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

4.) In that sense all Yoruba drums, including the bata, are talking drums. The bata is not shared in common by the Yoruba with other West Africans; the dundun or gangan is. Hence the name, Yoruba taking drum -- because there are less versatile versions of the hour-glass drum all the way to Mali. Yet the hour-glass drum is the quintessential symbol of Yoruba music, with the bata a worthy second. The bata was a ritual drum in praise of Sango, masquerades and warriors until a few decades ago.

Outreachat (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

3.) ... of Ogun: Ire kii se ile Ogun; o ya ki won l'agbede, o wa m'emu ni. (Ire was not Ogun's hometown; he merely stopped by there at the forge, to imbibe some palmwine.) Ogun is normally hailed as Ogun Onire, i.e., Owner of Ire. The Yoruba normally will not claim a foreign influence as theirs, but will honour it. The Yoruba are unique for the tonal range that their drums must produce in order to reflect the discourse between music and language that their drumming tradition is founded upon.

Outreachat (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

2.) The cult that came southwards from Nupeland was the Gunnuko or Igunnuko cult, and it still has strong roots among the Yoruba, especially in Lagos and Ijebu. There is a Yoruba saying, Igunnu lo ni Tapa; Tapa lo ni'Gunnu (The Igunnu masquerade owns the Tapa people; the Tapa people own the Igunnu). The Nupe or Tapa (Takpa) are themselves not Hausa or Fulani, and are located in Nupeland, in present-day Niger and Kwara States in Nigeria. A similar point of correction is in the praise poetry...

Zaragemca (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Brother Outreachat,I would like to ask some questions to anybody which think they know about Yorubas..Which is the real name of Sango?...Which was the society which developed the Batas in Yorubaland?.... When the Bata was incorporated into the Yorubas ceromonies?..(Gerry Zaragemca is a world's known authority in Afrocuban Percussion and Music).

Outreachat (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

1.) Not so, sir! Nupe, his mother's birthplace, was the place where Sango hoped to seek asylum after he was forced into abdication from ancient Oyo. According to legend his wife Oya turned into the River Niger, incidentally a critical landmark between Yorubaland proper and Nupeland, which has durable Yoruba roots. "Zungo", "sungo", or "sango" is an Hausa word for a travellers' camp, also known as Sabo, now any district for Hausas in any town away from home; it does not refer to the god.

Zaragemca (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

The Oricha Shango, was not a Yoruba Deity, in Africa...Neither the people in Oyo or Nupe,(the truly land of Shango),new anything about the Batas)..Shango,is a Hausa-word,which mean, Worrior...It was in Cuba,(Not Nigeria),where the ceremony to integrated Shango into the Yorubass Religion took place....Dr. Zaragemca

LanguageNerd (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

African Culture is so beautiful!

debraklein (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

As far as I know, the song has no name per se. It is a version of Sango's oriki.