Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [59]
When the awed boys had wolfed down their evening meal and rushed back to gather again around the old griot, he thrilled them until late into the night with stories his own father had passed down to him—about the great black empires that had ruled Africa hundreds of rains before.
“Long before toubob ever put his foot in Africa,” the old griot said, there was the Empire of Benin, ruled by an all-powerful king called the Oba, whose every wish was obeyed instantly. But the actual governing of Benin was done by trusted counselors of the Oba, whose full time was needed just for making the necessary sacrifices to appease the forces of evil and for his proper attentions to a harem of more than a hundred wives. But even before Benin was a yet richer kingdom called Songhai, said the griot. Songhai’s capital city was Gao, filled with fine houses for black princes and rich merchants who lavishly entertained traveling tradesmen who brought much gold to buy goods.
“Nor was that the richest kingdom,” said the old man. And he told the boys of ancestral Ghana, in which an entire town was populated with only the king’s court. And King Kanissaai had a thousand horses, each of which had three servants and its own urinal made of copper. Kunta could hardly believe his ears. “And each evening,” said the griot, “when King Kanissaai would emerge from his palace, a thousand fires would be lit, lighting up all between the heavens and the earth. And the servants of the great King would bring forth food enough to serve the ten thousand people who gathered there each evening.”
Here he paused, and exclamations of wonder could not be restrained by the boys, who knew well that no sound should be made as a griot talked, but neither he nor even the kintango himself seemed to notice their rudeness. Putting into his mouth half of a kola nut and offering the other half to the kintango, who accepted it with pleasure, the griot drew the skirt of his robe closer about his legs against the chill of the early night and resumed his stories.
“But even Ghana was not the richest black kingdom!” he exclaimed. “The very richest, the very oldest of them all was the kingdom of ancient Mali!” Like the other empires, Mali had its cities, its farmers, its artisans, its blacksmiths, tanners, dyers, and weavers, said the old griot. But Mali’s enormous wealth came from its far-flung trade routes in salt and gold and copper. “Altogether Mali was four months of travel long and four months of travel wide,” said the griot, “and the greatest of all its cities was the fabled Timbuktu!” The major center of learning in all Africa, it was populated by thousands of scholars, made even more numerous by a steady parade of visiting wise men seeking to increase their knowledge—so many that some of the biggest merchants sold nothing but parchments and books. “There is not a marabout, not a teacher in the smallest village, whose knowledge has not come at least in part from Timbuktu,” said the griot.
When finally the kintango stood up and thanked the griot for the generosity with which he had shared with them the treasures of his mind, Kunta and the others—for the first time since they came to the jujuo—actually dared to voice their displeasure, for the time had come for them to go to bed. The kintango chose to ignore this impertinence, at least for the time being, and sternly commanded them to their huts—but not before they had a chance to beg him to urge the griot to come back and visit them again.
They were still thinking and talking of the wondrous tales the griot had told them when—six days later—word came that a famous moro would soon be visiting the camp. The moro was the highest grade of teacher in The Gambia; indeed, there were only a few of them, and so wise were they—after many rains of study—that their job was to teach not schoolboys but other teachers, such as the arafang of Juffure.
Even the kintango showed unusual concern about this visitor, ordering the entire jujuo to be thoroughly cleaned, with