Balancing Written History with Oral Traditions

Hassimi O. Maiga's Balancing Written History with Oral Tradition: The Legacy of the Songhoy People is one of those studies by a member of the Songhay people with so much promise. As a scholarly work authored by someone with local insights, one expects a lot from the author and his ambitious title. Indeed, one occasionally finds references to this book among online Afrocentrists who promote it.  Unfortunately, Maiga's study fails to deliver on many levels. We have learned the hard way to always be wary with the online Afrocentrists. Check their sources and one can easily discover severe limitations of their paradigm. 

What emerges from reading the text is a rather confusing attempt at face-value interpretation of Songhay or Songhoy traditions. There is no nuanced, sophisticated interpreting of oral traditions here. Moreover, Maiga relies heavily on dated sources such as Felix Dubois and J. Beraud-Villers. At times, Maiga appears to actually believe the Songhoy derive from Yemen (Dia brothers, who were somehow also Lemta Berbers?), Egypt and Nubia. Without any evidence, Maiga also asserts a deep antiquity of Katoutka and Koukya, which apparently existed at the same time as the pharoahs of Egypt. We know Gomez's African Dominion cites research demonstrating human habitation of the area of Gao since 2000 BCE, but we do not have sufficient evidence of early urbanism around that time. As more proof of the text's flaws, there's even a bizarre passage claiming potatoes were cultivated in the kingdom of Ghana! 

Furthermore, Maiga is the only writer we have encountered who claimed the Songhoy invented a writing system or script. He linked the "Kumbaw" ideogram writing system to the Kumbaw and/or Sonanche of Gao, allegedly the traditional specialists of writing. However, our previous attempts at verifying or corroborating Maiga's claim failed. There very well could have been some kind or ritualistic or ideograph system used by Songhoy specialists, but Maiga's haphazard presentation and flawed attempt at balancing written and oral sources does not inspire confidence or hope. One would also think better scholars would have discovered this Kumbaw writing system by now. Even if they were Western ethnographers and historians more interested in the political history of the Songhay kingdoms or Islamic influences, wouldn't a Jean Rouch or Hunwick have written about a Songhay ritual writing? 

One is better off consulting Hunwick, Rouch, Boubou Hama or Paulo de Moraes Farias for a much deeper analysis based on synthesizing written sources and oral history. To his credit, the author's presentation of the various dynasties from the Koungorogossi, supposedly the first, to the Dia is interesting. Does he present any evidence that the first Songhoy dynasty existed 3 centuries before the Dia brothers arrived in c.670? No, unfortunately. But the family manuscript Maiga mentions in this context sounds interesting and should be copied and analyzed by others interested in Songhay history. There are bits and pieces of his study which warrant further inquiry. A better scholar might be able to propose a more historically accurate reading of some of the traditions and family manuscripts utilized by Maiga.