An evening at Radio Donko: hunters, sorcerers and presenters on the air in Mali’s Afropolis

ABSTRACT

In Bamako, Mali, radio presenters record, archive and broadcast field recordings of hunters’ musical performances, thus contributing to the transmission and dissemination of that music, locally and nationally. This article is a reflexive account of a hunters’ radio show at one of Bamako’s private radio stations, Radio Donko. Through ethnographic narrative, thick description and analysis, I show how radio presenters, hunters’ musicians, sorcerers and audiences engage, interact and negotiate power, morality, identity and social positioning in a contemporary Afropolis: Bamako. I argue that such subtle and pronounced interactions are deeply rooted in traditionally informed intersubjectivities that arise from the lifeworlds of hunters. Radio becomes a means for social agents to form, maintain and expand social networks that revolve around cultural norms, personal expectations and existential concerns that correspond to hunters’ behavioural codes and worldviews.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnography
• Mali
• Mande hunters’ music
• media
• performance

Acknowledgements

This article would have not been possible without the invitation, commitment and support of Tom Wagner. I am grateful to Ioannis Tsioulakis and Esmorie Miller for their kind suggestions and criticisms. I am indebted to Joseph Hellweg, who generously proofread and edited the text at a later stage. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments helped my rethinking of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on Contributor

Theodore L. Konkouris is a postdoctoral researcher, writer and musician. He received his PhD from Queen’s University Belfast where he has been teaching anthropology and ethnomusicology at since 2011. His research interests include Mande Hunters’ Music; African Music; Avant-Garde; Free Improvisation; Popular Culture; Hunting; Sorcery and Witchcraft; Existential Anthropology; Fieldwork & Ethnography. He is the author of ‘Recalling the Past in Song: Memory and Recovery in Mande Hunters’ Ceremonies’ in The Politics of Memory and Recovery in Times of Crisis, edited by Fiona Larkan and Fiona Murphy (Ashgate, 2018) and ‘Apprenticeship among the Mande Hunters’ in The Routledge Companion to the Study of Local Musicking, edited by Suzel Ana Reily and Katherine Brucher (Routledge, 2018).

Notes

1 In this article, I also refer to hunters’ musicians as ‘praise singers’ and ‘bards’, following Bird (1972), McNaughton (1982), Bird and Kendall (1987), Hellweg (2011), Strawn (2011) and Kedzierska-Manzon (2014 and personal communication, 9 October 2014).

2 I borrow the expression ‘hunters’ domain’ from the name of one of the most popular and oldest radio shows on hunters’ lore, ‘Donso Ka Kènè’, of the ORTM’s (Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision du Mali).

3 ‘Brotherhood’ or ‘fraternity’ is closer to the meaning of donsotɔn, according to my consultants. Yet, although hunters perceive their brotherhood as one and indivisible, the Fédération Nationale des Chasseurs du Mali (National Federation of Hunters in Mali), eventually split into three distinct donsotɔnw (pl.) for political reasons (Konkouris 2013: 271). I therefore pluralise the term and use it interchangeably with ‘societies’ and ‘associations’.

4 The Bamana and Maninka are two of the largest ethnic groups in Mali.

5 Cashion (1984) describes 37 different rules that comprise the hunters’ code.

6 Some of the most popular radio stations in Bamako are Radio Baguinéda, Bamakan, Bènkan, Canal 2000, Donko, Fréquence 3, Guintan, Jekafo, Kayira, Klédou, Liberté, Patriote, Rurale, Tabalé and the Islamic station Voix du Coran. All except Voix du Coran have weekly programmes on hunters’ music.

7 Recordings by hunters’ musicians such as Bala Jimba Diakité and Toumani Koné circulated widely and were played on ORTM in the 1990s. My consultants were referring, however, to commercial recordings produced by contemporary music producers and entrepreneurs like Siriman Diallo.

8 At the time of my research, both field and commercial recordings were made and released in cassette format. Compact discs were considered too unreliable and fragile for Mali’s climate, and digital recorders were not available. However, smart phones were sometimes used to record audio and video during performances.

9 I have discussed music producers, record labels and recording studio practices in detail elsewhere (Konkouris 2013).

10 I was told that both animals had significant nyama, the vital force behind living and non-living things. Moustapha kept these animals for ‘magical purposes’.

11 Hunters can judge their bards harshly, sometimes for as much as a small mistake. Such judgements can do serious damage to a musician’s reputation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Employment and Learning Scholarship at Queen’s University Belfast and the William and Betty MacQuitty Travel Scholarship.