I. THE OZIDI SAGA
Cultural and Historical Background
Along the mangrove-laced creeks of the Niger Delta, among the Ijaw (Ijo) peoples, epic does not sit politely on a page; it walks, drums, dances, and wrestles with spirits in the open air. The Ozidi Saga belongs to this riverine world. It is a full-body performance tradition—mask, chant, drum, dance, ritual—often enacted across long nights during festival time. The story weaves human vengeance with spirit-power, placing at its heart a formidable grandmother, Oreame, and her grandson Ozidi the Younger, who avenges his murdered father, Ozidi the Elder. The performance teaches that justice, without wise restraint, can slide into the very violence it seeks to cure; hence the recurring ceremonial “cooling” that follows the blood-heat of battle. You will hear witchcraft and counter-magic, watch shape-shifters and giants fall, and see a community remember the cost of looking away when treachery stalks the square.
The Tale
1) Murder at the Festival
At Orua, seven champions guarded the village’s honour; six nursed envy for the seventh. Ozidi the Elder stood tall, his reputation a bright blade. At a great masquerade festival, drum-skins tight as moonlight and palm wine free as laughter, the six drew him into a ring of praise and struck—once, twice, six times—steel sliding under chant. They buried him shallow, thinking the tide of story would cover their deed.
Ozidi the Elder had a wife, Orea (also called Odogu), heavy with child, and a mother, Oreame, whose command of medicines and words could tie knots in a river. Orea fled to Oreame’s compound. There, among chalked sigils and bitter herbs, a boy was born standing up, eyes open: Ozidi the Younger.
Oreame looked upon him and said, almost to herself, “Vengeance is a hot thing. We will brew it slowly.”
2) A Child Forged
Years ran like water; Ozidi grew like a spear straightened by fire. Oreame fed him potions at dawn—strength for the bones, clarity for the eyes, memory for the tongue. At dusk she taught him the blade: not only how to cut, but when not to; not only how to parry a sword, but how to step aside from a curse. In the clearing behind the house, she called spirits by their praise-names. A column of leaves rose, twisted into a leopard. The child did not run. He looked, and the leopard lowered its head. Oreame nodded. “Courage listens before it strikes.”
3) Return to the Square
At the next great festival, Oreame and Orea entered the square with Ozidi the Younger, now tall, eyes like the black of a river at night. The six stood there among drums and masks, war-charms oiling their skin.
A champion—Tofiiri—laughed. “Whose boy is this with chalk in his eyes?”
Oreame stepped forward, voice a bell. “The boy of the man you put in the ground without a proper song. We have come to sing him one.”
4) Duels of Blade and Spell
The battles came like beads on a string, each different to the touch.
First duel—Tofiiri. He swung an oiled machete, confident as sunshine. Ozidi let the blade pass, close enough to taste the wind of it, and struck Tofiiri’s wrist. The machete clanged to earth. One cut across the traitor’s chest ended him. The crowd exhaled the breath it had held since Ozidi’s name was spoken aloud.
The poisoned cup. Feigning truce, another conspirator—Agbogidi—offered palm wine. Oreame sniffed the calabash and murmured; a hairline crack skittered round the gourd and the drink dribbled away. Ozidi’s face changed. He set the empty calabash on the ground, very carefully, then chased Agbogidi through alleys ringing with women’s ululations. On the shrine steps Agbogidi tried to animate a masquerade—cloth swelled, mask snapped—and spirit-claws raked air. Oreame sang a counter-chant; the masquerade slackened like a lung exhaling. Ozidi dragged Agbogidi into daylight. Justice fell.
The shape-shifter. Azema came at night as a girl with bracelets like laughter. Oreame noticed the feet were turned slightly backwards. She passed Ozidi a powder. He played along, then clapped the powder into the air; Azema coughed, stumbled, and his skin forgot its borrowed shape. Ozidi did not let the moment grow fat. One stroke. Silence.
The giant. Ofe oiled himself till iron slid like rain from a plantain leaf. Noon heat baked the square. Ofe swatted like a gale; trees fell. Ozidi’s shoulder burned; he went to one knee. Oreame’s chant cut the heat, thin and clean as a blade. Ozidi rose with that second wind known to the righteous and lifted the giant. When Ofe hit the ground the ground itself seemed to shout. Ozidi’s cut found the place under the breastbone where charms do not look.
The demon. The last conspirator—Temugedege, small and quick—tried to hire a thing with too many teeth from the bush’s edge. Dusk turned purple. The thing came, smelling of graves and tide-mud. Oreame drew a ring on the earth with white chalk. “Not a hoof beyond this line,” she said. Ozidi manoeuvred the creature’s whipping length; its tail slid, then tip, into the circle. Oreame clapped once. The demon thrashed within boundary. Ozidi’s blade did what the circle had made possible.
Temugedege ran for the creek. Ozidi’s hand closed on his ankle. The last debt paid.
5) Cooling
Ozidi stood in the middle of the square, chest heaving, cutlass dripping, eyes red with the kind of fire that eats what it was lit to protect. The village held its breath a second time. Oreame stepped quietly to her grandson, poured cool water over his head, and whispered the words that put a leash on heat. The red left his eyes. Drums resumed, not as they had begun, but lower, as if the skins understood a lesson.
Themes and Morals (Ozidi)
- Justice vs. Vengeance: The saga affirms the necessity of confronting treachery and punishing it. Yet the “cooling” rite is structural, not decorative: uncooled anger breeds monsters. Moral: Do justice, and then stop.
- Women’s Authority: Orea’s grief sets purpose; Oreame’s wisdom makes purpose effective. Without the grandmother’s knowledge, the boy’s strength would have been wasted on shadows. Moral: Respect elder women as keepers of power and limits.
- Spirit and World: Battles are always double—steel and spell, body and unseen. Moral: Courage needs protection; protection must serve ethics, not vanity.
- Community Responsibility: The village watched a murder and stayed quiet. It then watched justice arrive from the margins. Moral: Silence in the face of treachery is complicity; communities must guard their squares.
II. THE DAUSI (WAGADU) CYCLE
Cultural and Historical Background
Before Mali and Songhay, the Soninke people built Wagadu, remembered to outsiders as ancient Ghana, a Sahelian empire on the trade-winds of gold and salt. Their epic tradition—the Dausi—is a cycle rather than a single strand: interlinked stories recounting Wagadu’s appearance, disappearance, and reappearance across four ages. These episodes—“Gassire’s Lute,” the rediscovery of the royal drum Tabele, Bida the serpent’s bargain, and adventures like Samba Gana’s courtship—are less about one hero than about a civilisation’s moral weather. A refrain shadows and steadies the cycle: “Wagadu disappeared, and Wagadu was found again.” Rise and fall are not accidents here; they are consequences.
The Tale
Refrain
The griot begins: “Wagadu stood for an age and was lost, stood for an age and was lost, a third time, a fourth time—yet she returns when remembered.”
1) Gassire’s Lute
Gassire, prince of the Diare clan, burned to hear his name in every mouth. A diviner told him, “You will not inherit the throne, but your name will enter the bones of song.” Gassire took that as licence rather than warning. He ordered a lute from the smith, strings bright as riverlight, and set out to win material for the song. He marched to war with his eight sons. After each battle, a son did not return; after each loss, Gassire tried the lute. The sound was thin until grief taught his hand weight; then the instrument sang, sweet and terrible, soaked in what it had cost.
He returned to Wagadu and performed. The people stopped work and listened, spellbound by the beauty of a man singing chiefly of himself. While mouths hung open, walls thinned. Enemies tested the gates and found them weakened. Wagadu fell. Gassire had his immortality; his people had dust.
A woman in the crowd, grinding stones under her feet, said the line the Dausi keeps: “A song without duty is a knife in silk.”
2) Lagarre and the Lost Drum
After wandering exile, a scion named Lagarre (elsewhere Mamadou Séga) found himself among brothers with claims and knives tucked into their smiles. Trickery made him king; trickery stole the royal war-drum Tabele—the drum whose voice gathers scattered hearts—into the city of jinn. Without the drum, Wagadu’s spirit felt like a tent without a pole.
Lagarre sought it. An old woman on the desert’s edge—some said a personification of Wagadu herself—posed riddles about kingship and memory. He answered with enough truth to be allowed through. In the jinn-city he parleyed and flattered, then snatched the drum at the moment when guards believed he had come only to sing. He beat Tabele once; the sound travelled like rain-smell ahead of storm. Clans turned their faces towards it and walked home.
But Lagarre’s crown sat on deceit; envy gnawed the base of the throne. The second incarnation of Wagadu would not die today, but the worms had already begun.
3) Bida, the Serpent, and Mamadi’s Third Stroke
Prosperity swelled; gold gleamed; elders whispered to youths that it had always been thus. Truth: prosperity was leased. In a sacred well lived Bida, a serpent-spirit whose breath pulled wealth from under the earth. Once a year, by “custom,” a maiden took the path to the well decked as a bride. The pact bought gold with human breath.
One year the chosen girl—Sia Jatta Bari—was loved by Mamadi Sefe Dekote, a quiet young man with a spear that did not boast. Elders warned him of the curse that would follow disobedience. “What is a curse compared to a girl’s life?” he replied.
They went at dawn. Sia did not cry. Bida’s head rose, jewelled and calm, like a king asking for tribute. Mamadi struck—once, twice. The serpent recoiled; on the third stroke the head fell. As it hit the earth, the mouth imposed what the elders had feared: “For seven years, seven months, and seven days, drought of gold; drought of rain.” The air changed. It tasted like a promise asked to pay its arrears.
At first the city rejoiced. Then trade slackened; fields hardened; enemies sniffed opportunity. The people remembered the bargain and blushed. Wagadu’s third disappearance followed not the hero’s right act, but the long wrong that had made his act necessary. Exile again, but this time with cleaner hands.
4) Samba Gana’s Quest
In later days, Wagadu’s light flickered. Samba Gana, handsome, strong, and less vain than Gassire, heard of Annalja, a princess who would only wed a man proven by tasks. He tamed a stallion that bit and prayed; he defended villages from a serpent so lesser that bards refused to give it a capital letter; he learned the weight of his strength and the price of boasting. When at last he stood before Annalja, it was not simply muscle that bowed but a heart taught by journey. They married. It felt like a candle lit deliberately in a room full of draughts.
Wagadu did not hold thereafter; history’s wind blew; but the Dausi refuses to close with despair. The refrain returns: Wagadu disappears; Wagadu is remembered; Wagadu is found again.
Themes and Morals (Dausi)
- Ambition vs. Duty: Gassire’s hunger for glory corrodes the state. Moral: Song must serve service; fame without responsibility is civic rot.
- Cyclical History and Memory: The refrain educates: loss comes from vice; return from remembrance and reform. Moral: If we remember, we rebuild; if we forget, we repeat.
- Bargains and Ethics: Bida’s pact bought wealth with blood. Mamadi’s stroke ended the immorality but demanded courage to survive the lean years. Moral: Refuse prosperity that requires the innocent as fuel; accept the hardship that honesty may bring.
- Women as Measure: Sia’s silent bravery condemns the elders more loudly than speeches. The wise old woman guiding Lagarre, and Annalja setting worthy tasks, are moral barometers. Moral: A community’s treatment of its women reveals its soul.
- Spirit and State: The drum Tabele and the serpent Bida carry political truths: unity is audible; greed is monstrous. Moral: Guard the symbols that gather you; expose the bargains that degrade you.
III. THE EPIC OF ASKIA MUHAMMAD (MAMAR KASSAYE)
Cultural and Historical Background
Along the middle Niger, the Songhay empire rose with Gao and Timbuktu as its eyes. Askia Muhammad (Muhammad Ture), who ruled from the 1490s, is both historical emperor and epic hero. In the oral telling he is named Mamar Kassaye—“Muhammad, son of Kassaye”—because the epic insists a mother’s courage stands behind crown and conquest. The tale binds Islamic reform and indigenous wonder: prophecies, marabouts’ charms, even a river spirit who answers a desperate woman. It argues about rightful rule, presenting a coup not as naked grasping but as destiny aligning with justice and learning.
The Tale
1) A Sister, a King, and Seven Small Funerals
Sunni Ali, ruler before Askia, was a conqueror with a reputation for cruelty and for playing with powers older than mosque and book. A prophecy came like a thorn under his robe: A child born to your sister Kassaye will unseat your line.
Paranoia is a fast breeder. When Kassaye bore a baby, servants came and the cradle went away. Once, twice—seven times. Grief turned Kassaye to iron. She walked to the Niger at midnight and spoke to water.
“River,” she said, “I have no quarrel with you, yet you see my house’s hunger. Give me a child who will live.”
The water lifted; a presence like cool shadow took form. In the epic’s idiom, a genie (djinn) answered. “If I plant a seed,” it said, “will you keep it from the king’s knife?”
“I will keep it,” Kassaye said, “through cunning, tears, and time.”
2) A Baby Switched, a Destiny Kept
When she bore Muhammad, she and a loyal servant switched babies; the servant’s stillborn child was presented to the palace; Muhammad was carried to a house where eyes were kinder. Sunni Ali’s paranoia slept. Kassaye’s hope did not.
The boy grew like the Nile in flood—quiet, inevitable. He learned letters from marabouts, saddle from soldiers, the weight of silence from his mother. In time he joined the army and proved the kind of commander men follow because the orders make sense.
Sunni Ali died—some said by water’s own judgement. His son Sunni Baru took the throne. Scholars in Timbuktu, weary of Sunni impieties, murmured another prophecy: The son of Kassaye shall rule with law. Muhammad listened. Destiny stopped being a rumour and became a summons.
3) Amulet and Allies
Muhammad sought counsel. A marabout pressed a leather amulet into his hand. “It is not leather that will save you but what it contains,” the holy man said, tapping Muhammad’s chest. “Yet men need signs.”
chieftains chose, as they always must, between fear and hope. Enough chose hope. In camp, the griot poured words like lamp-oil:
“Fight not to throw down a house, but to build one with windows. Remember whose son you are.”
Muhammad smiled. “Say her name.”
“Kassaye.”
4) Anfao
On the field of Anfao, two lines faced each other: Baru with the prestige of inheritance; Muhammad with prophecy and organisation. Arrows muttered; hooves argued with dust. Baru’s spells made a show; Muhammad’s formations made a difference. At the point of decision, he raised his hand and called—so the epic says—not to a charm but to the One in whose name the marabout had stitched the leather. He moved like a man stepping into a shape cut for him long ago. Baru’s line bent, then broke. Men who had watched their rulers drown infants understood suddenly that water remembers.
“Askia!” someone shouted—a taunt turned title. It stuck.
5) The Reign
Askia Muhammad organised provinces, promoted learning, honoured judges. He made the pilgrimage to Makkah; the caravan shone like a sermon on prosperity used properly. He returned with honours that mattered less to fishermen upriver than fair courts did, but the tale enjoys them because they speak of a world acknowledging a man who had listened to prophecy and then to reason.
Kassaye, older now, sat behind a screen and heard praise for her son. The griot knew the order of things. “Muhammad, son of Kassaye,” he sang. The room’s balance felt righted.
6) Evening
Old age is a kind thief; it takes gently but it takes. Askia’s eyes clouded. Power drew flies. A son—Musa—pushed his father aside for a time. The epic refuses melodrama; it notes the sadness and leaves judgement to those who sit in councils and know how succession gnaws even good houses. Askia died with enough honour tied to his name to hold him beyond one son’s hunger.
Themes and Morals (Askia)
- Destiny with Discipline: Prophecy frames the story, but it is planning and reform that make it worth telling. Moral: Believe you are chosen? Prove it by governing well.
- Maternal Courage: Kassaye’s cunning and endurance are engines of empire. Naming her in the hero’s title is pedagogy. Moral: Honour the mother openly; legitimacy has a mother’s face.
- Faith and Syncretism: Marabouts and amulets sit beside memories of river spirits in a narrative that leans Islamic without denying older grammars. Moral: Let faith purify rule; let old powers be judged by the justice they serve.
- Clemency and Law: Askia’s greatness is less his victory at Anfao than his habit of listening to scholars and building courts. Moral: The sword wins a day; the law wins a generation.
- Succession’s Shadow: Even good reigns end in human tangle. Moral: Build institutions stronger than appetites; accept that vigilance does not end.
Closing Note
Here, three very different epics sing across climate and century: Ozidi’s ritual theatre of vengeance constrained by wisdom; Dausi’s civilisational cycle where pride, bargain, loss, and memory explain rise and fall; Askia’s state-building romance where a mother’s cunning and a ruler’s reforms turn prophecy into good government. Each tells more than what happened; each argues how to live: cool your rage, keep your drum, refuse blood-bought gold, listen to mothers and griots, stitch law after victory, and remember—always remember—that a people’s future springs from the past they choose to carry.
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