People also respect musician-specialists for their special powers, which can be considerable. Among the Mandé people in west Africa, the jeli is a member of a hereditary group set apart from society, yet fully integrated. Their control of expressive resources is both wide and deep. Jelis shape and transform events and actions through their words and music, as Eric Charry summarizes: “as performers, jelis specialize in any one of three fi elds: speech (kuma), the vehicle for historical narrative, stories, genealogies, and proverbs; song (wonkily) which refers to melodies and lyrics that are unique to named pieces . . . and instrument playing ( foli or kasseri).” And both men and women jelis perform publicly, though differently: “It is primarily men who are considered to be the authoritative guardians of the esoteric knowledge of the jeli and primarily women who deliver major parts of it publicly in performance.” Looked at as gendered behavior, the geographic and conceptual distance between Mali, Macedonia, and Afghanistan is huge, but they share common concepts such as the social separation of the professional folk musician and the idea that gender makes a difference in music. Even deep-seated attitudes can shift very quickly as times change. A new musical instrument can suggest new possibilities. Within a society as small as the Sambla of Burkina Faso, instrumentalists group into clans, with sharp divisions. One group represents older ritual traditions, while the other plays “flashy, complex dance rhythms” on the xylophone, an instrument that entered Sambla life relatively recently. So a musical tool can offer more than just new sonic resources; it can also carve out new social spaces. In fact, across the whole multi-ethnic region where the Sambla live, says Julie Strand, the xylophone has become “a major indicator of cultural identity” for local ethnic groups, defining differences rather than acting as a regional unifying agent.
Folk Music and Folk Identity
