Credited to Guinea. Tradition places the making of the instrument in the Sosso kingdom, whose lands lay across present-day Mali and Guinea, and one account says a jinni gave it to the king. The object has been preserved in Guinea, but its place of manufacture cannot be confirmed, and the balafon is shared by several West African peoples.
How it began
According to written and oral histories recorded by UNESCO, the Sosso-Bala was first owned and played by Sumaoro Kanté, who came to the throne of Sosso in the early 13th century. The accounts say either that the king made it himself or that a jinni gave it to him. The instrument passed to the griots of the Mali Empire and is preserved in the village of Niagassola (Nyagassola) in northern Guinea, in the care of the Dökala family of Kouyaté griots.
How it works
The Sosso-Bala is a xylophone about 1.5 meters long. It has 20 wooden slats carefully cut to different lengths, and several calabash gourds are fixed under each slat to act as resonators. A balafon of this kind is played by striking the slats with mallets. The word balafon comes from Mandinka: bala is the instrument and fo means to play or to speak.
How it spread
Oral histories date the balafon to at least the rise of the Mali Empire. In 1352 the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta reported the instrument at the court of the Malian ruler Mansa Suleyman. European visitors in the 17th century described balafons largely identical to the modern ones. The instrument is found today across West Africa, including Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso, and the Atlantic slave trade carried players to the Americas, where one was recorded in Virginia in 1776.
What lasted
For the Mandinka the Sosso-Bala is a symbol of freedom and cohesion. It has accompanied the telling of epic poems through the centuries, above all the Sunjata epic about the founder of the Mali Empire. Its guardian, called the Balatigui, is the patriarch of the Dökala family and the only person allowed to play it, on occasions such as the Muslim New Year and certain burials. He also teaches the balafon to children from the age of seven.
Where it stands today
The instrument is kept in a round mud hut with other sacred and historical objects. UNESCO proclaimed the Cultural Space of Sosso-Bala a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage in 2001 and placed it on the Representative List in 2008. It names the falling number of pupils caused by rural exodus as a main threat, along with fragile buildings and hard living conditions in the village.
