MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the kingdom of Kaabu dominated a swath of West Africa that included modern-day Guinea-Bissau. The stories of its royalty and reign have been told for generations through a kind of traditional song, one that helped inspire an archaeological dig that revealed physical evidence of the kingdom's capital. Here's reporter Ari Daniel.
ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: Kaabu emerged in the 13th century as a coastal province within the kingdom of Mali in West Africa. But when Mali fell a few hundred years later, Kaabu became independent. It grew wealthy from trade, including the slave trade, and dominated the region.
SIRIO CANOS-DONNAY: It played a key role in many events of historical importance for the world, including early African statehood, and it survives all the way till the late 19th century.
DANIEL: When Kaabu was attacked by its southern neighbors, says Sirio Canos-Donnay. She's an archaeologist at the University of Valencia. The story goes that once the king saw the enemy army nearing the capital of Kansala, he set fire to the gunpowder house and blew up the city. That was the end of Kaabu.
CANOS-DONNAY: That's what European powers used, that void to encroach upon the territory and start controlling things. It's perceived as the end of independent African kingdoms before colonialism.
DANIEL: Much of what we know about Kaabu has been passed down by a group of oral historians and musicians known as the griots. Nino Galissa lives in Guinea-Bissau and is a descendant of the first griots of Kaabu.
NINO GALISSA: (Through interpreter) We are, above all, the guardians of history. Our role is to interpret and preserve the history of our people of Kaabu.
(SOUNDBITE OF KORA MUSIC)
DANIEL: This is the kora, the instrument that griots use to sing about that history.
GALISSA: (Through interpreter) This instrument is a part of our life. It's spiritual. It's entertaining. It's imaginative. It's a companion.
DANIEL: Galissa has sung stories about Kaabu and its capital, Kansala, for decades, but to him, it's the stuff of legend.
GALISSA: (Through interpreter) To me, it was a kind of fiction, like a story.
CANOS-DONNAY: This perception that maybe it's an imaginary place, a sort of a Camelot.
DANIEL: Sirio Canos-Donnay has led multiple archaeological digs of Kaabu in present-day Senegal but never in Guinea-Bissau, where the capital of Kansala was once located. And to really understand the kingdom and its downfall, she knew she had to excavate it.
CANOS-DONNAY: We don't proceed with excavations without the explicit consent of the local communities. And they were very receptive.
DANIEL: So in early 2024, she and her colleagues began the work of unearthing Kansala, which allowed them to sketch out a map of the site, nearly 150 acres.
CANOS-DONNAY: Which is absolutely enormous.
DANIEL: They found fortresses, evidence of extensive trade and the gunpowder house that was likely detonated centuries ago - physical validation of the people and places coursing through the songs of the griots passed down over generations. Nino Galissa was deeply moved.
GALISSA: (Though interpreter) When you arrive at a place that people have spoken about your whole life, and the characters we've sung about, and suddenly you find people that tell you, yes, this is where these folks actually sat, it's like you're really seeing it.
DANIEL: Once the excavation concluded, the archaeologists gave Galissa a copy of the report. They asked if he might transform their findings into song as a way of sharing the work with the community.
(SOUNDBITE OF KORA MUSIC)
DANIEL: Galissa accepted.
GALISSA: (Singing in non-English language).
DANIEL: In his song, Galissa describes some of the findings of the dig. He also wrote lyrics about the aspect of all this that touched him so - that what the griots sing about is real.
GALISSA: (Through interpreter) I stressed that archaeologists return to us a sense of pride, that people can now truly understand the role of griots as historians.
DANIEL: Galissa says the archaeology revealed to him that he and his fellow singers are like libraries, a living record of their community's royal legacy. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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