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Researching the Musical Practice of the Sambla Xylophone

through Documentary Film

We present here a series of reflections on the filmic project we carried

out about the xylophone of the Sambla people of Burkina Faso. The film, currently in post-production, follows the music of the instrument and the practices
that revolve around it during a year.1 By looking at the dynamics that accompanied
the making of the film we make some methodological points, arguing for an interventionist and participatory approach to ethnographic filmmaking and for collaborative practices that can guide the structure of the film. We also look at some
of the specificities of Sambla music and related social organisation that emerged
throughout our research, to underline the important connections between kinship
and musical practice and the fluidity of Sambla musical identities, which appear
far from circumscribed and consolidated.

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Our research took place in the village of Karankasso Sambla, Houet province,
Burkina Faso. Karankasso is the official name in Jula, the trade language of the
area, referring probably to the wall that surrounded the historical nucleus, or kankan, which with so home, house creates a common Mande toponym. In Seenku,
the language of the Sambla, Karankasso is called Timi (Royer 1996: 34). This village, roughly 5000 in population, is the administrative centre of the dpartement by
the same name, which gathers 25,000 people over 13 villages (according to the 2006
Census MEF and INSD 2008). The south-western regions of Burkina Faso are
ethnically very fragmented, and travelling through the area around Karankasso one
can hear dozens of different languages. Musical traditions are equally varied, and
just to take the example of the xylophone with gourd resonators, in this area of
Burkina researchers have singled out more than 25 types of instruments (see Strand
2009: Appendix 2). This general situation is the result of centuries of population
movements, wars, alliances, identity shifts, scattering and regrouping of whole
communities (see for an overview of the history of the Sambla area Royer 1996).
1

See http://thesamblabaan.vhx.tv for more information.

Archivio di Etnografia n.s., a. IX, n. 1-2 2014 47-68

Context

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Given the interconnectedness of the regional context, even though we based our
research in a single village we encountered a number of relationships between different villages and populations other than the Sambla. For example, events such as
the funerary celebrations that take place annually during the dry season bring together the patrilineal relatives of the deceased from other villages. Musicians travel
from neighbouring villages to play at these celebrations that involve music all day
long for about three days. Finally, as we will explain in more detail later, the apparently homogenous endogamous group of the Sambla musicians is actually constituted of lineages coming from neighbouring populations. In other words, while the
setting of Karankasso Sambla seems straightforwardly delimited, doing research in
this area means accounting for a number of connections, overlaps and blurring of
categories that influenced the music of the Sambla in its present-day form.
In order to approach the music of the Sambla xylophone it is fundamental to
consider the role of musicians in their society at large. As in other social organisations among Mande ethnic groups, the music-making activity is traditionally the
responsibility of an endogamous group, called among the Sambla ka (pl. ke). Today,
they are tasked with playing music some specialise in xylophone playing and others play drums. Other occupations they may take up include leather working, grave
digging and performing sacrifices. Music is mostly performed by men but women
play an important role in the overall performance, singing and clapping to keep the
engagement of the audience high. Not all ke play music, and not all musical practices are reserved for them. But while it is possible to find members of the other
social groups playing recreational music, during ritual occasions it will invariably
be the ke who perform. This is connected to the social dynamics that take place
during a performance, since the main task of the ke like for the Mande jeli is to
praise the freeborn landowners the other main social group called in Seenku saa.
This activity, important as it might be, contributes to assigning to the ke an inferior
status. These situations favour the renewal of the division in social classes, and still
today among the Sambla the ka families observe a quite strict endogamy. As TogoFako Traor, one of the saa elders told us, the belief is that the ke are impure and
sexual intercourse with them would bring about horrible consequences.
While we started out with the idea of using the film to cover the variety of musical practices among the Sambla of Karankasso, it quickly became evident how
the xylophone, which the Sambla call baan, had a remarkably superior importance.
Not only is it played during most of the key ritual occasions such as baptism/haircut/name-giving ceremonies, weddings, funerals and festivities of the Christian or
Muslim calendar, but it accompanies some agricultural works and its music is often
in high demand for recreational purposes, in which case a group of villagers often
women can collectively hire the musicians for a dancing night.
According to the musicians we consulted the music of the baan is more complex
if compared to, for example, the drums played by the other ka musicians. An important feature of the performance practice of the baan Sambla is the fact that its
23 keys are played at the same time by up to three musicians, with roles that are

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Image 1. Sa-Lamini Konat playing in a field near Karankasso Sambla (Image 2011 Lorenzo Ferrarini).

Image 2. A Dunnun drum and the baan playing at the annual funerals in Karankasso
(Image 2012 Lorenzo Ferrarini).

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hierarchically and musically interlocked (Strand 2009). This happens especially

when the baan is played on the ground, for example during festivities and funerals,
when it is played by three musicians, with the accompaniment of drummers. The
baan is on the other hand played by one person when the musician accompanies
the farmers in the fields, carrying the instrument with a shoulder strap. Like in
other African contexts some musical instruments can communicate linguistic messages by interacting with the tonal characteristics of the local language, and the
baan, with its complex pitch system, is deemed able to convey more complex messages compared to the drums. All these factors account for the foreground role
played by the baan in the musical repertoire of the Sambla.
It was then inevitable that the xylophone would play the role of the protagonist
of our film, appearing in most sequences. Still, we wanted to account for the variety of musical productions in a Sambla village, which is why we also recorded and
filmed performances by women and non-ka musicians, with instruments that range
from flutes to musical bows and even everyday tools accompanying songs. The
bulk of the shooting was carried out in December 2011-January 2012 and JuneJuly 2012, when Scaldaferri joined Ferrarini who was researching his PhD in Social
Anthropology. Additional filming was done in various periods of 2011-2012 and
April 2015 by Ferrarini. Scaldaferri carried out specific research on the genealogies
of the ka families of Karankasso and on their musical practices. In addition to filming, we recorded numerous musical performances that will end up on a CD to
accompany the film. Overall, it was possible to follow a whole year in the life of
the main ka musicians of Karankasso Sambla, from the agricultural activities of the
rainy season to the rituals of the dry season.

Xylophones in the African context today

The xylophone, popularly known as balafon in West African francophone areas, is
an important instrument for the musical practice of extended areas of sub-Saharan
Africa. It is present in traditional musical forms of rural communities, as well as in
urban areas, where it constitutes an important element of entertainment music.
The instrument is also one of the main vehicles through which the image of African
music was spread in Europe and in the Western culture. These processes date back
to pre-colonial times, thanks to the activity of missionaries and explorers, in whose
works are often present descriptions of this instrument. For example, they could
be found already in the works of the Franciscan friar Cavazzi da Montecuccolo,
and the traveller Francois Froger, dated late 17th century.
The peculiarity of its construction and some morphological details (such as the
presence of gourds as resonators that have always aroused curiosity), have facilitated the meeting with Western culture. Particularly, the morphological affinities
with those musical instruments provided with a keyboard, have suggested an interaction with some Western musical practices.
Today this instrument, especially in versions which are tuned on the tempered

scale, appears more and more often being played together with Western instrumental ensembles, and actually constitutes one of the main elements in the process
of globalization of music of the last decades. Let us just remember here some African musicians, xylophone players, who reached a great notoriety in the international musical panorama, becoming protagonists of musical cross-cultural dialogues, and equally reaffirming the solidity of their musical roots: the Malian Neba
Solo (Souleymane Traor),2 or the Burkinab Mamadou Diabat who is from the
Sambla ethnic population.3 On the other hand, we could also mention some works,
like that of the Italian contemporary composer Ludovico Einaudi, Le piano africain, presented in 2014 in Milan, during the festival PianoCity. This composition
was performed inside a special architectural structure, located in Milans Parco
Sempione;4 it includes six pianos, four balafons and two marimbas (a similar instrument, present inCentral America, and a descendent of African xylophones).
Since 2012, the notoriety of this instrument has been further enhanced, and at
the same time has emphasized, in the collective consciousness, its connection with
the West African area. This happened when the balafon tradition of the Senufo
populations living in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, entered the UNESCO
Intangible Cultural Heritage List (as stated in the declaration: Cultural practices
and expressions linked to the balafon of the Senufo communities).5 Certainly this
is further evidence of musical practices which are very popular and strongly rooted
in that area, although it should be noted that they are not only limited to the
Senufo population, but are much more widespread.
The xylophone has been at the centre of important works in ethnomusicology
research; they range from the study of the morphology of the instrument, to the
documentation and analysis of musical repertoires, to the study of general aspects
of the cultural context. A relevant research topic in African musicology is the matter of the tuning of these instruments; this issue has reached a landmark result,
especially in terms of methodology, in the research carried out by Simha Arom, in
the Central African savanna, during the 1980s. This research was relevant for the
collaborative and technological approach used by the scholar in approaching the
problems: especially in taking to the savanna a synthesizer adapted to be used like
a xylophone and to play together with other local instruments, in order to understand the tuning system. This pioneering method fits into various collaborative and
seminal analyses conducted for many years by Arom in Africa; among them, let us
mention the research on polyphony and polyrhythm of Banda Linda population,
using intensively the techniques of the playback and re-recording for analytical
purposes (Arom 2013).
Another relevant research topic deals with the talking component in the use of
the instrument, and its connections with the local tonal languages (among the reSee http://www.nebasolo.com (accessed October 2015).
See http://mamadoudiabate.jimdo.com/english/biography/the-sambla/ (accessed October 2015).
4
See http://2014.pianocitymilano.it/programma/city (accessed October 2015).
5
See http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/RL/00849 (accessed October 2015).
2
3

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Image 3. Lorenzo Ferrarini filming as Si-Juma Konat plays for the farmers near Karankasso Sambla
(Image 2012 Nicola Scaldaferri).

cent contributions Zemp and Soro 2010); that of the talking instrument is a situation that also characterizes the baan of the Sambla population.
The use of audiovisual media constitutes an important aspect in the research
about the xylophones; they have been used according to a variety of perspectives,
ranging from the rigorous analytical and investigative purposes, up to the realization of documentary films intended for a wide circulation. Let us just mention
some important cases, diversified by cultural areas, as well as by approach and
method: the filmic experiences made by Gerhard Kubik in the 60s, related to the
xylophone in Northern Mozambique, where Kubik filmed some performances
that would form the basis of his analysis frame by frame (Kubik 1965, 1972); and
the docu-fiction Yiri kan: la voix du bois realized by the Burkinab filmmaker Issiaka Konat in Burkina Faso (Konat 1989); the series of four films Les maitres du
Balafon (Zemp 2001-2002), made by Hugo Zemp, among the Senufo in Ivory
Coast. Each of Zemps films deals with a particular aspect of the complex world of
the instrument: starting from the construction, passing through its presence in the
local ceremonial context, ending with the interaction between the filmmakers and
the local musicians and communities.

 Lorenzo Ferrarini, Nicola Scaldaferri

When deciding how to approach the production of the film, it was clear to us that
our knowledge of the context was limited. Ferrarinis work was developing with
Karankasso as a base, but revolved around the initiated donso hunters constituting
a network in the region (Ferrarini 2016). Hunters belong to different ethnic groups
and communicate with each other using the trade language Jula. Scaldaferri on the
other hand had previously done ethnomusicological research mostly in Southern
Italy and Albania with an occasional fieldtrip in Ghana. As a result none of us had
a competence in Seenku. The scholarship on the Sambla in general is not exactly
abundant, with the two main contributions being the work of Patrick Royer on
local cult revivals in the 1990s (Royer 1996, 1999) and the dissertation on the Sambla xylophone by Julie Strand (2009). In other words, we had a limited familiarity
with the group we were going to investigate, and needed to take advantage of the
process of making the film not so much to represent in audiovisual form the outcomes of the research, but make it part of the research itself.
The idea of privileging the potential of ethnographic film to generate anthropological knowledge is often associated with the tradition of observational cinema
(see discussion in Henley 2004). Conceived as a filmic equivalent of participant
observation, this filmmaking style is based on an unprivileged camera presence and
commitment to the long take to evoke an emplaced perspective (Grimshaw and
Ravetz 2009; MacDougall 1998). The filmmaker takes an unassuming stance in the
field, and many of the authorial decisions are made at the editing stage. We decided to take the original concept of using filmmaking as a way to do research,
instead of representing its outcomes, and reinterpret it in an interventionist way,
drawing inspiration from Rouchs use of the camera as a catalyst (Henley 2009).
We did not wait for situations to develop in front of the camera, but often we collaborated with the musicians to create them.
We decided that commissioning a xylophone to be realised by one of the baanplaying lineages would have created a number of opportunities to discuss matters
of craft, symbolism, family history and contexts of use with the players. Unlike the
hourglass drum dunnun, whose pre-shaped wood is normally acquired from
neighbouring populations, baan players hold and transmit to each other the complicated procedures to cut, shape and tune the instrument. Deciding in advance
the schedule with the musicians also helped make the most of the time we were
both in Karankasso. Furthermore, the price of the instrument would provide a
compensation for the time the musicians would spend with us that was only indirectly related to the making of the film. Another decisive strategy that maximised
our effectiveness in the field was the collaboration of Si-Adama Traor not only as
an interpreter, but as a skilled insider who could translate for us the complex reality of his own group. Si-Adama is a drum player with a close kinship relationship
with the majority of the musicians we filmed, and routinely accompanies them in
performance. But unlike most of his ka relatives he speaks excellent French, which

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made him an ideal research assistant. His being a musician also contributed an
understanding of the complexities of Sambla music that most villagers do not
have. Filming the complete process of making a baan was an invaluable experience
to understand, for example, the almost sacred character of this instrument, manifest in the many rituals that range from the cutting of the tree to the slaughter of
a hen on the finished instrument. Filming allowed us to witness the almost wordless but indeed soundful process of tuning the blades, using another instrument as a model and playing music as soon as the first day after the initial drying
is complete.
The situations we, as researchers, created in the interest of the film were a minority, if we consider the whole of the footage recorded for the project. But even
in situations that occurred independently of our presence we used the good relationship established with the musicians to provoke events that could be meaningful in the film. One such situation occurred at the beginning of the rainy season,
while the baan was playing music for the workers clearing the fields. Among the
Sambla this kind of performance is still common and requested by the farmers,
while in neighbouring groups the custom is in decline for example among the
Samogo. One of the reasons why the music of the ke is considered necessary by the
other villagers is that it contributes to agriculture by speeding up the work of the
farmers, in a context where agriculture is the main form of subsistence. It was interesting for us to observe that the way the baan contributes to the work of the
farmers is not just by providing a pleasant soundtrack for their labour, or by accelerating the rhythmic cadence of the hoes. The soloist exploits the above mentioned capacity of his instrument to transmit linguistic messages in order to praise,
or more often to publicly blast, individual farmers. While playing a rhythmic pattern he calls a worker by his name or through a formula associated with him, and
often mocks or insults him. The aim is to tease the persons pride, thanks to the
strong work ethics of the Sambla, and push him to work more quickly.
It was during one such occasion, while we were filming Si-Juma Konat playing
for a group of farmers, that we asked him to tease a young man. Si-Juma is one of
the protagonists of the film, as one of the main soloists in Karankasso and being in
charge with his father Si-Tiousso of building the instrument we had commissioned.
On that day in June he was accompanying the work of a group of men most of
whom were in their twenties, clearing a sorghum field that belonged to a more
senior man. We had singled out a man who seemed to be particularly responsive
to provocations, and Si-Juma started to ring his name on the blades of his baan,
and to call him with epithets of the likes of son of a boiled man or needleshaped seat, until the man in question reacted. We filmed the exchange in which
he jokingly threatens to set Si-Juma on fire and the baan replies with a request for
money. The other interesting point to emerge from this provoked situation is a
reference to the work ethics mentioned above: the farmer says that Si-Juma should
not keep provoking him so that he has to stop working in order to reply, as that is
a working situation and not a funeral. During funerals it is common to see people

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Image 4. SiJuma Konat

trying the
surdulina
bagpipe
(Image 2012
Nicola
Scaldaferri).

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interrupting the music, especially to respond to the musicians requests for money.
In this way they get to be publicly praised and can donate to the musicians in front
of the whole community, increasing their prestige. In response to Si-Jumas provocations, the farmer replied that he was not lazy and useless, on the contrary the
musician was not playing appropriately for the situation. The exchange we captured was then highly meaningful and revelatory of the complex social dynamics
revolving around a musical performance of the baan.
The flipside of this interventionist approach has been a work of preparation
that helped us understand better and have a dialogue with the musicians, one that
was made of participation in practical activities. Farming to the sound of the baan

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(Ferrarini) and playing the simple patterns of the player in front of the soloist
(Scaldaferri) helped us gain insights into the more embodied aspects of the practice of the baan. Ferrarini, as a member of the village association of the hunters,
joined them clearing a cotton field while Sa-Lamoussa Konat played the baan.
Being called by the instrument with a simple ascending triad of notes played on
contiguous blades tubabu (white man) in front of the other workers was a very
immediate experience of the energy boost that public exposure can provide. Being
called by the musician, playing out of sight behind the line of farmers, was a galvanising push to work harder and faster, until the hands were covered in blisters.
For Scaldaferri, starting an apprenticeship as a musician from the most basic rhythmic patterns, those that are assigned to children as soon as they can hold the mallets, provided a perspective by which to understand the complexity of the interlocking melodies of the three-part baan music. But, just as importantly, taking part
in these activities started a dialogue with the musicians that was not necessarily
made of translated words but of shared experiences, precious ground on which to
develop a collaboration.

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Beyond the translation (linguistic and musical dialogues)

One of the crucial points for the realization of the film has been the dialogue established with the musicians. Actually, the entire period spent in Karankasso was
a continuous dialogue, from the musical moments, to the visits and the conversations. However, an important step was represented by playing back the video footage and listening to music recordings together with the musicians. Primarily, this
work was done with the purpose of selecting the audiovisual materials in relation
to their contents, to translate the dialogues and to move forward with the acquisition of new materials that could be useful for the film. The work of playback and
discussion of the materials has really provided highly detailed and relevant information. Often, the phases of the playback have also become a pretext: it was the
starting point and the stimulus for discussions whose goal was far beyond that of
a simple translation or comments on recordings. This process has brought to the
surface a range of information and has created a high level of intimacy and familiarity. This process, that was supposed to be a practical step in the selection of
materials for the film, actually turned out to be a mode of investigation of great
interest, able to open gashes on aspects that otherwise would have risked to remain
unexplored.
As we mentioned, Si-Adama Traor was the main interlocutor; he is a player of
the dunnun, the hourglass-shaped talking drum, and a member of the Traor ka
family, which mainly gathers the drummers of the village. Si-Adama had an important role during the research; his active involvement was due primarily for its excellent knowledge of the French language, in addition to the knowledge of the local
languages. His languages skills have facilitated in a notable way the relationship

among us, and was fundamental especially in the understanding of Seenku, both
the texts spoken by the baan, and the texts of many songs performed during the
performances recorded and filmed.
Besides being a constant presence throughout the various stages of research, he
also had a very important part in listening and reviewing audio recordings and
video footage. This collaborative work was carried out after we recorded and
filmed everything on site. A substantial part of this process, especially the conversations during the playback of footage and recordings, has been fully recorded, and
consists of about twenty-one hours of audio recordings.
The work of the playback helped to establish a close dialogue among us, much
more than the other things we did together. Sitting for hours to listen, watch and
discuss, created an opportunity for exchanges of perspectives and ideas, and become more familiar than during the ordinary daily life, or other moments of collaboration.
It also happened that details that emerged from our conversations, or details of
texts from the recordings of songs or the baan music, have become a suggestion
and a spark for real life events. Let us just remember one episode. In one of the
last evenings spent in the village, we were invited by Si-Adama to have dinner at
his house; he had asked his wife to prepare a special kind of fish soup, that was
mentioned in a female song we listened and discussed on the recording a few days
before.
One truth, however, emerged unequivocally: the strictly linguistic translation,
correlated with the selection of the video materials, was only a part of our work,
and sometimes not the most relevant in connection to the whole context. Even
where we started from the need to understand and translate the language of the
baan, the translation was only one aspect of the conversation; often, it demonstrated the difficult to circumscribe into a filmic narration the complexity of certain situations, which would require a thorough additional comment.
As a proverb played by Si-Juma with the baan during the work in the fields:
God well knows how to create the world
although he does not know how to lead men to death.

This proverb needed a further explanation not directly inferred from the text:
it was in fact referred to the death of young people, while old people still alive.
However, this was also the chance to debate about the presence of the musical
instruments within the funeral rites. The joy and the dances performed for the
death of an old man (a person important for his experience, but also a mouth to
feed that can no longer work) contrasts with the true sadness associated with the
loss of a young person (who is a fundamental workforce) and whose funeral does
not provide for joyful moments.
Similarly, let us consider the following sentence played with the baan during the
funeral of an old man:

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Go-Doumo your father died taking with him your name.

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This expression was addressed to the childless son of the deceased old man.
The lineage of the family got interrupted by him, and this was represented by the
figure of the dead father that led to the grave with him the spirit of his son, who
will die without heirs.
This was the pretext for discussing with Si-Adama topics that are crucial and
important in rural societies, especially in areas of subsistence agriculture as is the
case of the Sambla: that of the high number of children to bring into the world,
that is fundamental for the survival of the community. In fact it also constitutes a
response to the need for an available work force, in the face of the high infant
mortality existing in these areas.
The fact that Scaldaferri is also a musician has greatly facilitated the dialogue,
opening up additional considerations. The dialogue between two musicians, although coming from different musical cultures, establishes a kind of special connection among them; this is due to the fact that it involves persons with specific
skills and knowledge, even a physical capacity which can sometimes be grasped
despite the cultural differences. This happens independently from the linguistic
aspects, since it is also based on the sharing of technical expertise, or on the familiarity with performative aspects that can be noticed beyond the linguistic data.
It is made by a meta discourse of specific references related to their skills that exceeds the purely linguistic aspects. With another musician, it is easy to establish a
sort of deep connection and a level of intimacy that can result in relevant consequences in terms of scholarly research (Feld and Scaldaferri 2012).
The importance of musical practice in research about a different culture has
already been expressed by Mantle Hood with his idea of bi-musicality (Hood
1960); he showed that the field of musical practice could be a fundamental step to
gain the knowledge of a musical culture different from ones own. However, very
relevant in this perspective are the experiences achieved by Steven Feld in the
Ghanaian context. His practice as a musician, and his long collaborative work with
the musicians Nii Noi Nortey and Nii Otoo Annan, allowed him a deep capacity
of penetration of the musical and cultural context, establishing, at the same time,
a modus operandi able to opens new paths and methods of research (Feld 2009,
2015).
For Scaldaferri, the fact of being a musician has been important especially in
the relationships with Si-Juma, who did not speak French; with him the communication was mediated, in large part, by the presence of Si-Adama. In addition to
the daily lessons of baan he undertook with Si-Juma, it was crucial to have a typical
Italian instrument: the surdulina, a small bagpipe from Southern Italy, with two
chanters, two drones and a goat skin. Talking about the surdulina was also an opportunity to illustrate certain processes connected to the Scaldaferri family (which
includes many musicians), which inevitably suggested links and comparisons useful to discuss about the family structures of the ke.

Playing the surdulina was also a way to show a musical competence, and earn a
form of respect as a musician; it also served as a pretext to explore some of the
details of the use of baan, exploiting the similarities that may exist between performative aspects of the musical instruments.
About this point, it is known that Alan Lomax during his musical journey in
Italy between 1954 and 1955, made largely with Diego Carpitella (Lomax 2008):
by using his own musical skills as a musician (notably singing accompanying himself on guitar) sometimes overcame the difficulties of linguistic communication. As
is known, Lomax did not speak Italian, but spoke in Spanish adapting it to Italian.
Being a musician helped Lomax to built a strong sense of empathy with the local
musicians, which in part is at the base of the important results he achieved during
that experience. A famous episode happened in the Gargano, in the Apulia region,
where Lomax, as a guitar player, obtained a variety of information on the technique
of the local folk guitar (chitarra battente). Language difficulties were overcome and
resolved by shifting the focus on technical issues; musicians were perfectly able to
understand and communicate thanks to the connection that was established using
their specific skills (Agamennone 2015).
At first, the musicians of Karankasso showed curiosity for the surdulina, especially for its leather bag, made of a goatskin that revealed the shape of the animal;
however very soon their attention was drawn to the structure of the music played.
The music for surdulina facilitated an interesting comparison, helping to highlight
important and specific aspects of baan. The first question asked by Si-Juma, after
listening to a piece performed on the surdulina was: What are you saying? This
question, of course, implies a communicative function, on a semantic level, of the
musical expression; this is obvious for what regards the baan and it relationship
with the Samba language, but it is quite extraneous to the music of Italian bagpipes. The answer for Si-Jumas question was, firstly, derived from the musical
functions of the baan, which constituted, as musical instrument, his term of reference. What the surdulina was playing, actually, could cover only one of the two
functions performed by the baan: precisely, its rhythmic function, used to accompany the dance, to urge workers to work, or to accompany singing , without
any reference to its talking capacity in imitating the Seenku language.
The Dagomba musician Alhaji Abubakari Lunna, in comparing his performance with the talking drum, to Western classical music, introduced the terms of
feeling and understanding, to highlight two different functions of a sound
language (Scaldaferri 2013). Recalling Lunnas terms, the surdulina could play a
music perceptible from the point of view of rhythm, and able to elicit a reaction
empathetic, especially during the dance, but not understandable at the semantic
level.
A second important point, discussed with Si-Juma, was about the role of the
two hands in playing the surdulina; this also allowed analogies with some performing elements of the baan. The surdulina is equipped with two chanters, played
separately by the two hands, which have diversified roles (Scaldaferri 2005). The

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Image 5. The Konat family

playing the baan, including a
young Si-Juma (left) and SaLamoussa (right), while in the
centre is their relative Sa-Kono
from the nearby village of
Konkolikan (Author unknown,
circa 1998).

Image 6. The patriarch of

the Konat family SaDouganDougan, sitting in
the centre (Author
unknown, circa 2002).

left hand, basically, plays rhythmic ostinato patterns on the left chanter, while the
right hand, o the right chanter, develops passages characterized by virtuosity and
ornaments. The two chanters and so the two hands also have a role hierarchically differentiated. After looking carefully on the hands during the musical performances, Si-Juma concluded that the right hand of the instrument carried out
the function of the soloist player of the baan, while the left hand that of the third
player, placed in front of the soloist. As we mentioned above, an important feature
of the performance practice of the baan at Sambla is the fact that it is most of the
time played at the same time by three musicians. Si-Juma established a similarity
between the roles of the two chanters of the surdulina played by the right and the
left hand, with the roles of two baan players: the soloist, who performs virtuoso
parts, similar to those of the right chanter, and the musician placed in front of him,
which primarily plays a rhythmic accompaniment, like the left chanter. This episode reveals the full capacity of Si-Juma to abstract the functions performed by
different musicians in the baan, and use them as terms of reference to explain the
operation of other instruments.
The presence of three different musicians playing with one instrument could
have been a consequence of the need to simplify and compact bigger ensembles of
musicians; in fact, we can see that in other contexts, the three roles are carried out
by three musicians playing on different instruments (Le Bomin 2001; Zemp 2006).
This practice, in the case of the Sambla baan, fixed the interaction patterns between the three musicians, establishing the roles in the hierarchy of the player,
which depends on the level of expertise of the three musicians involved. In fact, a
beginner starts to learn to play the instrument from the simplest role, in front of
the soloist, and then gradually he moves on to the other more difficult roles.
A similar mechanism is at work with the surdulina. The base of the musical
performance is represented by the ostinato played of the left chanter, which is in
fact the starting point for each apprentice; once he or she has assimilated and internalized it, the beginner can move to the flourished part performed by the right
hand. The dialogue with Si-Juma, rich in technical details, presumed an expert
interlocutor, and for this reason it allowed the interlocutors to grasp, in their immediacy, some aspects and functions in a way that is more effective than any verbal
description.

On the families of the musicians

In parallel with the film shots and musical recordings, a research was carried out
concerning the kinship structures of the musicians. The main purpose was to explore the complex structure of the ke families, in order to identify any important
people, which then give adequate representation in the photographic and audiovisual documentation, during the interview as well as in the implementation of the
final film product.
The backbone of their activity is in fact made up of the strict organization of

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the family, within which are articulated all the musical activities: from those relating to the activities of construction of the instrument, to the public performance
and the transmission of musical knowledge.
The clans of ke publicly recognized in the village of Karankasso are actually
two; according to the traditional nomenclature, they are the Konat and the Traor.
The first includes the players of the baan, and the second the players of the dunnun.
The two major musicians that were collaborating with us, Si-Juma and Si-Adama,
respectively were players of baan and dunnun, the first belonging to the Konat,
and the second to the Traor.
The need to verify as much as possible the relations of the two families has led
to a systematic investigation of these issues, conducted through interviews and
trying to implement a detailed reconstruction of a family tree. Some less obvious
or undeclared relationships, due to ties with rival families, have emerged thanks to
the systematic operation. This happened, as an example, for the two lineages of
baan musicians present in the village, belonging both to the Konat clan, who in
spite of their apparent detachment and their competitive activities, actually resulted to be striclty connected with numerous intermarriage links.
Meanwhile, an investigation on the identity documents and birth certificates of
the musicians was carried out with the cooperation of the registry office of the
council of Karankasso. This survey was made, at first, to verify the documents of
the musicians and allow them, in the future, to travel out of Burkina Faso and
perform abroad; however, it was also helpful to compare the detailed oral reports
about the families with the information present in the registry certificates, which
often were issued arbitrarily by the officials. Comparing the information which
emerged from the data collection of oral testimonies and the statements on official
documents, revealed a complex and articulated situation. Certainly there was a gap
somewhat obvious and predictable between what was told orally and the written official papers, and the latter was often much less reliable than the former.
Within the oral information gathered by the testimony of Si-Adama, in case of
lack of precise information, the fact of playing an instrument rather than another
and so the social function of a musician seemed the final criterion for granting
a clan membership to the Konat or Traor: it seems almost a way to appoint a
kinship identity on the base of a socially recognized musical activity. It should be
mentioned the presence of another family name with musicians in the village, that
of Ouattara, that are dunnun players; even though their presence is quite small
compared to the others. Just to give an idea of the proportions, in the family tree
of the musicians of the village built with the help of Si-Adama, on a total of 312
members, 78 are Konat (almost all are baan players, with very few dunnun players), 34 are Ouattara, and 302 are Traor (with presence of dunnun players and no
baan players).
In the official written documents, Traor was the most popular surname; actually is a surname spread throughout Burkina Faso and beyond, and it seems flattening the complexity of the real family situation to the needs of the bureaucracy.

The whole family of Si-Juma as an example, made up of players of baan and

socially recognized as Konat, was registered as Traor, which follows many other
discrepancies. Si-Juma himself, in the birth certificate of his child, results indicated
as Sy Adjouma born in 1987, while in his identity card it is indicated as Mamadou
Traor born in 1986.
But there were also cases where the arbitrariness of certain official documents
appeared to have its own relevance; this happened when an oral tradition, publicly and socially recognized, was accepted and attested inside the written documents.
An interesting case is that of Sa-Lamoussa Konat, Si-Jumas paternal uncle (the
younger brother of his father Si-Tiousso). In his birth certificate, Sa-Lamoussa
appears to have the surname Traor like the other family members; but he also is
indicated as the son of Sa-Dougandougan, when in fact he was the son of Si-Bakuru, elder brother of Sa-Dougandougan.
However, this last piece of information, in a certain way, is not incorrect. The
document, drafted in 2010 (when the applicant was 50 years old), is a sort of official ratification of facts that are well known by the community: Si-Bakuru died
when his children were very young, and their mother Ga-Tie raised them up in the
court of her brother-in-law, Sa-Dougandougan. Actually, Sa-Dougandougan acted
as a mentor and tutor to Sa-Lamoussa; he was also his teacher for the baan, giving
him a social role as a musician in the village. Moreover, Sa Dougandougan was
recognized as sort of father par excellence in the memory of the whole village,
because he was parent of 21 children, fifteen of them born from his second wife
Fen-Sita Ouattara. A role that is ratified in this case even by the written document.
Fen-Sita Ouattara, widow of Sa-Dougandougan, talking about Si-Bakurus children, in the interview made for the film says firmly: Sa-Dougandougan and SiBakuru were brothers, so me and Ga-Tie were their wives, thus all her children are
also mine. The local use of words like father and mother, relatively unequivocal
for a public registry officer, is instead more ambiguous.
These examples make clear the very different workings of an oral tradition such
as the genealogical knowledge of the Sambla ke and the bureaucratic needs to create order and assign static identities by the city council. Reading about the origins
of the diffusion of the clan name Traor in the Sambla area, which was adopted by
many families in sign of submission to the new chef de canton imposed by the
French Si-Boro Traor during the 1910s (Royer 1996: 55-60), one wonders if the
registry employee who was preparing the papers for people like Si-Juma or his
uncle Sa-Lamoussa was not in fact continuing the expansion of his clan name
through bureaucratic means. In any event, our little incursion in the registers of
the Karankasso Sambla city council can serve as a reminder of the remarkable
fluidity of family and even ethnic identities in the Mande area as a whole (Amselle
and MBokolo 1985; Amselle 1998, 2005).
Still it was striking for us to hear from the elders that the baan players Konat
in fact belong to two different lineages, both with their origin outside of the Sam-

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Image 7. Si-Adama Traor
(Image 2012 Lorenzo Ferrarini).

Image 8. Si-Juma Konat

(Image 2012 Lorenzo Ferrarini).

bla people. As confirmed by Strand,6 one of the lineages is of Tusia origin, and the
other Bobo two neighbouring populations (see Strand 2009: Chapter 2 for a
detailed account of the origin of the Sambla ke families). Remarkably, the xylophone first arrived with the Tusia musicians at the end of the 19th century and was
quickly absorbed by the Sambla, together with the lineage of their players. The
absorption of the Bobo lineage happened later, and paradoxically it is likely that
for them the name of Traor is actually more ancient than that of Konat, that
could have been taken up by association with the other baan players of Tusia origin
(compare Strand 2009: 85). The way our data interacts with Strands evidences the
capacity of the families of musicians to redraw genealogies and switch identities as
their patrons changed, a phenomenon well known in the Mande area (see for example Hoffman 1995, 2001; Oyler 2002).
Making the film brought to light a deeper genealogical knowledge that usually
is not mastered by everybody, and the younger musicians in some cases were sur6
Interestingly, Strand received from the village chief of Karankasso at the time of her visit 2004,
Alexis Traor, the information that both lineages were by then known as Traor, even though still today
they call themselves Konat.

 Lorenzo Ferrarini, Nicola Scaldaferri

prised to hear what the elders had told us. When filming additional interviews in
April 2015, for example, Si-Adama Traor, acting again as interpreter and research
assistant, was surprised to discover that a Diarra lineage also belongs to the ka of
Karankasso but does not play music. Today only one compound of Diarra ke remains in the village, the rest being dispersed in other villages or in the town of
Bobo Dioulasso. The Diarra were tasked with digging the graves, as we learned
talking to Minata Diarra, an elderly lady from Karankasso who on that day was
visiting her relatives (see a description of their role in Royer 1996: 188, note 8). It
will be interesting to see what kind of role the finished film will play in the preservation of the identity of the ke families in Karankasso. For the moment the process
of its making brought about a renewed awareness of their diversity and self knowledge.

By presenting our experiences in producing the documentary The Sambla Baan,

we meant to highlight ways in which making a film can become a fly wheel for the
research as a whole. The documentary, which does inevitably represent some of the
outcomes of that research, is in this case also a research practice in itself, one that
allows to discover unexpected directions. The specificities of a film over other
research methods in our view amount to two aspects, that of the film as catalyst
and that of the dialogue that can be opened starting from audiovisual media.
In the first place, we made clear how we did not hesitate to create ad hoc situations that could make the film more powerful or representative. The rationale
here is not just that of using time more effectively or improving the final product,
but it derives from a conception of fieldwork as a collaborative and participatory
enterprise. We were less inspired by a use of audiovisual media as tools to document an existing state of things than by their potential to provoke a certain reality (the expression is Rouchs, interviewed in Taylor 1991: 99). In other words,
although our focus are the musical practices around the Sambla baan in the actuality of a village like Karankasso, we used strategies like commissioning the instrument and provoking the workers in the fields to discover aspects that we would
inevitably have overlooked (compare other examples and reflections in Ferrarini
2011).
The other connected aspect of our research practice, and at the same time the
precondition for the interventions to take place, is the establishment of a dialogue
with the musicians. In some cases based on words, as it happened for Si-Adama,
and in others mediated by shared activities such as making music or manual labour,
the dialogue we actively pursued was inspired our past work in Italy and by Steven
Felds experiences in New Guinea (Feld 1987) and Ghana (Feld 2012). In this
sense it was fundamental to be able to look at the footage and listen to the recordings with the musicians, so that they could understand what we were doing and
use their knowledge and authority to guide us in our interpretations. Once again

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 Filming as Exploring

audiovisual media provided a more fertile ground for sharing the products of ethnographic research with its protagonists, as compared to academic writing.
We intend to propose here that conceiving of film as a form of research can
benefit from an approach made of the combination of the two points mentioned
above, namely intervention and dialogue. Part of the reasons are the acknowledgement of the interactive character of ethnographic fieldwork and of the collaborative nature of most films. But, as the summary of our findings presented here
hopefully makes clear, such a methodology has a potential to illuminate new research directions and affords a more effective collaborative dialogue with the subjects of the research itself, therefore facilitating practices of ethical production.

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Yiri kan: la voix du bois, 35mm, 25.
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