African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

On September 22, 1960, Mali gained its independence from France and became a oneparty
republic committed to state socialism. In 1992 the country’s first multiparty
elections since independence were held, thereby ending the previous authoritarian
political regime. Taureg insurgents have caused disruptions for the last few decades;
since 1992, there has been a special administrative unit for them. These are the famous
Blue Men, so-called because of their heavily dyed indigo robes, who still manage
caravans crossing the Sahara.
One of the poorest countries in world, Mali has been plagued by a weak economy.
Agricultural production has been hampered by drought, desertification, and locust
infestation. Consequently, the country has not been successful in producing enough food
for its population and has had to rely on interna tional food donations and importation.
The economy has had a recent boost, however, due to the growth of mining industries
that export gold, marble, uranium, and phosphates.
Mali is internationally recognized for its great cultural diversity in which local Kora
music, puppet theaters, elaborate carvings, and the songs of epic praise poems have
developed and flourished. Thousands of tourists each year visit the museums, historical
sites, and mosques of Bamako, Jenne, Gao, and Timbuktu. Malian musicians and singers,
such as the Super Rail Band, Salif Keita, Ali Farka Toure, and Habib Koite have become
some of the best known African performers in the United States and Europe.
PHILIP M.PEEK
See Epics
African Americans 469
MALINKE
MAMI WATA IN CENTRAL AFRICA
Mami Wata, a spiritual entity, whose images and representations are widespread in
Africa, continues to be the source of many popular practices and knowledge. She has
been the object of much academic preoccupation for about thirty years (Fabian 1978,
315–34; Drewal 1988, 160–85), and constitutes a nexus where power relations,
knowledge, and social and cultural stakes express themselves with all their contradictions
in contemporary society. She also expresses the presence of a complex social imagery
with a multitude of meanings. In Central Africa, more than in West Africa, her names in
local languages demand the search for deeper meanings in the history and the culture of
Congo River societies where Mami Wata is the fruit and the expression of ceaseless
cultural transfers. This process is due to the contact between local societies themselves,
and between them and Christian foreigners engaged in the sea trade from the fifteenth to
the nineteenth centuries (MacGaffey 1982; Thornton 1996). In other respects, this