WONDERS OF THE AFRICAN WORLD: INTO AFRICA WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.: THE ROAD TO TIMBUKTU {PART 5 OF 6} (TV)
Summary
Part five of six. One in this documentary series where educator Henry Louis Gates, Jr. travels around different regions of Africa. In this episode, Gates travels down the Niger River on a journey through Mali that takes him from the capital of Bamako to the fabled city of Timbuktu. Gates discusses the establishment of the kingdom of Mali by King Sundiata in the thirteenth century. He then goes to a cafe to listen to performers sing and dance to songs about their heroic predecessor, after which he discusses that theme with a singer. Next, Gates visits Mopti, the capital of Mali under the French colonial occupation and currently the busiest market town between Bamako and Timbuktu. A local businessman, Oumar Cisse, shows Gates around the town's markets and discusses the salt and gold trades that once made Mali one of the wealthiest kingdoms in Africa. Gates visits a salt merchant and explains that the salt merchants are traditionally the nomadic traders known as the Tuareg. Gates questions the merchant about his worker and is told that the merchant's employee is actually a slave, one of the darker-skinned Bella people who have been indentured by tradition for centuries. Gates expresses his distress at this modern-day slavery against an African in Africa. Later, Cisse takes Gates to a concert at which the Griots -- poets who sing praises of their patrons -- perform. A Griot sings praises to Cisse and then to Gates, who has paid money for the privilege. Gates explains that the epics sung by the Griots are the main source of Malian history for its people, as the epics have been passed down from generation to generation. Gates then travels down-river to Djenne, an ancient city that was the center of the salt and gold trades during the Middle Ages. It was established by a fourteenth-century king. Gates tells of the legendary wealth of this king, who ordered a mosque to be built wherever he stopped on a Friday, the Islamic holy day. Then Gates visits the Great Mosque of Djenne, an impressive thirteenth-century structure made of mud, and meets the Great Imam of Djenne, Mali's most revered and powerful cleric, with whom he discusses the mosque. Gates then discusses the introduction of Islam -- and with it, the written word -- into the Niger River Valley in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by Arabic traders. He talks to the Head of Conservation of Djenne and to an archaeologist, Kevin Mac Donald, about the impact of this development on Malian society. Gates then joins Mac Donald at the site of a town from 250 BC. which Mac Donald is excavating, and where evidence of iron work has been found. Later, Gates journeys to the south of Djenne to visit the Dogon people who fled Islamic conversion and have maintained their ancient religion. He sees the place where teenage Dogon boys are ritually circumcised, and talks to some Dogon about this practice, as well as the practice of female circumcision in the tribe, a tradition which lives on though it has recently been outlawed by the Malian government. Then Gates witnesses a dance belonging to a festival which celebrates the dead and calls upon their spirits to help the living. Gates returns to Mopti to catch the ferry to Timbuktu. On the ferry, Gates reads from the journal of Captain John Riley, an early European explorer of the region, and reflects upon the relative ease of his journey compared to Riley's and other explorers who, spurred on by a by a French competition in the nineteenth century, raced to be the first European to ever set foot in Timbuktu and live to tell about it. En route to Timbuktu, the ferry passes a river town where merchants bring their boats up to the ferry and sell dinner to the passengers. When Gates arrives in Timbuktu, he sees a plaque dedicated to the French explorer Rene Caille who arrived in Timbuktu in 1828 and won the competition. Then he and a guide -- an Islamic scholar -- visit the fifteenth-century Sankore mosque, the site of the legendary University of Timbuktu that was the heart of the Islamic university system in Africa. The scholar explains the workings of the university at the height of its fame and shows him the classrooms and courtyards where the learning took place. Then Gates discusses the important and lucrative book trade centered in Timbuktu at its height, and visits the family library of a local man, who shows Gates some of the priceless treasures he holds in his collection and tells him of the great black scholars in the history of Timbuktu and Islamic learning.
(This joint BBC/PBS production was originally broadcast by the BBC in July 1999.)
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2003.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: October 27, 1999 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:53:38
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:75422
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Africa - Civilization; African-American Collection - News/Talk
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1999
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jonathan Hewes … Executive Producer
- Ben Goold … Producer
- Katrina Phillips … Associate Producer
- Nick Godwin … Director
- Antonia Hinds … Researcher
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. … Writer
- Tama … Music by
- Spirp, Wix, Legwabe … Music by, Theme Music by
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. … Host
- Rene Caille
- Oumar Cisse
- Mac Donald, Kevin
- James Riley