Epic Songs Research Articles

POETICS OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES IN EPIC SONG GENRES OF RUSSIAN FOLKLORE

The article examines the ideas about space that have developed in Russian historical and song folklore. In the poetics of the epic song genres of Russian folklore, namely, in epics and historical songs, space plays an important role, defining “one’s own” and “alien” (“other”) worlds within one of the main mythologemes. Natural space (forests, rivers, seas, mountains, caves, etc.) mark the “other” world; cities — “one’s own” (“human”) at the mythological level. Historical ideas about space arise in heroic ballads, which, according to the concept of V. Ya. Propp, are an example of the state epic. Accordingly, the “own”/“foreign” mythologeme is already determined by the content “Russian world”/“enemy world” and is filled with real toponyms. In historical songs, there is a fundamental replacement of the former generalized type of historicism (epic) by concrete historicism, which affects the toponymic system. A number of examples raise the question of the correspondence or non-correspondence of the toponym in epics and historical songs to geographical reality. With regard to the Caspian Sea toponym, the almost complete absence of connections between the geographical name and the real geographical object is emphasized. The notions of the Baltic Sea, as well as of the towns of the Neva-Baltic space (Shlisselburg, Derpt, Revel), turn out to be more firmly connected with real geography. Shifts in the naming of geographical objects are specially considered: Khvalynsk/Caspian Sea; Varangian/Virian/Baltic Sea; Oreshek/Shlisselburg; Yuryev/Dorpat; Kolyvan/Revel.

Роль и значение музыкально-песенных компонентов в мифоэпической картине мира (на материале черкесского нартского эпоса)

The article presents a philosophical analysis of mythoepic texts and musical components of the Circassian folklore. In particular, the study explores specific epic images and related songs, as well as their cultural and philosophic implications. The role and significance of music culture in the Circassian traditional society are traced using epic narratives. Heroic cycles of the Nart epic are viewed as an art-aesthetic material, where the common plot-compositional centre of the epic culture produces a very specific worldview with a set of cosmogonic mythologies. Using the example of several heroic characters and the cycles of song folklore associated with them, the idea of the multilevel nature of the construction of the ontological foundations of myth and epic is expressed. The paper substantiates the hypothesis that an important factor in the preservation and translation of not only song folklore, but also many other forms of artistic reality is a whole complex of mnemic linguistic and extralinguistic means. It is concluded that the Nart epic in these aspects should be understood not only as an ethical, but also as an aesthetic code of Circassians, where epic texts and songs contain many pre-philosophical universals and ideas.

The Image of Sea Maid in the Poetry of K.D. Balmont

The article is a complex case study of 23 poems presenting the image of the sea maid in lyric poetry of K.D. Balmont. The following conclusions has been made in the course of the works: the image of the sea maid tends to be frequent in love and erotic lyrics and is linked with decadence motives; many texts are permeated with characters of Slavic folklore, besides, it is important that some poems are poetical ‘renditions’ of famous epic songs and legends from Russian, Polish and Lithuanian folklore. Still most of the poems with folklore symbolism answer aesthetic views of the poet himself and are linked to his solar cult and his understanding of the sun as a universal creative principle, and to Balmont’s conception of beauty and harmony as a synthesis of opposed nature elements. The image of the sea maid is multifaceted in Balmont’s poetry, its development expresses the evolution of author’s worldview from typical decadence erotic and mortal motives aesthetic understanding of the nature of beauty and integrity of the world.

Sibinjanin Janko i Kosovo - istorija, tradicija i legenda

The aim of the paper was to provide historical background of the so-called second battle of Kosovo that has occurred in October 1448, as well as the oral tradition that came out from the battle. In the battle, Janos Hunyadi (Sibinjanin Janko in the Serbian oral epic tradition) fought and lost against the Turks at the very same place where prince Lazar had encountered the same enemy in 1389. From the historical point of view, the most important facts about this event are the following: Hunyadi led the army of Hungarians, Czechs, Germans, Poles and other Christians who had encountered the Ottoman army of Sultan Murat II; the Christians were defeated; Janko's nephew Szekely Janos lost his life; and Hunyadi himself escaped. Later on, Hunyadi became one of the most prominent heroes of the Serbian folk tradition and epic songs about heroic deeds. Beside him, Janos Szekely, who governed Slavonia and Croatia also become an epic legend, under the name of Sekula Banović. A part of the tradition of the battle of Varna, which took place in the year 1444, also came into the tradition of the Kosovo battle, from which emerged one complex oral memory of the heroic fights against the Ottoman conquerors. Even though there are a lot historically vague facts, even a lot of fictional characters, the tradition of Hunyadi's valiant clashes with the Turks on the field of Kosovo has remained and survived through different epochs.

Motifs in the Epic Songs of Jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev

Motifs in the Epic Songs of Jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev

Незаконные наследники Демодока: софистический логос как инструмент преобразования универсума

Epic songs played an essential didactical role in ancient Greek society, stabilizing it by the maintenance of its moral patterns. To achieve the desired effect on the audience, the aedes used special techniques. The improving aspect of epic poetry is typical for an­cient authors using this genre. On the case of Parmenides’ poem, it is shown that philo­sophical poems follow only partially the principles of the epic genre, corresponding to it in form and, probably, in purpose, but the content has significantly transformed. Even if Parmenides set himself didactical tasks, they were directly related not to the social, but the cognitive sphere. The sophists as teachers of wisdom of the new generation, who pre­served and embodied the didactic claims of bards to preserve and transmit some moral paradigm. They also used ancient techniques: improvisation, mnemonics, stylistic modes. As for didactics, the sophists also taught by patterns, not transferring and preserving an­cient moral ones, but producing them anew, transforming old forms. Illustrations for the construction are given in the surviving speeches of Gorgias based on plot parallels with three songs of Demodocus in the Odyssey – on heroes, love, and insidious decep­tion. It is shown that in the process of the construction, the logos played a role of a tool for changing the world, both for the better and for the worse, and through this process the sophist edits subtly the old moral content, working out the inversion of plot lines. The ha­bitual form justifies and legitimizes the novelty of the content, and the audience, fasci­nated by the word, gradually accepts this novelty. In sum, sophists shape the moral para­digm through epic techniques, correlating ethics with the cognitive sphere, however, un­like Parmenides, the main emphasis is placed not on divine thinking, and apprehension (doxa), but on the descriptive and discursive nature of the world’s cognition.

Жажда апокалиптических вихрей и созидание нового мира: русская литература XX столетия — от «серебряного века» к эстетике советских лет

In the article, specific attention is paid to the factors that define the development of Russian literature at the most critical stages of the previous century. Especially, it dwells on the Russian revolution of 1917 and its most immediate consequence: creating Soviet Art. The author demonstrates that for many figures of Russian Modernism an orientation towards total social and cultural collapse was part of their aesthetic program. The Revolution mercilessly responded to this deep inner call of Russian culture. The response was received by the public in the shadow of the last book in the Bible: the Apocalypse. New Soviet literature, separated from the “bourgeois heritage” of the Silver Age, however, was deeply connected with its dystopias and phobias, catastrophic intuition and the expectation of the transformation of a Man and World where labor, science and technique should function as divine tools in the Epic Song of the Birth of New Universe. The most important stage in the process of the liberation of Russian literature from mythological constructions of Soviet avant-garde aesthetics was the Second World War. It rehabilitated a central meta-hero of great Russian classical literature, “a little person” debunked by Modernism.

Ancient Beliefs and Traditional Singing of Ukrainians: Gender Differentiation

Gender differentiation in the Ukrainian song tradition is most consistently manifested in the ritual system, and partly – in the epic tradition and lyrical song tradition. The primary attention in the article is paid to the ritual sphere, first of all to the calendar cycle. The paper highlights in detail the traditional distribution of functions between men and women in pre-Christian rituals, during which, according to ancient ideas and beliefs, there was some contact between «that» (sacred) and «this» («profane») worlds.
 Males, or more precisely, boys who were members of the so-called «parubotchi gromady» (young men communities) took an active part in the rites only once a year – at the beginning of the calendar-time cycle that is, in winter (in ancient times this happened in the spring) during the rituals of the yards circumambulation. The main purpose of these actions was to wish good for each family from the dead ancestors for the coming year (verbal magic), and in return, the ancestors received gifts – sacrificial food from representatives of the living world to appease them for the next year.
 Women, as representatives of «this» world, maintained contact with otherworldly forces throughout the entire agrarian period from sowing to harvest, as well as in ceremonies associated with the birth of a child, a wedding, or escorting the deceased to the afterlife. In times of crisis in the development of nature and human life, they turned to their deceased ancestors for help. The magical instrument of this connection was the voice, which filled the ritual texts with specific ritual timbre-intonation.
 The gender distribution in other genres of Ukrainian traditional song is somewhat different. Thus, if in the epic songs the prerogative belongs to men, then the lyric song system is characterized by the joint and almost equal participation of men and women. However, it should be noted that the performers of social songs were predominantly men, and women sang family lyric songs. But the most common was a mixed lineup of singing groups. Even more this property is inherent in the late layer of lyrical song performance.
 The author also draws attention to the age aspect of the performance of ritual and non-ritual songs in the Ukrainian tradition

The Instrumental Component of the Epic Genres of the Carpathian Tradition

If the context of the performance of ritual and dance music is described in detail in a number of monographs at the beginning and middle of the last century, then with descriptions of the existence of epic genres the situation is somewhat different. Most collections of epic songs contain verbal and musical texts, however, the context of the performance, the number of performers, and the instrumental component are not always described.
 The article is devoted to the epic genres of folklore of the Ukrainians of the Carpathians. The article examines the modern existence of such epic genres of Ukrainian Carpathian folklore as psalm, song-chronicle, ballad. The aim of the study is to show the epic genres of folklore of the Ukrainian Carpathians in the context of its modern existence in the Carpathian village and in connection with the instrumental tradition of the region. The study covers Eastern Galicia (Halychyna), in particular Galician Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttia (Pokucie), where the author's fieldwork took place.
 Modern field recordings of psalms, which were previously carried by itinerant lyre players, indicate that the works of this genre in some places have survived to this day due to their inclusion in the calendar tradition. Some of them are preserved as Christmas and Lenten songs. So, in the village Stary Lisets of the Tysmenytsa district of IvanoFrankivsk region, the psalm «About Stratenska Virgin Mary» about the siege of the monastery by the Tatars became a carol.
 In the Kosiv and Verkhovyna districts of Ivano-Frankivsk region (Galician Hutsulshchyna), songs-chronicles («novyny») continue to exist. This genre of Ukrainian folklore appeared in the 17th century. Songs-chronicles reflect historical events from the time of the opryshky movement to the present day and family and household dramas. In the village Khymchyn of the Kosiv region, the author of these lines was lucky to record two songs-chronicles – about Dovbush and about the First World War. The performer alternated singing with playing on a sopilka-dencivka. The author finds out ideas of the bearers of the tradition about the correct performance of songs-chronicles. The classical performance of chronicle songs is predominantly solo (one singer and one accompanist-instrumentalist).
 Folk ballads that exist in the modern Carpathian region can be divided into local and late ones, a significant part of which came from the Central regions of Ukraine in the 20th century. At the same time, part of the late ballads comes from the ancient ones that arose on the territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians in the 17th–18th centuries. Evidence of the 20th century and the records of modern collectors of Carpathian folklore show that the performance of ancient Carpathian ballads is close to the performance of songs-chronicles.
 Old Carpathian ballads are characterized by a declamatory manner of singing accompanied by a violin, hurdy-gurdy or sopilka-flute and a narrow ambitus. Old ballads are associated with individual performance and folk-professional instrumentalism. Nowadays they can be heard less often than late ballads associated with collective choral singing. To get a complete picture of the context of the existence of the ancient Carpathian ballads, it is necessary to interview the inhabitants of the villages where they were recorded in the XX – at the beginning of the XXI century – Kornych, Myshyn, Cherni Oslavy, Velykyi Klyuchiv and Kosmach.

“Winds Are Blowing” by Hanna Havrylets in the Theatrical Interpretation of the Chamber Choir "Kyiv"

The author has characterized the demonstrative features of the choral theater genre and their embodiment in the performance of historical oratorio "Winds are blowing" by Ganna Havrylets by the Municipal Academic Chamber Choir "Kyiv". The author defines the affiliation of this play to the type of choral theater "History in the Faces", as 12 historical songs recorded by O. Koshyts during the Kuban expedition (1903-1905) were selected, processed and combined into a dramatic integrity by composer Ganna Gavrilets. They focus on pictures of the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people. The theatrical concept of staging in the communicative link is built: composer - conductor - arranger - director - spectator. It was found that in order to dynamize the performance the authors of concert-theatrical performance (conductor Mykola Hobdych, director Vasyl Vovkun) made structural changes (removed individual numbers, added the final instrumental number), enriched the timbre sound palette of the chamber choir with additional instruments (bandura, reed pipe or flute, percussion), which are used by choristers simultaneously with singing. Approaches to the theatrical performances with personification images and general choral scenes, alternating in the form of contrast of drama of the work were underlined. It is established that in the choral works of the cycle with personified imagery the emphasis was on more effective individual acting means (facial expressions, plastics, movements), in epic songs - on more static but symbolically filled mise-en-scène factors (graphic-spatial forms of stage arrangement of performers on stage). It is noted that the directors contributed to the better disclosure of the content of the play through the integrated use of the background (eg, costumes), mise-en-scène and acting means of theatrical choral performance. These artistic techniques also increased the spectacle, concert and stage representativeness and created a variety of acoustic effects.

John Hunyadi in Hungarian Folklore and Historiography

Abstract The folk epic songs of a nation are often associated with heroic actions of famous historical figures of the given nation, whose names are often known beyond Balkan folklore, thus becoming characters of epic folk songs and tales preserved in South Slavic or Romanian folklore. The paper analyses Hungarian, Serbian, and Romanian folklore sources about John Hunyadi’s ethnic origin, with the intention to present the biography of this historical figure from the aspect of Hungarian historiography and his folklore heritage through the eyes of some Hungarian and Serbian folklorists. One of these emblematic heroes was certainly John Hunyadi, whose feats (as well as the feats of other members of the Hunyadi family) are told throughout the cycles of Hungarian epic folk tales, as well as the folk tales of the peoples in the surrounding area. This paper is based on the analysis of the collection of Hungarian historical folk tales by Dénes Lengyel, which contains a dozen texts about John Hunyadi. These texts have several points of contact with Romanian and Serbian history and folklore. The second part of the paper presents the biography of John Hunyadi in the light of Hungarian historiography as well as the discussion of his origins.

Az afrikai lantok története és típusai

The historical survey presented here demonstrates that musical instruments of the lute type derive from outside the African continent, even though they have probably been present in the North African region for several millennia. The first evidence of their appearance in ancient Egypt goes back to the era of Dynasty XVIII (ca. 1550–1292 BCE). The use of lutes having a long neck may have been preserved later among various Berber-speaking populations, and their wide dissemination over West Africa can only be dated with certainty to the period after the 14th century, when widespread conversion to Islam led to the replacement of an older arched type (having few strings and capable of producing a limited range of sounds) with a long-necked lute type borrowed from the Berbers, which can be considered more advanced owing to its mode of stretching the strings with a tuning ring. This paradigm shift is obvious in the epic song cycle known as Gassire’s Lute. Parallel to this development harp lutes appeared as a kind of cross between lutes and bow harps; and types of this new instrument having a larger body and multiple strings could rival the short-necked oud, an urban instrument spread by Arab tribes. Perhaps for this reason, the latter was not widely adopted among the Islamized populations of West Africa, while it did become popular in Europe in the 13th century, first adopted by the Spaniards. The fact that long-necked lutes are found only in North and West Africa also proves that the Nilotic-speaking peoples did not borrow these, unlike harps and lyras, which they did. Had they done so, the southward expansion of Nilotic-speaking populations would have led to the distribution of long-necked lutes over Central and Eastern Africa. For the same reason these instruments must have appeared in West Africa only after the Bantu expansion, before which era their use must have been restricted to Berber-speaking groups for three millennia. Short-necked lutes are likely to have been originated in Central Asia and they certainly spread from that region; the archaic type that is carved from one block of wood and has a bottle-like shape spread to Southeast Asia with the Muslim expansion and may have been carried from there to the islands of the Indian Ocean and sporadically to East Africa as well. Its wider adoption over the latter region was probably hindered by the ubiquity of rival instruments (harps and lyras) there. Moreover, the short-necked lutes carved of a single block of wood were not suitable for further development with the aim of increasing the volume, hence the recent widespread adoption among the inhabitants of the eastern and southern regions of Africa of a long-necked lute type having a larger, box-like body.

О переводе двух песен эпоса «Гесер» Б. Бергманом

Introduction. In 1802–1803, Benjamin Bergmann made a trip to the Kalmyk steppes to collect historical, literary, and folklore material on the Kalmyks and the Kalmyk culture. The result of this journey was the 1804–1805 publication of “Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803” (Nomadic wanderings among Kalmyks in 1802–1803) in Riga, which up to the present day has not lost its importance as a source of information on the culture and life of the Kalmyks in the 18th and 19th centuries. The four-volume work contains translations of various texts from Kalmyk into German, including the two songs of the “Geser” epos. This is in fact the earliest translation of “Geser” songs into a European language. Data. The German translation of the two “Geser” songs published by Bergmann in his work has been used as the material for the present research. The aim of the article. Bergmann’s translation of the songs is often mentioned in scholarly publications, but so far, no Russian translation of the songs in full has been made. To facilitate the research of the Oirat-Kalmyk “Geser” and especially of the songs in question, this article presents their scientific translation into Russian made by the present author. Also, the article discusses the character of the Kalmyk originals of the epic songs. So far it has been believed that an oral retelling was the source for the German translation of the songs. However, there is sufficient evidence for a new hypothesis because the analysis of the data undertaken in this study indicates that apparently there was a written Oirat source for the translation. Conclusions. Besides the complete Russian translation of the “Geser” sagas offered here, the article puts forward the hypothesis of the written nature of the original source, which served as the basis for Bergmann’s German translation.

Verbs and Grammatical Idioms of Turkish Origin in the Epic Song the Wedding of Smailagić Meho by Avdo Međedović

This paper examines Turcisms, specifically verbs and grammatical idioms, in the epic “The wedding of Smailagić Meho” by Avdo Međedović. The analysis is aimed at identifying and exploring Turkish loan verbs and grammatical idioms in the epic, as well as establishing whether there are some examples of these Turcisms characteristics of the poetic voice-poet Međedović himself to be noted. In this paper, the analytic-synthetic and comparative methods of analysis were employed as the analytic tools. The verbs were categorized into two categories, based on their formation. The first group comprises the verbs with a Turkish infinitival or perfective root and the suffix -isati, while the second group comprises the verbs formed from Turkish nouns and the suffix -ati, -ovati, -iti. The structures treated as grammatical idioms in this paper contain either a Turkish noun or (rarely) an adjective and some Bosnian verb. Based on their formation, these structures correspond to Turkish complex verbs. The analysis results indicate that there is an abundance of grammatical idioms in the examined epic, many of which, however, are characteristics of the author himself.

A Metaphorical Analysis of Female Worship in the Kam Epic: Songs of Kam Remote Ancestors

Metaphor is a cognitive mechanism in which people understand an abstract and unfamiliar object by comparing it to a more concrete and familiar one, according to rhetoric, while modern cognitive linguistics holds that metaphor is a cognitive mechanism in which people understand an abstract and unfamiliar object by comparing it to a more concrete and familiar one, according to modern cognitive linguistics. It’s a basic human cognitive and thinking model. Therefore, cognitive metaphor study is devoted to revealing the deep cognitive patterns of language and explaining various cognitive behaviors through languages. Myth is an important vector of human culture and has a profound influence on the formation of national cultural psychology. The Kam’s epic Songs of Kam Remote Ancestors as a narrative ancient song of the Kam covers the longest history of the Kam and has the highest content about the Kam’s ancestors. This epic has many descriptions of woman ancestors and a large number of metaphors of women as well, which reflects the unique position of women in the Kam culture. This study draws on the cognitive metaphor theory to investigate the female metaphors with the purpose of uncovering the development and evolution of the Kam’s woman worship perception in their history by using MIP metaphor identifying method.

Understanding an Epic Song of the Hmong in Laos From The Perspective of Oral Composition

This article looks at an epic song performed by Hmong in Laos from a perspective of oral composition by analyzing a wedding song Leuangtengdong. Through detailed musical and textual transcription, several compositional devices are identified and discussed. My study explores oral composition of the song focusing on its material and structure. I argue that music plays an important role in its oral composition: material-wise, music functions both as formulaic music-text association/unity and by careful music-text interactions; structure-wise, the song is organized in a multi-layered framework realized by the hierarchical music-text formulas, with music-text ‘theme’ in critical structural positions.

VALUE OF ACTIVE COMPASSION IN THE HEROIC EPIC: RUSSIAN EPIC CONCEPT

The article uses the comparative historical method to analyze epic folklore from around the world with regard to the functioning of the concept of active compassion. Proceeding from extensive factual material, the author demonstrates that different national and civilizational traditions imply various interpretations of this concept. While The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer’s Iliad, and medieval Western European epic songs don’t treat mercy as an axiologically important principle, the folk epics created by the Orthodox peoples maintain its value in accordance with the Christian ideal of sacrificial love. This interpretation is clearly presented in the Byzantine epic poem Digenes Akritas, in Serbian heroic songs, and, especially, in Russian bylinas, where one of the main heroes, Ilya Muromets, is very often motivated precisely by compassion. The author’s observations suggest that the concept of mercy, organically inherent in Russian folk epics, influenced the subsequent literary tradition as well, being reflected, for instance, in the poetics of the Russian psychological novel.

Типические места Малодербетовского цикла эпоса «Джангар» как средство определения авторства сказителя

Introduction. Russian folklorists have tended — and still do — to focus on formula-type language patterns inherent to traditional epic poetry. The shaping of epic songs would be facilitated by the wide use of structurally identical and stylistically similar descriptions and situations referred to as loci communes (‘typical passages’). Goals. The paper aims at identifying the personality of the taleteller to have recited the Baga Dorbet (Russ. Maloderbetovsky) cycle of the Jangar epic. With this in view, the work reveals typical passages of the Cycle, provides comparative insights into ones within prologues of the Cycle, compares the typical passages to similar elements from other cycles and individual repertoires. Materials and Methods. The study employs the methodology developed by P. D. Ukhov for the classification of Russian bylinas, and analyzes Jangar epic songs from the Baga Dorbet and Baga Tsokhor cycles, repertoires of such renown jangarchis as Eelyan Ovla, Mukӧvün Basangov, Dava Shavaliev, Nasanka Baldyrov, and Badma Obushinov. Conclusions. Typical passages of the Baga Dorbet cycle are structurally identical and stylistically homogenous descriptions where both syntactic patterns and described details and grammatical forms of parts of speech coincide which attests to that the texts were authored by (recorded from) one and the same taleteller. The opinion is confirmed by the below given examples of typical passages from other cycles that differ not only in terms of style or structure, but the very depicted objects, events, participants of the feast, the seating chart of theirs, and even numbers and sequence of stanzas significantly vary. The differences are determined by that the taletellers were representing different epic performance traditions with certain narrative patterns inherited from their predecessors. The comparative analysis of typical passages from the Baga Dorbet cycle shows the taleteller not only reproduces the once learnt song but rather creatively approaches every single performance maintaining standard elements of typical passages, modifies epic formulas employing synonyms, rearranging stanzas, reducing or adding details of descriptions, etc. This can be explained by that ‘above all in epic memory is not the formula precisely and intactly articulated in words but the artistic content, the taleteller (who) adheres to the framework of epic knowledge <...> (to) select one of the possible paths’, since this epic knowledge is wider than the text recited. So, the study concludes the whole of the Baga Dorbet cycle was recorded from (authored by) one taleteller and students whose names still remains unknown.

中国ミャオ族の「慶宝山」行事と生産叙事歌謡をめぐって

中国ミャオ族の「慶宝山」行事と生産叙事歌謡をめぐって

Identity Declamation in Nigerien Oral Epic

This paper examines identity through the declamation of zamu or praise poetry in the oral epic narration of Moumouni Sékou, one of the Zarma (an ethnic group from Niger) bards or griots better known as Kulba Baaba Seebeeri. Right at the opening episode of the epic song, the bard proceeds to exhibit the identity of one of his heroic figures Haamali Seyni Gakoy by announcing some of his qualities or values such as: fearlessness, truthfulness, friendliness, gorgeousness and self-control to name but a few. In the eyes of the griot, these traits are key values that characterize the identity of the noble. The exhibition of these salient and important qualities is an interpellation of the griot toward his audience, so as to make them aware of the cultural moral values that past generations held individually and collectively.