Why this work
Our families are the source of our greatest earthly power, and at the same time the weakest. Our families are not made of steel or stone to withstand the winds and tsunamis of time. Their stories are not chiseled into granite, protected from error, erasure, or forgetting. Yet without story, family fades.
What did our ancestors know? Since the beginning of our time, which is all of human time, story has both carried the family and defined it. Words, rhythms, tones, and spirit become the story, which becomes the family. And the story becomes the most powerful communicator, teacher, healer, builder, and warrior of all time.
No wonder those who want to dominate and manipulate our people want to control the music created and the stories told. Too often we wait for others to recognize us and our families by telling our stories. That waiting is a sickness of oppression, especially when the tellers we wait on have shown themselves to be captors, exploiters, and enemies of our people.
How-To Study: Who is the Djeli?
Open the video in GHL
A Djeli is a trained keeper and performer of memory, music, and lore. The Djeli helps families and communities know who they are, understand what they have built and survived, settle differences, honor worthy deeds, learn from mistakes, and carry wisdom into the future.
Among the Mande peoples of West Africa (the Maninka, Mandinka, Bambara, and their neighbors in today’s Mali, Guinea, Senegal, The Gambia, and beyond), the Djeli is a hereditary identity. A child born into a Djeli family trains for many years. A woman Djeli is called a Djelimuso, and Djelimusow are honored as some of the finest singers of memory.
The most famous Djeli story is the epic of Sundiata Keita, who founded the Mali Empire in the 1200s. His Djeli, Balla Fasséké, advised him, spoke for him, and kept his story. Descendants of that Djeli line still tell the epic today, accompanied by the kora (a harp-lute of 21 strings), the balafon, and the ngoni.
The eight traditional roles of the Djeli
Open each role to see what it means in the Family Lore Project.
Genealogist
Keeps the family lines: who was born to whom, who married whom, and where each line began.
For you: you will build, check, and correct your family tree.
Historian
Remembers what happened, when, and why it mattered.
For you: you will place your family’s events on the larger timeline of Black history.
Spokesperson
Speaks for the family or ruler in public, choosing words with care.
For you: when you present your family’s story, you represent your family. You speak with honor.
Diplomat
Carries messages between people and helps settle disputes.
For you: you will listen across generations, and across disagreements inside the family, without taking sides carelessly.
Musician
Carries memory in rhythm and melody, so it can be remembered and felt.
For you: you will gather the songs, music, and dances your family loves or created.
Praise singer
Names and honors worthy deeds so the community remembers them.
For you: you will find and lift up the empowering stories in your family.
Teacher
Passes wisdom and lessons to the young.
For you: you will teach your family its own story, through games, discussions, and presentations.
Healer
Restores what has been broken, in a person or a community.
For you: you will listen for the ways your family has healed itself, through kinship, song, story, faith, and struggle, and help carry that healing forward.
What “Djeli-in-Training” means
You are not claiming to be a hereditary Djeli. AYA’s Djeli-in-Training is an African-diasporic adaptation: you accept the responsibilities of the Djeli. That means careful listening, truthful preservation, ethical storytelling, and service to your family and community.
Your mission is carried by eight verbs: Listen, Investigate, Preserve, Interpret, Heal, Perform, Educate, Return. Return completes the circle. What you gather from your elders goes back to the family with dignity, as a recording, a timeline, a tribute, a corrected tree, or a gathering.
“We’re not a broken people. We have broken stories.”
The creed of the AYA StoryologistBecause Afrikan people have suffered the Maafa (captivity and oppression), the Djeli-in-Training studies the family’s stories looking for two things: empowering stories or fragments to build on, and broken stories to heal. Then you tell them to heal and empower. In Stage V you will learn our African cultural technologies of healing and resistance, and listen for how your family has used them.
Check yourself
Answer each in your head, then open it to compare. Your graded quiz is in GHL.
How is a Djeli-in-Training different from a Mande Djeli?
A Mande Djeli is born into a hereditary line and trains for years. A Djeli-in-Training accepts the responsibilities of the Djeli, not the hereditary status.
Which verb completes the circle, and why does it matter?
Return. Stories taken from elders must come back to the family with dignity, or the work only serves you.
What two kinds of stories does the Djeli-in-Training look for?
Empowering stories or fragments to build on, and broken stories to heal.
What does the proverb about the dog’s tail teach about our stories?
If we wait for others to celebrate and tell our families’ stories, they may never be told, or be told wrong. We tell our own.
Family Research: The first listening
This week you practice the first verb. You are not interviewing yet. You are listening.
- Draw your family circle. On paper or in your portfolio, write the names of people you could learn from: parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Add elders who can stand in, such as a spiritual leader, organizational leader, or community elder.
- Choose one person and ask for 15 minutes. Tell them you are starting the Family Lore Project as a Djeli-in-Training.
- Ask one question: “What is one story about our family you never want me to forget?” Then listen. Don’t interrupt. If they pause, you can ask: “What happened next?” “How did that feel?” “Why does it matter to you?”
- Reflect back what you heard in a sentence or two: “So what I’m hearing is…” This shows you listened and lets them correct you.
- Ask about sharing: “May I share this story with my class, or is it just for our family?” Respect the answer.
- Write it down within an hour, while it is fresh. Note who told it, when, and anything they said about where they learned it.
Every story is not for every ear. Some stories are painful, private, or still unfinished. If an elder says “not yet” or “not that one,” thank them. A Djeli is respected because they can be trusted.
Personal Reflection
Write your answers here or in your journal. What you type saves in this browser only. When you’re done, copy your journal into your Djeli-in-Training portfolio in GHL.
Demonstration: Your first telling
First, respond to two tellings
In the FLP Story Circle, you answer before you call. Respond to two tellings from classmates or from the Ancestor Shelf, selections from We Set When We’re Done: Families in Dialogue with the Past and the Future. Use the four moves:
- Name itGive the story a temporary name.
- Take itSay one thing it taught you.
- Ask itAsk the teller one question.
- Link itConnect it to your own family or adopted line.
Then, post your telling
Record 2 to 3 minutes of audio or video, or write about 300 words.
- Introduce yourself: “I am [your name], Djeli-in-Training of the [family name] family.”
- Say why you accept the mission, in your own words.
- Tell the story you received this week, if the teller said you may share it. If not, tell about the listening itself: who you sat with and what it was like.
Choose who can see it
| Tier | Who sees it |
|---|---|
| Family Only | Your family, not the Story Circle |
| Keepers | Your support specialist and moderators |
| Circle | All FLP students |
| Showcase | The public, after moderation. Needs a parent’s sign-off. |
The teller’s blessing. Before you post a family member’s story beyond Family Only, make sure they know it is being shared. When people answer your telling, post an answer back to close the circle.
Bring to your weekend session
If you meet with a support specialist, family learning circle, or community partner, bring your family circle, your notes from the first listening, and your commitment. You’ll share in the story circle and practice listening and reflecting back.
Tell your family
Share this with the people at home. Read it aloud, or send it in your own words.
“I’m starting the Family Lore Project as a Djeli-in-Training. A Djeli is a keeper of family memory. Over the next weeks I’ll be asking to listen to your stories, learn our family’s history, and give it back to the family in a way we can all be proud of. I’ll always ask before I share anything outside the family. Will you help me?”
Stage I checklist
0 of 8 done