Sundiata - BLack Africa's equal to the King Author Story?

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Sundiata - An Epic of Old Mali, by D.T. Niane, Translated from French to English by G.D. Pickett. 'Griots' were appointed by African kings as counselors and were essentially walking books, passing down history and law generation to generation. By the 1960s griots were considered entertainers and through interviews by the author, the verbal history became written. This work dispels the myths that all African tribes were primitive barbarians. It reveals royal families, a class system including slave holding, and the griots believe their history places Black Africans as equals to Europeans in being "civilized." It is a valuable work for understanding how people's thinking today is affected by beliefs about the past. This work mostly reads like a historical novel.