The Buru, a Malian Trumpet

During Seliba this year, my friend Omar told me that they would be bringing out their "Burus", large wind instruments. I had never seen or heard of one of these before, so I was really surprised that they even existed.  Everyone knows how drums and percussion are fundamental to African and Malian music, and after spending a year in Mali I was also familiar with stringed instruments like the Kora and the Donsongoni.

Here is Dowda showing how a Buru is played.

It is buzzed like a brass instrument, and it only can play one note.  This is probably why Kissa has a whole rack of Burus - so that each one can hit a different note.  They are made out of wood, with leather tied around them.  Here are some shots of the Burus:

 

 

When they finally pulled out the Burus, drummers showed up and a couple of people grabbed one and started playing. But, it ended up being quite chaotic, although a rhythm started to form. Here's a 20 seconds of some Buru honking:

Later they told me that only really old people know how play the Buru or dance to it, but now they are too old to do it. In other words, the traditions around Buru playing are being lost, and when the young people try to play these days, they can only toot uncoordinately. It used to be used for a variety of things, but most notably for funerals.  This makes sense, given its somber yet wailing tone.  Someone showed me some grainy cellphone footage of elders from a nearby larger village called Goroko playing the Buru, but it seems like the people of Kissa are losing much of their cultural heritage surrounding the Buru.

The Buru and the Senoufo

After people grew tired of the Burus and unceremoniously stopped playing, they went to give them back to the old man who guards them (although they belong to the entire village).  I asked the old man if I could look at all of the Burus more closely, and I noticed that two of them had distinct carvings.  One of them had two little figures, so worn that I couldnt really make them out.

Another had a very ornate carving, which I recognized as a hornbill, sacred to the Senufo people.  I had just recently seen several Senufo hornbills in this exact style in a museum in Sikasso, the Senufo homeland.

 Here are some larger Senufo hornbills from museums that are clearly in the same style as the one on the Buru: upright, short wings, and with the beak down the middle.

 

                 Source: Wikimedia Commons

 Here are some more shots of the hornbill carving:

This is fascinating, because the people of Kissa haven't been Senufo for quite a long time.  They tell me that they used to be in the distant past, but have given up the Senufo culture and language to become Jula.  In fact, no one could tell me what the figure on top of the Buru was, or what it represented, although this would be obvious to a true Senufo.  This conversion may have happened in the late 19th century when the Wassoulou Empire of Samori Turé was taking ground from the Senufo Kénédougou Kingdom of Tieba and Babemba Traoré, and Kissa was right on the boundary. People still remember how Samori Turé took over the area. He was laying siege to the local stronghold of Goroko, but could not get past their massive walls. Finally, he bribed the traitorous gatekeeper, and took the city.  This brought the whole area of Yorobougoula under Samori's control.  Within his empire, he strictly enforced the Muslim religion and the Maninka language.  It is said that in the empire's historically Fula homeland of Wassoulou, anyone caught speaking Fula would have their tongues cut out. So, the people of Kissa likely lost their Senufo language and culture in during his conquests in the 1870's - meaning that the burus are older than that!