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!

Guns in Mali

Modern Guns

The village of Kissa has a strong tradition of hunting, and many households own some sort of firearm.  They distinguish between two types of gun. One is a modern gun, like a western rifle or shotgun, which they load with pre-made cartiges. These guns and their cartridges are available in the markets, and are probably made in China, just like everything else in Mali.  Here is a picture of a hunter with a modern gun:

 "African Guns"

The other kind of gun they have are old fashioned flintlock rifles. They make the bullets and gunpowder themselves, and have to load the rifle from the end of the gun. They call these "african guns" because they are not available in the markets - pretty much the only way to get one is to inherit it.  They insist that there are blacksmiths who make these guns by hand, but no one could name a blacksmith who made them, or even another village where you might find such a blacksmith.  I think these guns are really old and they were not made in Africa.  I think they come from pre-colonial contact with Europeans during the slave trade, which means they could be hundreds of years old. On a recent trip to Mali, I took some pictures of two of these "African Guns", and I'm hoping someone out there on the internet can tell me more about them, where they come from, and how old they might be.

Gun #1

 

This gun seems to have some sort of serial number, which means I was definitely not made by a Malian blacksmith. Maybe this number could yield some info about this particular guns history?

 

Gun #2

 

I'm gonna post this around Reddit and maybe some history and firearms forums to see if anyone can tell me any more about them. I would love to know how old these guns are, and how so many of them might have wound up in Kissa, probably 500km from the coast.  Anyone who knows about this stuff, please share!

Edit: So I made a write up on imgur so I could show the pics on Reddit's gun community r/guns.  Here is the write up, and here is Reddit's generous response.

It was agreed that the first, modern gun, was a Russian weapon called a Baikal Single Shot.  There was some debate about the other guns, called "African guns" by Malians.  Everyone pointed out that they were percussion cap guns, and not flintlock guns. Percussion cap guns were invented in the 1820s, so the guns (or at least those parts of the guns) couldn't be older than than. However, one user pointed out convincingly that the rest of the guns share many features with flintlock rifes, and it is possible that they were modified later when percussion cap technology became available in Africa.  Many users said that they were likely originally trade guns, at least before lots of modifications and repairs. Since the beginning of European contact in the 1500s until well into the 20th century, Europeans have traded weapons with Africans for slaves, goods, and political support/submission. While many users said they were Trade Guns, others insisted that they were made in the bush, citing similar homemade guns from other parts of the world. This is exactly what Malians themselves told me, although I was certainly skeptical. I didn't know if Malians blacksmiths had the technical know-how to make them, and everyone I talked to was fuzzy on the details about where and how they were made.  Nevertheless, it's possible that Malians used to be better at making guns, because today many advanced crafts like creating textiles, cookware, and soap are being lost. This is because of the flood of cheap crap from china that undercuts even African craftsmen.  In the case of the guns, many users insisted they must have been entirely made or at least heavily modified in the bush, because the entire barrel of Old Gun #1 is actually from a car steering shaft.  Similar guns must be in use throughout West Africa, because someone found a picture of Nigerian farmers using very similar weapons to fight off well-equipped militants from Boko Haram.

The redditors also agreed that my friend Sumaila can really rock his pink Crocs, and that I must be honest about being a PCV because I am wearing Chacos.