WEBVTT
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For more than four centuries, the transatlantic
slave trade during terror on this coating it’s web.
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More than 12 million Africans
were sold to slave ships
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10, 12 millions more die before
even reaching the African coast.
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In the 1820s and 1830s, these quiet creeks,
today remote corner of Sierra Leone
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were major canvassed in
slave trading route.
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The captives probably didn’t know it, but they were on
their way to the infamous slaving coast of gayness.
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But tens of thousands
were sold to slave ships.
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Most of those who passed who
here were shipped to Cuba,
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where slave much has called them \"Gangá\"
to differentiate them from slaves
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who were derived from
other regions of Africa.
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They say, when the Ganga captives were coming to this country to
be sold as slaves from Africa. They sang this song of sorrow.
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Today, more than a hundred million people
of African origin in the Americas.
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You know much, if anything at all, the
ancestor specific African cultures.
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But there is one group of people left in
Cuba who still remember that Ganga identity.
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They sing and dance their heritage, and
their annual festival is December.
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The Gangá-Longobá are no longer know
whether they’re Africans we saw.
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But then I’m working in Liberia with some locals
happen to see my film of their annual festival.
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I’m surprised, Cuba is a western country.
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I’m surprised to see these
traditional activities there.
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They’re so interested in the similarities, but they
persuade be to show the films in the entire town.
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They tell me that the
Cubans songs and dances
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part of the men and women’s initiation ceremonies
for the Poro and the (inaudible) societies
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to come and threat this
part of West Africa.
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So despite never thinking
that tracing their roots
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might be possible, I started showing film of the
Gangá-Longobá festival around the whole region.
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I end up traveling all over to
various suggestions are made.
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For more than two years, and over many journeys that
play the Gangá-Longobá songs to thousands of people.
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Like many historians of the slave trade, I always believe
that tracing African essence today was likely impossible
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because there’s enslave trade to make a new the
cultures in the America’s as the means of survival.
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[music]
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Slowly there, my search begins to
suggest that finding the origin of
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at least some of the songs might just be
possible. I am back in Cuba, Gangá-Longobá,
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we are eager to hear about it.
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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It’s a Moyamba that one man
after watching the film closely
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has a surprising very specific suggestion.
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Pardon.
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Okay. It’s remembered.
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Of course, I have to go and visit the
Upper Banta chiefdom. On the way though
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I pass slow to Banta, decide to show
the film and get some responses there.
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[sil.]
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The Banta was small ethnic group who
being so close to the slaving push
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against were decimated by the transatlantic
slave trade. They originally spoke
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a distinctive dialect for Temne
language, but now I speak well Mendee.
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The people here are certain that
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some of the Cuban songs, and dances derive from this
chiefdom because they recognize them as initiation rites
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for local society.
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They take me to meet a village elder because who can
remember the Banta language, she learned as a child.
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[sil.]
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Then crossing Tia river, they take me to
Mokpangumba very old and remote village
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founded to protect the Banta people. It
was slum, the cultural heart of Banta.
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[music]
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Then one man says, \"What’s the time?\" And certainly,
Gangá-Longobá, and we expected or perhaps even dared to hope for.
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In parts they delighted because they’ve always wondered
what happens to Banta people taken by slave traders.
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[music]
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The Menda society was the family society
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existing only among the descendants
of the Banta fond of this chiefdom.
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Slaves astounded to see people far
away singing them initiation songs.
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[sil.]
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And usually because it was a society dealing
with medicines, and healing, both men, and women
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could be initiated. Say, the Menda
society run alongside the usual sacred
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poro and (inaudible) societies.
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[music]
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[sil.]
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She not only knows the meaning of some of the songs
she had (inaudible) as long forgotten in Cuba.
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But the 13 African songs kept
alive today by Gangá-Longobá.
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The Menda women recognize five of them.
After around 170 years,
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this is utterly astonishing.
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[non-English narration]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[music]
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[music]
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[music]
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Florinda became well known
leader of Gangá culture
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keeping the traditions alive even through
the decades after the revolution of 1959,
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when such rituals which is about. Conditions
were so harsh and punishment so severe
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that life expectancy on Cuban
(inaudible) certainly seven years.
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Yet, remarkably has suffer having already
enjoyed deadly journey from Africa
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survived into very old age, seeing the
end of slavery proudly teaching her
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Banta heritage to her extended family.
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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One of the things, they have been inherited from their Banta
(inaudible) is a prior tradition of powerful medicine,
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especially, the members of the Menda
society who learns secret remedies.
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[sil.]
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[non-English narration]
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[sil.]
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[music]
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[music]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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What both the Sierra Leonians and
the Cubans really want to know is
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if they might be reunited at last.
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[sil.]
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[music]
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[music]
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[sil.]
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Getting permission for the Cubans
to travel is extremely difficult
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and the way turns in to two years.
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But eventually, the village gets ready
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preparing food in huts taking toilets and
collecting spoons for them to eat with
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because they are determined that the Cubans
come to stay, come as family not just choices.
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[sil.]
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At last after centuries apart,
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and after a changing Cuban law allowing them to
travel freely for if the Gangá-Longobá (inaudible).
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[sil.]
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Bye, thank you. Bye.
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[sil.]
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No matter the time has just passed.
People of Mokpangumba eager that
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the Cubans can join him for village life.
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[music]
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[music]
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[sil.]
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The entire village just turn
out on this remarkable day
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not only to welcome their visitors, but also
to one of the ancestors to remember girl
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who’s African name we don’t know which
was life of the most striking legacy.
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[sil.]
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[music]
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So the men joining with
the village men stands
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taking roles that perhaps
should have always been theirs.
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[non-English narration]
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[sil.]
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[non-English narration]
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[music]
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[music]
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[music]
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[music]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[sil.]
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[music]
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[music]
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[sil.]
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And so singing the song which ones
conclude that the initiation rites
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for the Menda society seems
that maybe, just maybe
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170 or so years later, the initiates
kidnapped on the eve of a ceremony
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finally get there big day.
Even in a continent
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when ancestors are widely revered
excessive remarkable tribute.
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[music]
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[music]
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[music]
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[non-English narration]
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[music]
