Finah Misa Kule Transcript
DEFINITION ONSCREEN:
Fi-nah (fee na) noun.
1. Ancient Mandeng poet and oral historian who lives within the power of words. KK VO: When a Finah says something, people respect that word. KK (on camera): He will die for his own words.
KK VO: His words have his life in them. Each word that the Finah utters is beyond poetry, it's beyond history. It's an instrument that can create the whole world.
KK (on camera): Because he understands that this whole universe is created out of words.
TITLE: In Search of Finah Misa Kule. Recovering a Lost Epic
KK VO: I'm a member of the 27th generation of the Finah, oral historians and poets who live in Dankawali Village, nestled in Sierra Leone's northeastern hills,
KK (hand over calligraphy): … Hassan Finah begot Tarde Senie ,,,Tarde Senie begot Kirta Senna.. Kirta Senna begot Kewulay, and that is me.…
KK ON STREET IN QUEENS
KK: That's my son coming up.
(SLAPS HANDS GREETING SON ON STREET)
KELI: Whassup! … (?) Thank you. (WALKS OFF)
KK ON STREET IN QUEENS: Well, Dankawali… Dankawali is basically the size of a few blocks of, well about the size of a few blocks of Jackson Heights. Relatively quiet.
(TRAIN SCREECHES BY)
KK: The only noise we get in Dankawali at night - crickets and frogs. A lot of frogs! A whole symphony.
MAP
KK VO: I was about 14 years old when my father took me on a trip about 20 miles away from Dankawali. It was deep rainy season and the sun never smiled and when it did my father was ready.
RAIN
KK VO: He was writing down the ancient story of Finah Misa Kule and the land of the twins - Ferensola! and legendary events in our long family history going back to before the days of prophet Mohammed.
KK NEW VO: As a child, I had learned to recite these stories in our oral tradition. Now, my father said, it was time to write the stories down -- to preserve them for future generations. I can still remember his voice as he told me the story of The Twins…
DRUMS
STORY 1: Long long ago, during the reign of Masa Kema, turmoil struggle and strife covered the land. The elders gathered. They advised the king to give everyone a name, a position of respect. You are the leader. You must first choose a successor. Start in your own house. Masa Kema had two sons: Misa Kule the elder and Masa Kema the younger. The people chose Saramba the younger. No one would choose to have their oldest child passed over, but for peace of the land, Masa Kema accepted their advice. So Saramba the charismatic became the soveirgn. And Kule the elder, the wise became advisor, the voice of the sovereign . The two of the were inseparable. They were called Feren, which means Twins! One was the deed the other was the word. Their doman became known as Ferensola. The Home of Twins. Out of these branches derived all of the 40 clans of the Mandeng and the clan known as the finah, the poets, advisor, and master of ceremony for the sovereigns. Hmmm.
KK (on camera): I never really thought about the stories that my father had written that I do remember until much later.
KK VO: For two decades, it seemed as if a strange mist covered the land. And when it cleared, Sierra Leone was in a civil war with many factions fighting one another.
KK (IN CAR IN AFRICA): In April 1998, I got a call saying that Dankawali Village had been burned down and one of my uncles who turned out to be the first one to be killed. and that my brothers and sisters were nowhere to be found. I was just really thinking about my family. So my first reaction was, I was going.
ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF WAR
KK (IN CAR IN AFRICA): everybody was thinking we were really crazy to be going to Dankawali at this time. Freetown was - I have not seen Freetown in this shape at any time before. Because one, the marks of war, the bullets, were already all over the place, on signposts etc. there were so many roadblocks. A lot of suspicion amongst people, that's what war does, people were suspecting everybody.
GREEN MOUNTAINS
BURNED HOUSES
KK VO: We entered Dankawali Village. You saw all these houses burned down. No roofs. All just charred walls. Everything was burned down.
MOSIAH ROAD
KK ON MOSIAH ROAD: When I came here in 1998, and saw the charred remains of what once was the most elegant street - Mosiah Road in Kabalah -- I had nothing but tears really. This street was once the most elegant street in Kabalah town.
This was a place that had many Koranic scholars and private schools, the seat of alot of Islamic knowledge. But now what do you see? Only the shells.
KK (in car in Africa): And we went to our compound, my father's compound. And everybody was gathered and I went immediately to my father's house and standing right in the ashes of that house, now you could see pieces of paper, that were burnt on the edges. And I began to realize what had just happened.
FLAMES
KK VO: Our fathers manuscript of a thousand years of history, the epic of Finah Misa Kule, a thousand years lay in ashes.
PHOTO OF ASHES
STORY OF DUGAH (with vulture archival footage)
So listen, listen. For those of you who cannot bear to hear, nothing of value will be told. Let me tell you the story of Dugah. Dugah is a four winged vulture whose meal is the flesh of warriors dead and cold. Dugah the bird like Dugu the earth. Dugah is a master of patience whose meal is assured.
KK (in car in Africa) : Realizing that the manuscript that my father had written had burned down, in a way, you immediately have a deep sense of loss. My father was trying to preserve memory. The heart of any kind of knowledge is remembering. Remembering experience, remembering feeling, remembering how people have articulated things, remembering how people have done things, remembering how people have lived. And so the loss of that manuscript represented that loss. And when you think about the loss of memory today in Africa where African people do not know a lot about their history, after the universities have been destroyed, after the manuscripts have been destroyed, somehow either by war or through decay - I mean, loss of memory that exists, it makes you think that in fact … it made me want to do something to preserve that memory, especially after the war has finished.
KK NEW VO: Suddenly I knew what I had to do -- return to Dankawali, with my son Kali -- to preserve the stories of the finah for the next generation.
NYC skyline:
KELI RAPPING .
KELI: I'm from the city, here, 37 Roosevelt Avenue, I'm in Queens alot, I know what it's like to have electronics all around.
KK W/ SON ON STREET IN QUEENS
KK: You have to pull your pants up man!
KELI VO: Since I was born in New York City, you know my father since I was a little kid, he's always talked to me about Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone, Dankawali, Dankawali, the village and stories he used to give about his experiences.
KK (W/ SON) : I want to know this is really important to you, because I'm doing this for the future, not necessarily for me, but to pass it down.
Keli: All of a sudden we're going to Sierra Leone. We must go there. IN CAR
KK: Here we go Keli.
Keli: On our way.
Keli: I first heard the story of Finah Misa Kule, three years ago, and like, it's a long story. It's family geneology and all kinds of stuff. So I didn't really have that much passion for understanding it, because I knew It was a long story.
PLANE FLYS OVERHEAD/ CUT TO WS FREETOWN
KK (W/ SON IN AFRICA): Ferensola! Let's put it on here. The land of twins. That's the mythical land of Kronko people, where people say Kronko people originated. Dankawali where we’re going is part of Ferensola. How you like it?
KELI: It's bright, it's nice. yeah.
KK & son: All right! Let's go!
AFRICA - DRIVING TO VILLAGE /MUSIC
KK: I returned to Dankawali Village in Sierra Leone to collect and preserve the broken pieces of the epic from the survivors.
DANKAWALI VILLAGE
KK HUGGING GREETINGS
"KAMARA" ON WALL
HAPPY DANCING & MUSIC ON PORCH
KK ON PORCH W/ DANCER: It's the waking call. I'm talking about the waking call. When an important person comes to town, and you want to show them respect, before they wake up, you come and you play and you sing. So that the voices, the beautiful voices - you wake up to the voice. It is said that back in the days of the great Segu, when Damonson Jara was king of Segu, that every morning he would listen to the voice of the beautiful Musukura Jabate , and then he would wake up. And at any time at all, if Damonson Jara wakes up and he doesn't hear the beautiful voice of Musukura Jabate , what does he do? That day would be a different day. So we're here because we are waking, we are waking to the voice of the Jali and the Finah! We are here! We are here!
SINGING AND DANCING ON PORCH
KELI: We're in a small village in Africa, in Sierra Leone, in West Africa, and everybody is somehow family, or somehow related to me. That's what I really like about coming here. You know, I always say that they know me, and they always know that they know me, so we have that connection of somehow everybody, when I come, they know my name, and they know who I am.
KK DOCUMENTING MUSIC
BW PHOTO JALI KULAKO/ "THE HOUSE OF WORDS"
JALI KULAKO: My ancestor came from the Kaaba in Maaka, The Kaaba Shrine, where the Jali studied the word. The stories were in my great grandfather's hands. He would wave an animal tail and speak and speak. Until the house of words came down from the sky and lands on the earth. They would take it apart, study, and put it back together. He would speak again and the house of words would return to the sky.
MOMORY FINA: God created a Finah to be brave. You are not brave because you slash. You are not brave because you kill. When something is difficult to say, "Say it!" They tell the Finah.
(GROUP CHEERS) : Say it! Say it!
KK (w/ crowd of kids): Ferensola: what does it mean? Ferensola.
Man on street: Ferensola - we hear Ferensola but I am young and do not know what it means.
KK: How did you hear it?
Man on street: When elders gather, all you hear is “Ferensola, Ferensola” But whatever it is, I do not know.
KK: Who knows about Ferensola?
Another man on street: Ferensola is where Kuranko people live. KK: Ferensola is the story of how we came to be.
Man on street: Ferensola is our Consitution.
KK VO: I must have been about ten years old in 1964 when a blue opal truck appeared in Kabala. The owners name was Karifa Finah Kamara - it was on the truck. But something else was on the truck.
KK (on PORCH w/ relatives): you know, all the trucks here all the cars will have, especially if they're commercial, they will have the name of the person who owns it, and the place of residence. So this blue Opal truck, Karfa Finah put "Ferensola" - and everyone was asking, at least most of us who were young, did not know what Ferensola was!
WOMAN ON PORCH: One small van. And he put Ferensola on the side. He didnʼt collect for transporting people. Nothing. He just transport people, anyone who want to go there. They donʼt pay one cent.
KK (on porch): and everyone was asking what Ferensola was! The original, mythical state of the Koronko people. That was Ferensola. And it was because of him that people began to remember what Ferensola was. And began to get pride in being Kronko. And for me it also gave me pride in who I was, as a Finah!
KK ON PORCH (WS W/ 4 OTHERS INCLUDING SON): When our father Keta Senna died, he died here in Kabalah hospital, that day it just happened that a lot of the brothers and cousins of Karfa Finah were in town, so it was in that same van that had Ferensola, thatʼs the same van took my fathers body to Dankawali with all the relatives.
KALI ON PORCH: It's my first time hearing this. That's good, you know, that's good. I can see, the camera can't see, but everybody came to celebrate, and that's exactly what he was talking about with my relatives. and my elder, what he wanted us to do, for us to come together, so I'm learning but at the same time I'm experiencing the legacy he built up for us.
(SIGNING RELEASE FORMS W/ THUMBPRINT)
Brother: Now she wants to sign. Those words that we have from her. KK: For us to use it.
KELI: Well, when my father told me that my grandfather wrote the stories in a book, and during the war here in the 90's, in Dankawali, the book was burned down. So when I heard that I had a passion for it again. Now I actually want to hear some of the stories, and travel, or cooperate with my father to understand --- these are the stories of my family. And if we donʼt get these stories back on track the family culture will be lost again.
MUSIC
WS KK & COUSIN IN RUINS
COUSIN: We heard about the war, it came almost in waves. We hear the war is coming the war is coming. And people would leave other places and run to this area. And we'd hear war is coming almost like a big wind coming.
VO: The stories of the civil war are the most recent chapter in this ancient tale.
** NEW! (holder says it now)
COUSIN:
April 12, I was on my farm working the field and we heard that they are outside the village. And we began to see smoke.
The first person I saw was my younger brother. He said the rebels have come. He said, They have not killed anybody yet but they are burning places and people are running.
YELKA: I was captured and taken away. Less than one week after I joined my husband in marriage. We were hiding in the bush because Dankawali was burned down. I had gone to take a bath in the stream. Facing a tree trunk, he put his arm around my neck and held me in a chokehold. They say, we are going to take this one far away until after the war before we return her to her mother and father . They took me away. When we reached Bambucoro, he ordered me to sit. He told me, we had warned them not to bring more women, so you, you are going to die.
COUSIN: So I finally mustered the courage to come all the way down here to find out what had happened, and when I came I saw my fathers body. And then I saw my uncles body lying there.
So we went back and stayed in the bush. One week, two weeks, almost a month we were in the bush. We lived in constant fear of people coming after us, so now we became like hunted people.
YELKA: The captors name was Solomon Chance. Do not kill this one. Solomon said. I really like this one. Do not kill this one. Instead of killing this one you must kill me. The shooting started. They were shooting at each other. This went on until one went to Superman. He was the mediator among them. He said, Since Solomon has not brought another woman, and he insisted he likes this woman, she must be spared. Superman calmed them down. Superman’s troops were not true soldiers. They were the true rebels. They gave cocaine to people. The person who holds you is the one who drugs you. It gives some people courage to do wicked things. Go to the war front and fight, kill people. If it doesn’t suit you, you go crazy. I spent a year and six months with them.
PHOTO MONTAGE
AUNTIE KULAKO: This is what I have to say: Treat people well. Listen to the people and lower your voices. Uphold the truth and acknowledge the wrong. Cool down the tempers for war is not good. I say to you , you the finah, hold tight to each other. Heed the voice of unity. Become as one word. This is all I have for you.
DANCING
AUNTIE KULAKO: When a Kamara’s stone strikes, lightning strikes. DANCING & SINGING
KK W/ AUNTIE KULAKO: My aunt, a finah woman, she was talking about who she’s leaving behind, and there are people behind her. And when she dies, she wants to see more of this type of celebration, no crying and that her life is so sweet.
KK WALKING: And giving us advice on how we should be with each other, how we should be in the world. And that our finah ancestors , known for great deeds, they should not be behind things, they should be in the forefront of things and that we should continue these traditions.
KK WALKING W/ SON IN VILLAGE: And this Kabala market, this was my university, my other university right here. Everything I learned …
KELI: This is your street knowledge.
KK WALKING: Yeah, this is the street part. School part was right there. Kabala's market was not this big, it didn't have all these stores, these are all new, relatively, after I had already gone to the United States. There was a bigger market here…
KK WITH CROWD: Keli, this was my home. We used to do Koranic study right here. At the time, there was no school, no school at all. In fact, there wasn't even a good road to Dankawali. so we had to come to Kabala to do Koranic study. So this is the school. And for some reason - we were so close, but I was always late! (laughing)
KK WITH CROWD: If you look back there you see the remnants of a house. that was rented by the peace corps.
HOUSE CUTAWAY
BW PHOTO MR CARPENTER
KK: This one particular peace corps I remember, his name was Mr Carpenter. but I had interesting relationship with Mr Carpenter. He one day asked me why we call dirty sneakers “peace corps.” You see, we had mostly tennis shoes. We took great pride in these shoes. We always wash them, we had whitewash, we took care, every weekend, you wear the shoes, you starch the clothes, really starch them, put fine fine line in pants there and go to school. And they were building this structure right here. And their sneakers were so filthy that it almost became fashionable now to wear dirty sneakers. So we began to call dirty sneakers “peace corps”. So I told him, he was so upset, he didn't talk to me for one year! (laughter)
BW CU PHOTO MR CARPENTER
KK AT PEACE CORPS HOUSE: This house obviously has seen better days, but in 1968, a young man by name of Richard Breuniger, a peace corps volunteer from the United States, moved into this house. And I used to come from the secondary school in Kabala and help him out with the boy scout troop.
BOYSCOUT PHOTOS
KK: That was the same year my father Keta Sana died
PHOTO FATHER
KK VO: In 1971, I was invited to go to the United States.
(REVISE ! AS BELOW?: )
When my father died, the peace corps helped me get an invitation to go to the United States. )
KK VO: My mother, she took a walk with me along the path.
(REVISE ! AS BELOW?: )
When I told my mother of this invitation, she took a walk with me along the path And as we walked along this path she began to talk.
MOTHER VO: When you travel far away my son, I donʼt have anything to give to you to take with you. I donʼt even know where this country youʼre talking about is. But there is a riddle I remember my child, and it goes like this: My mother is far far away from me, but every night we sleep on the same mat and are covered by the same blanket. What is the mat and what is the blanket? My son, the mat is the earth on which we both sleep and the blanket is the sky that covers us all. When you go far away to this new land, remember that.
KK VO: When I told her that I was leaving for the United States, my mother said, Your father is a finah, a poet. In Kronkoland, that is the most noble. But when you go out there people are not going to know who you are. But you must know yourself. And be humble. When you go out there and see somebody elseʼs mother, make someone elseʼs mother your mother. Make someone elseʼs father your father.
AFRICAN SINGING
MASSACHUSETTS CHURCH SINGING
VO MRS JACKSON: We were at a church meeting, it was an administrative board I believe, when this young man came up and told us about these two young men in Sierra Leone who were very talented and gifted, intellectually…
MRS JACKSON & MR JACKSON SITTING OUTSIDE CHURCH: but didn't really have much chance to get into higher education, and he had the money, he had saved the money to bring them here but he needed a couple of families to take them in because he was still in school himself. So we went home and we talked about it and we thought wow what a great experience that would be for us and for the boys.
SCOTT JACKSON: In some ways it was not out of the ordinary for us because my parents used to take in people all the time that were down on their luck or needed a place to stay. So our place was a continual flow through of people coming and going. So when my parents came to us and told us they had this idea about bringing an African in, we were like, okay, that sounds pretty interesting.
ERIC JACKSON: When Kewulay came to live with us I was six or seven years old. And when I heard we were gonna have an African come live with us, I had images in my head as a youngster again of this man stripped down, the spear, and loincloth, right out of the movies. I was very disappointed.
PHOTO KK - YOUNG MAN IN US LIVING ROOM
KK VO: Eric was thinking that I would come looking like something in Tarzan. Wooo Wooo.
PHOTO TARZAN.
KK IN CAR: We never thought about those movies being about us. But when I came here then I was surprised to find out that it was really supposed to be about me.
SCOTT: We had a bit of a cultural clash right off the bat, The first day we met, he said, in my culture, in order to get to know somebody, we bathe together. So here I was 13, 14 years old, just met him, and heʼs saying letʼs take a bath together and it was like - okay…. And so, we actually took a bath together in a bathtub, in our home in Southwick.
PHOTO BOYS
SCOTT: It wasn't until a couple of years ago when he was giving a slide show, and he talked about this part of the river that flows by Dankawali, and that this is the place where the boys bathe and this is the section where the girls bathe, and when people come, they go to the bathing place together and it was like oh, you meant a river to go bathe! So I misunderstood him, thinking it was a cultural thing for them to take a bath together, and he was suggesting that we go to the river and go swimming basically! (laughing)
DANKAWALI RIVER W/ KIDS PLAYING
VILLAGE LIFE
BROTHER: We are here this afternoon, coming from different villages, towns, from various clans. Trying to come up here today for this occasion. They are planning for the occasion. Here you can see a lot of arguments, a lot of shouting. They disagree to agree. In the end they resolve and they decide this is what will be done to make this occasion a special one.
KK VO: We are all gathered at the foot of the Wara Wara Mountains to celebrate the passing of Kulako Finah Kamara, the last member of the generation of the Finehna (?) poets and oral historians who live among the Kronko people of northeastern Sierra Leone.
DANCING
KK AT KOFE: The Kofe is a celebration of legacy. It is the occasion as well, a family occasion, an occasion where people come from far and wide, and when they come we have the opportunity to speak about the things that hold us together. To reinforce the lines, the threads that are the fabric of Kronko society, Mandeng society, African society.
KK AT KOFE: I must have been just as old as some of these children here just now, seeing my father, my uncles, my aunts sing, tell stories. And so it stayed in my head, I got inspired by it, I seek it. So as these young people are growing they are going to hear it today. And they are going to hear it again, and again, and they are going to learn to tell the stories themselves. Children of Finah Misa Kule.
STORYTELING
TIWNS STORY:
Peace and prosperity came to Ferensola, the home of the twins. The two brothers were deep in the valley, and on all the surrounding hills, the enemies arrayed, with all the implements of war, always ready to attack! Who did the enemy want? They wanted Saramba the king. Surrounded, the brothers had no where to turn. Suddenly Misa Kule beautifully clad in a red cloak commanded Saramba to take off his white cloak. Misa Kule adorned himself in the garments of Saramba and counted Sarambaʼs white horse. Then they charged into the enemies! Ah! The enemies seeing the rider on a white horse in a white garment surrounded him and pierced him dead! Only to discover the man they had killed was Finah Misa Kule. Saramba escaped and so saved Ferensola. Ha ha ha. To this day the royalty of Kronko land still wear red robes. And the finah still wear white cloth. Words became deeds and deeds became words and the twinning of words and deeds created and saved Ferensola.
KK VO: Knowledge of any sort, whether itʼs from the west., from Africa, from the east, it has to get to the point where it becomes part of you, it become integrated in you. Finah Misa Kule is an integrated story. It brings a wide range of humanity into these stories. And you can remember it and when you think about it when you listen to it, you can get the essence of life for everybody.
DANCING THRU VILLAGE
CREDITS
BUILDLING SCHOOL
KK VO: We were motivated to start this school that we are in the process of constructing in Dankawali as a way to gain a Western education that is now prevalent, at the same time learning what our ancestors left us so we know the traditions. In Dankawali school the elders, the whole village is involved in the education of the children there.
SCHOOLKIDS SINGING
TREE
KK LOOKING AT VILLAGE
MORE CREDITS
KELI RAPS
