“Bilali of Faransekila”: A West African Hunter and World War I Hero According to a World War II Veteran and Hunters' Singer of Mali

“An only son must never die in war until the end of the world.”(Seydou Camara, “Bilali of Faransekila,” 1:396)Discussing the significance of Kande Kamara's oral history of West African experiences in the First World War, Joe Harris Lunn observes that, although historians have begun to examine the effects of that war on west Africa, their studies are mostly based on written sources, “and therefore shed little light on the lived reality of the war for the African masses whose perceptions of their experiences were never recorded.” Of particular value then, is the oral history provided by the Guinean veteran Kande Kamara, offering as it does an opportunity for assessing the European war's impact on west Africans. Lunn finds, however, that west African soldiers who served in France during the First World War have left very few records of either their wartime experiences or its effects on their later lives. The text by the late Malian hunters' singer Seydou Camara that is presented here helps to redress this lamentable deficiency because, although it is a step or two removed from the sort of firsthand eyewitness account offered by Kande Kamara, it provides valuable support for and confirmation of certain elements of Kande Kamara's testimony. Composed and sung by Seydou Camara, “Bilali of Faransekila” provides us with an oral traditional counterpart to Kande Kamara's firsthand account.