The Akonting play style and history The Jolas (a people of To play the Jola akonting you have to hold it like a guitar. It is
normally played in the right hand position and with only two fingers. The
short string is the one nearest to your chest and the long string near your
right foot theigh. Then you partly close your hand, allowing your index or
middle finger curve to the extend that its nail knocks comfortably the long
string, and stretch the thumb so that its ball plucks comfortably the short
and middle string. Hold these two fingers constant in this position
throughout your playing. The noting is done on the long string only. The
index and third fingers of the left hand do the noting. The position of the
noting of the long string is where the middle string is tied. The motion of
the hand is just like the motion of
the stroke style when playing the American banjo. This is in short how
the Akonting is played. This Jola Akonting was first constructed and played in the Jola
community called KANJANKA in Casamance, southern part of Whofuleto According to all Jolas, the Akonting music culture originally was a
dating culture. The word "Whofuleto" is a Jola Cassa Word, meaning
to attract attention from the girls. Young people of one commune, when they
want to date girls of a different commune, would take their Akontings
together with their best Akonting players, singers and dancers and visit
their neighbouring commune. These activities normally happened when the Jolas
main economic activity is over. That is when they harvest all their rice from
their mighty rice fields that stretch from Kanjanka to Alankeen. The Jolas
called this period "the period of Plenty". As soon as the girls hear the music they would come out with their
beautiful dresses to listen to the music and associate with the new comers.
When the Akonting players start seeing the girls, they would do all their
best to play to convince the girls that they can play better than their young
guys. Everybody would appreciate the coming of these guys to play in their
commune and everybody would dance to the best of his or her ability to create
attention to all. Normally they play up to early hours of the morning. When
it is time to go home some of the girls who fall in love with the music of
this new group would like to follow them to their commune. This is where the whole atmosphere starts to be unfriendly and where
the love trouble starts. Girls from the commune where the whole Akonting show
was played, would like to follow the guys of the other commune for they would
like to hear more of their music. The guys of the commune where the programme
was held would feel jealous and try to prevent theirs girls to go with these
guys. In the end, they would not succeed and the whole peaceful show turns to
a civilised fight. A fight not to hurt your opponent but a fight to threaten
your opponent, for all of them belong to the same extended family, it is only
the communes that separate them. So when they start to fight, they would take weapons like cutlasses
and would use the flat side of the weapon to hit his opponent, only to
threaten him to let their girls alone. This can go on for hours until the
elders of the community hear the news and come out to cool them down. The
following day they would all joke about it and laugh at the guys who ran away
when they saw the cutlasses and praise the brave guys who face the danger and
got hit by these cutlasses. As from that day onwards those who ran away are
seen as cowards and those who stay and got hit are seen as brave men. Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta |
