Griots....Who in the World are they?

     In African society, some people were known as griots. What are griots exactly? Griots are African storytellers who have memorized hundreds of stories throughout their entire lifetime. They tell stories to the Africans, who listened carefully to every word he said, for they were important, but why? Well, griots are really Africa history books. They retell history. Some people might be thinking why they don't just have a record of the history written down somewhere for all the Africans to see. This is probably weird to us, but the African people have no written language at all.
     The Africans never really came up with a language that everyone could read, write, and understand. There are many different languages that people through Africa speak, so they never came up with a major language that everyone had to learn how to speak. So, this is where griots come into play. They are the written record of history. They are their history books of stories, and myths. Some African people had a griot for themselves, because they were very rich. Others had few griots per area, and they would listen to him tell stories of Africa, and what had happened in the past of Africa. One of the greatest African kings, Mansa Musa, had his own personal griot to listen to wherever he went, even on the holy Muslim hajj. Griots are very important to the African people, because they are their only way of hearing stories from storybooks.