Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Amadou Hampâté Bâ (Fula: 𞤀𞤸𞤥𞤢𞤣𞤵 𞤖𞤢𞤥𞤨𞤢𞥄𞤼𞤫 𞤄𞤢𞥄, romanized: Ahmadu Hampaate Baa, 1900/1901 – 15 May 1991) was a Malian writer, historian, and ethnologist. He was an influential figure in the twentieth-century African literature and cultural heritage. A champion of Africa's oral tradition and traditional knowledge, he is remembered for his 1960 address to the UNESCO General Conference in which he urged the preservation of Africa's oral traditions, declaring: "I consider the death of each of these traditionalists as the burning of an unexploited cultural fund" ("Je considère la mort de chacun de ces traditionalistes comme l'incendie d'un fond culturel non exploité"). A later formulation using the word bibliothèque emerged during a 1962 UNESCO Executive Board exchange.

Biography

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born to an aristocratic Fula family in Bandiagara, the largest city in Dogon territory, and the capital of the precolonial Masina Empire. At the time of his birth, the area was known as French Sudan as part of the colonial French West Africa, which was formally established a few years before his birth. After his father's death, he was adopted by his mother's second husband, Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam of the Toucouleur ethnic group. He first attended a Qur'anic school run by Tierno Bokar, a dignitary of the Tijaniyyah brotherhood, then transferred to a French school at Bandiagara, and then to one at Djenné. In 1915, he ran away from school and rejoined his mother at Kati, where he resumed his studies.

In 1921, he turned down entry into the école normale in Gorée.