Ndogboyosoi War

Sierra Leone · 1982

“Listen well: this telling travelled far to reach our circle.”

In Pujehun District in 1982, a disputed election turned the ruling party's machinery loose on the opposition's heartland — the affair called Ndogboyosoi, the bush devil. Houses and rice barns burned; families crossed into Liberia and did not return.

Jelikan · Ìtàn · A story is told at night

Sit by the fire.
The griot remembers.

244 tellings from the African Conflict Atlas, every one carried in the griot's own voice — empires and uprisings, taxes and stools, gold roads and broken promises. Told the way a griot tells them: by voice, by lesson, by question.

“A story, a story!”

32 fires burn through the year →

Choose a thread

What shall the fire hear tonight?

Tonight

All time

1200 CEToday

— and the circle answers: “Let it come, let it go.”

Sit by the fire.The griot remembers.

What shall the fire hear tonight?

Sit by the fire.
The griot remembers.