Consequently, communities long excluded from print left robust records in performance and memory. Griots recount the Sunjata epic to transmit political wisdom; Yoruba praise poetry encodes genealogies and civic ethics. Far from anecdotal, such sources can be methodologically rigorous. Jan Vansina’s Oral Tradition as History (1985) outlines techniques for assessing reliability through cross-checking, chronology, and motif analysis. When historians admit these forms, the lion acquires voice, motive, and agency, not merely claws. [...]
