Fifty six chanters perform the history of Dahomey in public

Dahomey had no writing system in ordinary use and kept its history in the mouths of paid professionals called ahanjito. At the annual customs of 1850 the British official Frederick Forbes counted fifty six of them, performing in pairs and competing with each other for the approval of the crowd. Some were travelling men. The most important held office at court, the post was hereditary, and specialists were attached to particular dead kings so that every reign kept its own troupe. Archibald Dalzel had written in the previous century that on solemn occasions the bards sat at the king’s gate and recited the whole history of the country, a recital taking several days and attended by young men with good memories who were training to replace them. One chanter was said to recite the names and praise names of every previous king each morning before the king woke. Forbes called these performances the only form of public education the country had.