Prester John and The Griots

I'm continuing with my soon-to-be habitual pattern: one serious historical topic per week flanked by one bit of whimsey. I thought it was important to introduce the griots early in my tenure as African History writer since they are, indeed, the human repositories of history in much of Africa. Thousands of years of events can be contained in the mind and memory of a single griot. The current undervaluing of griots in Senegal and Mali reminds me a lot of how people in the West treat poets: if they're dead, they're good. Prester John is a hoax that got out of hand - it got me thinking a lot about belief systems, party lines, and how much of what we're told we simply swallow hook, line, and sinker. It would be interesting to discuss modern Prester Johns: that unattainable glory that's supposed to lurk just beyond the horizon.