Griots

          Griots are storytellers in the western african empire of Songhai. They were used as people who would teach history. What they did was oral history. Oral history is not a written document, although many things that were said probably did get written down. All they did was teach proverbs or tell stories and legends, or helped teach about Africa's history. Proverbs are little sayings that have morals to them. An example of one is: the axes forgets, not the tree. What it was trying to get through or the moral, was that if you tell a secret or something that someone had told you to take care of and not show it off and you do, you will forget,but she/he/it will never forget.
             There were no other way to get information of records than to pass them down from generation to generation as griots. Slaves and other people would come and listen to the stories they had to tell. These stories were about the geography of Africa. Many people relied on them to tell them about the past.