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Storytellers are described as people who have “a way with words,” people who are good at talking. In Africa, storytelling and talking are closely linked. This article looks into the relationships that underlie and give rise to these two forms of expression and knowledge transmission in societies with an oral tradition. Our investigations of the Bwa communities in Mali and Burkina Faso bring out similarities with patterns elsewhere and raise many questions: What does talking mean? Why tell stories? How is knowledge transmitted? The answers to these questions are highly relevant to communication and ways of bringing information to an audience.