At a festival, a chorus of women sing and dance as two stories unfold. In a village, a young women with a jealous husband gives him something to be jealous about when his younger brother visits from the city.

To inspire striking workers, the griot tells of a legendary prince, Dieri Dior Ndella, who sacrificed his life during colonialism, and Koura Thiaw, an entertainer who took up the cause of oppressed domestics in the 1940s, both becoming heroes to their people. Though this strangely lyrical film deals with a contemporary crisis, critic Roy Armes notes that "the film travels exuberantly through time to capture situations linked only by their common concern with the concepts of honor and dignity, the importance of keeping one's word and not being bought or corrupted.

A young girl bolts away during a traditional but painful lip - tatooing ceremony, incurring the mockery of the villagers and the anger of her parents .