Sources:
http://www.mrdowling.com/609-sundiata.html
http://quattro.me.uiuc.edu/~fog/tales.html
African Empires
SUNDIATA STUDY GUIDE
West Africa has a great oral tradition. A griot is a learned storyteller,
entertainer, and historian. Often a griot will memorize the genealogy, or family
history, of everyone in a village going back centuries.
In the time of Sundiata, griots tutored princes and gave council to kings. They were
educated and wise, and they used their detailed knowledge of history to shed light on
present-day dilemmas. Long after the fall of the Malian Empire in 1468, a Manding
family of means would have their own griot to advise them and help them negotiate
matters with other families. Griots arranged the terms of marriages and mediated
disputes, always relying on their understanding of each family's history.
Ghana (AD300-AD1100)
The ancient African civilization we call Ghana existed in West Africa
between the Niger and the Senegal Rivers. The rivers were important to Ghana
because their economy was based on trade, and before the modern age, rivers
were the fastest was to carry goods. Ghana became wealthy by collecting taxes
from traders who passed through the kingdom. The people called their nation
Wagadu; we know it as Ghana because that was the name of their war chief.
Ghana managed the gold trade despite the fact that the empire had few natural
resources of their own. The gold and salt mines all lay beyond the borders of the
empire, but the power of Ghana was based on their superior skill in working iron.
Ghana used iron tipped spears to subdue the neighbors, who fought with less
efficient weapons made of stone, bone, and wood.
Muslim warriors known as the Almoravids called a jihad (holy war in Arabic)
on Ghana because the people of Ghana kept their traditional beliefs. The
Almoravids were successful in weakening, but not destroying the empire. Ghana
remained a shadow of itself for more than a century, and warriors from
throughout the region formed many small states that threatened the vital trade
routes through West Africa.
Sundiata
Samanguru was a warrior that managed to conquer a great deal of West Africa
once Ghana was weakened. Samanguru was hostile to the Mandinka people who
lived in the region. His taxes were high, he felt it was his privilege to carry off
Mandinka women, and he failed to maintain law and order along the trade routes.
The griots of West Africa still speak of the story of the sickly young boy who
grew up to become a great warrior.
Sundiata was one of twelve brothers who
were the children of a Mandinka
warrior. Samanguru killed the twelve
brothers, but spared Sundiata because he
believed the boy would die anyway.
That was a mistake that would lead to
Samanguru’s downfall, because the
sickly boy recovered eventually
assembled an army to confront
Samanguru. Sundiata’s forces killed
Samanguru and destroyed his forces in
the Battle of Kirina in 1235. Sundiata
then became mansa, or king of a new
empire which we know today as Mali, or
where the king resides.
Sundiata proved himself a great
warrior, but he was only interested in
removing Samanguru and once again making West Africa a safe place to travel
and trade. He converted to Islam, but only as a gesture of goodwill to the
merchants and traders. To his own people, Sundiata presented himself as a
champion of traditional West African religion.
Most of what we know about Sundiata comes from stories handed down from
generation to generation from griots, West African storytellers. The legend of
Sundiata includes many supernatural stories.
The Legend of Sundiata
Listen to Music Inspired by Sundiata
Part I: An Extraordinary Childhood
King Maghan, ruled over the small kingdom of Mali, beginning in the year
1200. King Maghan was the son of a long lineage of distinguished
hunters, known for their bravery, skill and their ability to communicate with
jinns, spirits that hold influence over human lives. At this time, Manding
rulers like Maghan had adapted the religion of Islam, but the new faith
from the north had not altered their belief in the world of spirits. So when a
hunter from the north came to Maghan and made a prophecy, the king
and his griot took it very seriously. The prophecy said that two hunters
would come to the king with a very ugly woman. Despite her ugliness, the
hunter said, the king must marry this woman, for she would bear him
Mali's greatest king ever.
Sure enough, two hunters later appeared with a hunchbacked woman.
They explained to the king that this woman, Sogolon Kedju, was in fact the
human double of a buffalo that had ravaged the land of Do, killing hunters
and citizens alike. Armed with secret knowledge, these two hunters had
felled the buffalo and brought the woman to Mali. Hideous and wild,
Sogolon was also endowed with extraordinary powers. She had been the
hunter's prize, and now they were offering her to the king of Mali. Honoring
the prophecy, Maghan quickly married Sogolon, and they conceived a
child.
King Maghan's first wife, Sassouma, was jealous. She has
always assumed that her son, Dankaran Touman, would
claim the crown of Mali. Now this interloper stood to threaten
what she felt was her son's destiny. Sassouma plotted to kill
Sogolon, but the buffalo woman's powers were too great,
and the boy was born. He was named Mari Diata, but as the
son of Sogolon, people later took to calling him Sogolon
Diata, and eventually, Sundiata.
Having feared the new arrival, Sassouma was relieved when the new child
turned out to be lazy, gluttonous and ugly. At three years old, Sundiata
could not walk and rarely spoke. Even at seven, the boy still crawled,
spent all his time eating, and had no friends. The king was deeply
disturbed. How could this pathetic child become a great king? Still,
honoring the hunter's prophecy, the dying king gave his seemingly
crippled son a gift that signified his desire that the boy should become king
after all. That gift was a griot named Balla Fassik, the son of the king's
own griot.
However, when king died, his first wife saw to it that her son, Dankaran,
claimed the throne instead. Sundiata, still on all fours, could do nothing
about it. One day, Sundiata's mother needed some leaves from the mighty
baobob tree for her cooking, and she asked Sassouma if she could borrow
some. Sassouma agreed, taking the opportunity to insult Sogolon's
useless son. At last, Sogolon could take no more. She returned to her son,
crying and angry, and told him about Sassouma's insult. Looking up, her
son then said, "Cheer up, Mother. I am going to walk today." Sundiata
then told a blacksmith to make for him the heaviest possible iron rod, and
then, with trembling legs and a sweaty brow, he proceeded to lift himself
up, bending the rod into a bow in the process. Before a crowd of amazed
onlookers, Sundiata thus transformed himself. And his griot composed
and sung "The Hymn to the Bow," on the spot. That hymn remains a part
of the Sundiata musical epic still sung by griots over eight hundred years
later.
Part II: Exile
Now that Sundiata was fit to claim the throne as his father had wished, he
represented a great threat to the false king Dankaran, and his plotting
mother Sassouma. Sundiata's mother decided to take her son into exile
for their safety, but before they could leave, Dankaran sent Balla Fassik,
Sundiata's griot, and also Sunditata's half-sister, on a mission to the
sorcerer king, Soumaoro Kante. Soumaoro was the king of the Sosso, and
he had been threatening all the kingdoms in the region with his growing
army.
Sundiata was furious at the loss of his griot, but his mother convinced him
that the time to set things right would come later. Promising he would
return to claim his crown, Sundiata went into exile with a small entourage,
not to return for many years. Sundiata came to manhood while traveling
through kingdoms hundreds of miles from his home. Along the way, he
learned to hunt, to fight, and to wield proverbs containing the wisdom of
his ancestors.
One day, in the far off kingdom of Mema, Sundiata
discovered people selling baobob leaves in the market. They
had to be from Mali, for there were no baobob trees in
Mema. The baobob sellers came to Sundiata's home and
told him that the evil Sosso kin Soumaoro had conquered
Mali, sending timid Dankaran into exile. At once, Sundiata
began to gather a force of fighters, the core of his future
army. Sundiata was determined to reclaim his kingdom, Mali.
Sadly, on the eve of his departure from Mema, his mother
Sogolon, the once powerful buffalo woman, died.
Meanwhile, Sundiata's griot and his half-sister remained captives in
Soumaoro's court at Sosso. The brave griot, Balla Fassik one day dared to
enter the sorcerer king's secret chamber while the king was away. There,
the griot found poisonous snakes writhing in urns, and owls standing
watch over the severed heads of the nine kings Soumaoro had beaten. In
the midst of this ghoulishness, stood the biggest balafon that Balla Fassik
had ever seen. Any ordinary mortal would have died instantly in this
chamber, but the young griot had sorcery of his own, and even ventured to
play the king's balafon, which produced a magnificent sound that charmed
even the snakes and owls.
Soumaoro returned livid to find the griot in his chamber, but Balla Fassik,
thinking fast, improvised a praise song to Soumaoro that was so clever it
disarmed the evil king. Soumaoro then declared Balla his griot, making
war between Soumaoro and Sundiata inevitable.
Part III: Return of the King
As Sundiata made his way homeward, he passed through all the
kingdoms he had come to know during his exile, gathering fighters,
archers and horsemen as he went. At Tabon, near the Malian city of Kita,
Sundiata's army launched a surprise attack on Soumaoro's forces.
Though a smaller force, Sundiata's side prevailed, sending the Sosso
army into retreat. At the next battle, Sundiata and Soumaoro came face to
face. Again, Sundiata's forces dominated the field through superior tactics,
but Soumaoro escaped using his own formidable magic. One moment, the
Sosso king stood before Sundiata on his black-coated horse, his tall
helmet bristling with horns. But a mere instant later, Soumaoro stood on a
far distant ridge. Sundiata despaired, feeling that his enemy's magic made
him invincible.
Even as Sundiata's army grew, he knew he would need
more that might to defeat Soumaoro. So he summoned
soothsayers to council him on harnessing supernatural
powers. Following their advice, Sundiata ordered the
sacrifice of 100 white oxen, 100 white rams, and 100 white
cocks. As the ritual slaughter began, Sundiata's griot and his
half-sister arrived at his camp. They had escaped captivity in
Soumaoro's city.
Sundiata's half-sister then told him that she had been forced to be
Soumaoro's wife, but that in doing so, she had learned the secret of his
magic. Soumaoro's totem, his sacred animal, and so the source of his
amazing power, was the cock. This animal had the power to destroy
Soumaoro. Like Samson losing his long hair and with it his strength, like
Achilles with his vulnerable heel, Soumaoro too had a weakness that his
enemy could exploit. Armed with this knowledge, Sundiata fashioned a
wooden arrow with a white cock's spur as its tip.
The great showdown between Soumaoro and Sundiata came at the battle
of Kirina. On the eve of the battle, the two men observed the ritual of
declaring war. Each sent an owl to the other's encampment, and the owls
delivered messages of bravado. "I am the wild yam of the rocks," boasted
Soumaoro, "Nothing will make me leave Mali."
Sundiata replied, "I have in my camp seven master smiths who
will shatter the rocks. Then, yam, I will eat you."
The verbal jousting continued. Soumaoro said, "I am the poisonous
mushroom that makes the fearless vomit."
And Sundiata replied, "I am the ravenous [rooster]. The poison
does not matter to me."
"Behave yourself, little boy, or you will burn your foot, for I am the red-hot
cinder."
"But me, I am the rain that extinguishes the cinder; I am the
boisterous torrent that will carry you off."
"I am the mighty silk cotton tree that looks from on high on the tops of
other trees."
"And I, I am the strangling creeper that climbs to the top of the
forest creeper."
Having thus declared their intentions, Sundiata and Soumaoro made war
at Kirina. In the midst of full battle, Sundiata aimed his special arrow and
fired. The rooster's spur grazed Soumaoro's shoulder, and all was lost for
the Sosso king. By the time Sundiata's victorious forces entered
Soumaoro's city and opened his secret chamber, the snakes there were
almost dead and the owls lay flopping on the ground.
Victorious, Sundiata invited the leaders of all the 12
kingdoms of the savanna to come to Kaba, a city in old Mali.
There, he told them they could keep their kingdoms, but that
all would now join in a great, new empire. From that day
forth, Sundiata's word became the law respected throughout
the 12 kingdoms. The Empire of Mali was born, stretching
from the forests of the south far into the Sahara Desert,
north of the great Niger River bend. Sundiata ruled over this
massive, thriving empire until his death in the year 1255. His
empire survived for more than two centuries.
"Mali is eternal," says the griot Mamadou Kouyat, concluding his account
of the Sundiata epic. "But never try, wretch, to pierce the mystery which
Mali hides from you. Do not go and disturb the spirits in their eternal rest.
Do not ever go into the dead cities to question the past, for the spirits
never forgive. Do not seek to know what is not to be known."
-- Banning Eyre/World Music Productions