SOURCE: Belcher, Stephen. “Sunjata and the Traditions of the Manden.” In Epic Traditions of Africa, pp. 89-114. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

The Manden (sometimes Manding) is a space, in some way perhaps a time, and for many, an idea. The space is roughly defined by the headwaters of the Niger and its affluents and lies in western Mali and eastern Guinea; it is occupied by the Malinke, for whom it is a symbolic heartland from which the more widespread branches of their people have departed at various times to take on different names (Mandinka, Dyula, Konyaka, and others). As a time, the Manden looks back to its period of unification and glory under the emperor Sunjata. In his time (generally dated to the early thirteenth century), the separate kingdoms (or territories) of Do, Kri, and Tabon and Sibi became one; he ended the oppression of Sumanguru Kante and the Sosso around 1235 and made the Malinka the rulers of their world. To speak of the Manden is, of necessity, to evoke the time and space of Sunjata's rule: thus, the Manden is also an idea spread across West Africa.

The association is symbolic in many ways. Sunjata was the first in a line of rulers. A successor, Mansa Musa (r. 1312-1337), was far better known to the outside world of his day. Mansa Musa made a celebrated pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324-1325, leaving enough gold in Cairo to depress its price for some time. His immediate predecessor, Abu Bekri II (r. 1310-1312), has inspired would-be Thor Heyerdahls who hope to show that Africans might have sailed to the Americas. Abu Bekri set sail in a fleet of war canoes in 1312, and nothing more was heard of him. Quite possibly his trip was a convenient way for Mansa Musa to take power. Virtually none of these successors has survived in the more popular oral traditions.¹

Within sub-Saharan West Africa, the empire of Mali seems to have left a more durable impression. The wider territory of the empire, extending well beyond the Manden, is marked by a certain homogeneity of social institutions, such as the division of society into free-born, slaves, and artisanal status groups (the nyamakala), and a system of interethnic clan correspondences (e.g., Fula and Malinka clans have recognized counterparts) lubricated by the tension-releasing senankuya or joking relationships and particularly by a wide network of commercial and trading relations. These forms of social organization quite probably spread during the pax maliana by diffusion and imitation, encouraged by an era of peaceful contacts.²

The oral traditions of the region do not really record these elements of social and economic history. Within the Manden, Sunjata serves as a focal point, a magnet to which many unrelated traditions attach in a very loose organization. Moreover, Sunjata is known outside the Manden: he serves as a reference point for non-Malinke states such as Jara (Soninke), Bondu (Khassonke), and the Deniyanke dynasty of the Futa Toro. The various pasts of the entire Sahel look back through local oral traditions to some point of origin. Very often, that point of origin is Mali, and the only real ruler of Mali who is recalled beyond the immediate territory of his descendants is Sunjata. His successors have been eclipsed. To some extent, they are irrelevant. Mali declined in the fifteenth century, during which time the Songhay gained power to the east. When the empire actually dissolved is unclear. The French historian Yves Person associates this event with the era of Nyani Mansa Mamadou in the sixteenth century,³ but certainly Mali had been battered before then.

The political sway of the empire seems to have been replaced by the economic domination of Malinka traders, known as julaw [merchants], who moved south into the forest regions to establish commercial networks. They also appear to have disseminated Islam, although the world of the Manden is not so explicitly identified with Islam as polities such as the Futa Jallon or the Songhay empire.

The Manden thus represents a principle of cultural unity independent of geography or local historical traditions, and the figure of Sunjata is the key element for this cohesion. It is hardly surprising that the epic of Sunjata may be the best-known example of African oral literature. The epic had already gained wide diffusion within West Africa before it made the jump into print. Since the beginning of the colonial era (ca. 1895), historians, travelers, folklorists, and administrators have been researching and presenting the rich oral traditions of the Manden. As a result, an impressive number of versions of the epic of Sunjata now exist, along with copious historical analysis.

This chapter examines the story of Sunjata by sections; that analysis is followed by a description of some of the major categories of sources (colonial-era accounts, transcriptions from oral performance, literary treatments). The chapter concludes with some examination of later historical figures of the Manden, such as Samory Toure and el-Hajj Umar Tall, whose lives are the subject of epic performances now being collected by David Conrad and others. The survey includes the Gambian Mandinka versions of the Sunjata⁴ but does not discuss those Gambian epics dealing with more recent figures (see chapter 8). More popular traditions of hunters' epics have been discussed in chapter 3. This chapter, then, concentrates on the historical and aristocratically oriented epics.

PERFORMERS AND PERFORMANCES

Central to the social organization of the Manden are the nyamakala, a much-discussed term that refers to the professional-status descent groups: smiths, griots (jeliw or jelilu), and others. The griot—the jeli—is central to the verbal and musical arts and has been widely studied.⁵ As described in chapter 1, the popular vision of the jeli varies, from venerable lore-master to parasitic extortionist, depending on the context and the perspective of the viewer.

The epic traditions of the Manden are tightly interwoven with the corpus of clan praises in a variety of forms: majamu, burudyu, faasa.⁶ These praises appear to be the true staple of the jeli's repertoire and are delivered on the numerous occasions enlivened by the music of jelilu: naming-ceremonies, marriages, or virtually any other festive or important occasion. Jelilu tour the villages, singing the praises of local notables and thus reaping rewards. The praises have an ennobling and coercive power over their hearers; vocalization of the praise is a public articulation of the stature of the lineage and the individual.

Praises are performed by men and women alike, perhaps most often by women, whose lyric abilities are widely recognized and appreciated. Epics are known as kuma koro [old speech] or maana (Arabic, lit., “meaning”) or more recently perhaps, tariku (Arabic, “history”), and are associated more with male performance. The question of women's performance of epic is the subject of lively current debate. So far, no record or transcription has been found of a woman's performance of the epic of Sunjata. As John Johnson has noted, however, epic performance in the Manden is multigeneric.⁷ It combines narrative, lyrics, and instrumental solos. While the established model for epic singing privileges the notion of a single male performer, the African data provide ample evidence of performance by teams that include women in featured roles who supply the lyric element.

Instrumentation varies. The most established instrument of the Sunjata tradition is probably the balafon, or wooden xylophone, whose origin is incorporated into the epic of Sunjata; but the kora and the ngoni, stringed instruments of varying sizes, are also well attested. Outside the Manden the kora may in fact be the first instrument associated with griot music. Some performers now use guitars.

Historians' interest in the epic of Sunjata has predictably influenced the nature of versions available in print. They have sought complete stories where complete performances seem rare, and they have combined information collected from different sources. The literary or printed artifact is therefore not an accurate reflection of actual performance practice, in which the story line may be adjusted to recognize a potential wealthy patron in the audience and in which complete narration is probably secondary to emotional effect. Episodes, rather than the complete epic, are probably the usual performance product. Many of the complete narratives by a single performer are the result of a direct request by the collector.⁸

The “complete” epic is said to be performed on at least one recurrent occasion, every seven years at the re-roofing ceremonies of the Kama Bloñ (House of Speech) in Kangaba. The ceremonies and the mythic account associated with the occasion were described by Germaine Dieterlen in 1954-1955 but have not been documented since then, and no recording has yet been made of the event.⁹ Nevertheless, the occasion has acquired a good deal of symbolic historiographic importance for Malians. Oral tradition may be seen as mobile and changing unless anchored through some authoritative repetition. The ceremonies of the Kama Bloñ provide the necessary mechanism to explain a stable (and thus historically reliable) transmission of the tradition.¹⁰ As a consequence, the jelilu of the Diabate (or Jebate and variants) clan from Kela, who perform in the ritual, have acquired a mantle of authority for their version of the tradition. A comparison of available versions for narrative content does suggest, in the present state of documentation, that theirs is the “standard” history of Sunjata, or at least the most stable narrative core discernible.¹¹

It has certainly become the “standard” history since independence and the partition of the Manden into Mali and Guinea, and Malian intellectuals and scholars have adopted it. But there is room for skepticism. Kathryn Greene has questioned the antiquity of Kangaba's claim to authority.¹² Other lineages and centers might claim authority: the Kouyate lineage of jelilu is affiliated with the noble Keitas, descendants of Sunjata. But their centers of tradition are principally on the Guinean side of the border and are relatively undocumented save for what is perhaps the most influential single version of the story, that published by Niane in 1960. This isolation is coming to an end, however; David Conrad, Tim Geysbeek, and others have been collecting and documenting the traditions available in Guinea. Where the Kama Bloñ may claim authority as the center of the Manden, the traditionalists of Guinea claim theirs through direct connections with the epic: one Kouyate family preserves the balafon used by Sumanguru, Sunjata's opponent.

At this point, a study of the broader Sunjata tradition cannot be limited to oral performances only. The influence of written versions and the historical weight of the tradition have made it a multifaceted artifact subject to scholarly disputes, cultural agendas, and literary interpretation and revision. … ¹³

THE STORY OF SUNJATA

ORIGINS

Most complete narrative performances begin with events considerably before the time of Sunjata—they tell of creation and then bring the story down to the settlement of the Manden. Some versions speak of God and Adam; many look back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his black servant, Bilal, who is claimed by many lineages across the Sahel as an ancestor. Some versions show traces of pre-Islamic traditions and describe the migrations of three or four brothers named Simbong (the hunter's title) as well as the tests by which each acquires his attributes. The selection of a starting point does seem to depend on the performer.

THE BUFFALO-WOMAN OF DU

[The first core episode describes the origin of Sunjata's mother and how she was taken from Du (or Do) to Narena, home of Sunjata's father, about whom relatively little is told.]

Du Kamisa was the sister of Du-Mogo-nya-mogo, ruler of Du and Kri, but at a family gathering she was excluded and not given her share of the meal. She became furious at this and began to transform herself into a buffalo that would ravage the fields and kill farmers and hunters so that the people of Du could not farm in peace. Word went out that Du was afflicted with this beast, and so two hunters, Dan Mansa Wulandin and Dan Mansa Wulanba of the Traore lineage, set off to attempt the task. They usually perform divination before they leave; often they stop in the Manden on their way.

At the edge of the town of Du, they encounter an irascible and solitary old woman. Warned by the divination, or out of their own kindness, they assist by bringing water and firewood and by helping her cook. Touched by their attentions, the old woman reveals her secret: she is the buffalo, and they can kill her by shooting a spindle at her.

They go to hunt her and shoot her with a spindle (there is usually an exchange between the brothers about following her instructions). The buffalo then pursues them in a magical flight pattern: they drop objects that become obstacles until they are almost cornered—and then the buffalo dies. One of the brothers often sings the praises of the other: this becomes the origin of the Traore and Diabate clan alliance.

They are eventually identified as the slayers of the buffalo and rewarded with their choice of a woman. Following the instructions of Du Kamisa, they choose the ugliest woman in the village, Sogolon Kuduma, who is hunchbacked and covered with warts. They take her away and try to sleep with her on their way back to the Manden; she foils them by sprouting porcupine quills from her groin or in some other monstrous way. When they reach the Manden, they are happy to give her to Nare Faman Cenyi, who will become Sunjata's father. He does succeed in overcoming Sogolon's active resistance and marries her. In some versions the touch of his knife causes the warts to fall away, and Sogolon is revealed to be an attractive woman.

Much of this episode is recognizable as folkloric motif. The pattern is familiar from the hunters' narratives (see chapter 3). The episode reproduces the theme of the monster-killer, presenting the monster as an alienated member of the community. It endows Sunjata's mother with a pedigree of considerable occult power, which will later serve her son well. Sogolon is widely seen as the heir to Du Kamisa's powers. She manifests her magic in her resistance to her husband, and she will eventually pass these powers on to her son.

This episode is also one of two moments in the epic in which the Traore lineage takes center stage, displacing the Keitas. The second is the conquest of the Gambia by Tira Magan, which follows Sunjata's victory over Sumanguru. Tira Magan is sometimes presented as the child of one of the two hunters. This point is of some significance in light of the politics of Mali since independence; the first president was a Keita who was overthrown by a Traore.¹⁴ This episode also presents a myth of origin for the association of the Diabate clan of jelilu with the Traore line; in the story, one brother defers to the other because of his valiance against the buffalo. The theme of fraternal relations and precedence recurs throughout the epic and has some importance for Mande culture.¹⁵

The episode also has a clear association with hunting. The story type is widely distributed as a hunters' epic and as a folktale. Stephen Bulman analyzes it from this perspective and connects it with available information on hunters' practices and beliefs.¹⁶ He also discusses the way in which the story articulates questions of political legitimacy within Mande culture, and he therefore provides a more focused and updated discussion of an issue raised by Leo Frobenius, who connected this narrative with monster-slaying stories used across West Africa as a myth of legitimation by relatively recent dynasties.¹⁷

SUNJATA'S CHILDHOOD

A number of stories are associated with Sunjata's birth. In many of them, he and a brother, Dankaran Touman, are born at the same time, but because of a negligent messenger, the actual order of their birth is reversed when the announcement is made to their father. This confusion leads to tensions and rivalry between the brothers. It is also said that Sunjata was covered with hair at his birth, so that he resembled a lion, or that he was in some other way extraordinary.

More important is the fact that as a child Sunjata is a cripple and walks on all fours. This is because of sorcery commissioned by his stepmother. His condition lasts until he is almost grown (and in some cases, ready for circumcision), when finally he is moved to rise. The occasion is almost always an insult to his mother. She asks a co-wife for baobab leaves to flavor a sauce, and the co-wife mocks her, saying she should have her son get her some. Sogolon weeps. Sunjata overhears her and determines to rise.

The manner of his rising exists in significant variants. In many versions, he raises himself on a staff cut by his mother (who swears an oath as she does so), or he leans on her shoulder, or even on the walls of her hut. This success follows attempts to rise using multiply-forged iron bars that bend and break beneath his weight. But sometimes he does rise using the iron bars or some token from his father—and the jelilu sing him the “Song of the Bow,”¹⁸ inspired by the bent iron. His rising is the subject of great rejoicing, and his mother sings a variety of songs expressing her pride and delight.

Sunjata then marches to the baobab tree, whose leaves are needed for the sauce, uproots it, shakes out the little boys who are in its branches, and carries it home. “There,” he tells his mother. “Now they will have to come to you for the leaves for their sauces.”

The story of the simultaneous births does not occur everywhere. As Gordon Innes has noted, the motif of the tardy messenger appears frequently in myths of the origin of death, but that is not the effect here.¹⁹ Sunjata does not seem to be associated with the coming of death. A larger narrative purpose seems to be served by this incident when it does appear. Sunjata must later go into exile, and therefore, retroactively, there must be tension between Sunjata and his brother to cause that departure. A dispute over birth order is a convenient mechanism for establishing such tension and appears elsewhere in regional historical traditions. The motif also raises the contemporary issue of co-wife rivalry that is a current staple in almost any sort of performance and narrative.

The story of the rising is a far more central and essential moment and serves as a criterion for distinguishing strands of the tradition: What does Sunjata use for a support, and who sings the songs? A group of texts recorded in Kita in the 1960s fills this moment with lyric material, piling song upon song, many of of them recognizable even in the earliest versions recorded before 1920: “Bi wo bi, bi ka di de,” sings Sogolon (Today, today, today is very good), and her delight is the delight of the entire Manden, which sees Sunjata rising to fulfill his destiny that will be their glory. Sogolon sings with other women after Sunjata has drawn upon her power to rise: the metal bars were not enough. The theme stresses the mother-son bond that is a crucial element in Mande social philosophy: a son becomes great because of his mother; she, more than the father, is responsible for making him. This is a slightly different aspect of the well-established principles of badenya and fadenya identified by Charles Bird and others: the two words, “mother-childness” and “father-childness” evoke different principles of social behavior.²⁰ Children of the same mother are expected to cooperate, to stick together. Children of the same father (i.e., step-siblings in a polygamous household) are rivals, in competition for the family's resources. The rivalry includes the father, who is seen as the ultimate competitor. In this case, Sunjata's reliance on his mother's power in order to rise is a reflection of badenya.

Food is involved in the underlying associations. The contention and insults arise over a condiment. And the closest equivalent in everyday life to the staff that Sogolon provides her son is probably the pestle that almost every woman in traditional West Africa used in past times on a daily basis (and that works as an effective weapon).²¹ This association opens a contrast with Sunjata's antagonist, Sumanguru, whose birth is tied to the use of a mortar. The pairing of pestle and mortar evokes the preparation of food, a gendered activity associated with women, and the complementarity of the sexes.²² These themes pervade the epic and establish a contrast in the behavior of the protagonists.

Some versions of the story thus make this a festive women's moment; this point has implications for an understanding of the performance mode as well. The lyric material (some of Sunjata's forty praise songs) seems particularly designed for delivery by women. Whether this might imply an intended audience of women as well is impossible to determine, but the notion seems plausible.

The other narrative possibility expressed at the moment of rising comes in the written historical tradition, which includes indigenous African sources such as the Nioro manuscripts mentioned in chapter 5. The French administrator and Africanist Maurice Delafosse relied heavily on an Arabic-language manuscript from Nioro in his account of Sunjata. In these versions, Sunjata is the last of twelve brothers (like Joseph, perhaps) who are successively killed by Sumanguru when he conquers the Manden. Sunjata then rises using his father's scepter. These manuscript versions are noticeably Islamicized in tone, and this point should be considered when noting the shift to a paternal object of power. Niane's 1960 written version also excludes the women; it is the version in which Sunjata rises on the bent iron bars and onlookers sing the “Song of the Bow.”

The two versions of the episode provide fairly clear interpretive choices that are not limited to the question of father or mother. First, there is the choice between two nyamakala groups, the griots and the blacksmiths. Iron bars come from blacksmiths, who represent specific forms of power and knowledge in the Manden. If Sunjata rises on iron bars, then the smiths have succeeded—a thematically curious point since in the epic, smiths are represented by Sunjata's enemy Sumanguru, who is a blacksmith. The “Song of the Bow,” which is perhaps the best-known song associated with Sunjata, has thus been appropriated by one group. By contrast, versions in which Sunjata rises using wood attribute the “Song of the Bow” to a woman, a jelimuso named Tumu Maniyan who will accompany Sunjata into exile playing a hunter's instrument (an iron rasp) and singing.²³

A second choice involves old and new forms of knowledge. Where Sunjata rises using iron or a token from his father, there is a connection with Islam and the written tradition—the new forms of knowledge. This formulation displaces the earlier importance accorded to Sunjata's mother (and associated women). The social importance of women is another theme that resonates throughout the epic, providing a criterion by which to differentiate versions of the epic.

Whatever the means, it is clear that Sunjata's success in overcoming his handicap is an augury for his (and the Manden's) future greatness. The contrast between this moment and his future victory over Sumanguru Kante lies in the nature of the obstacle. His later victory necessarily establishes social divisions since a smith should not be a king. Sunjata's first success marks a triumph of the will—and filial propriety—over the body.

SUNJATA GOES INTO EXILE

Having risen, Sunjata is now a rival to his brother Dankaran Touman. Sunjata becomes a successful hunter, providing his family with ample food. He is also the ideally deferential younger brother. Nevertheless, Dankaran Touman perceives him as a threat and enlists the Nine Witches of Manden to kill Sunjata. He offers them an ox in payment. Sunjata gives them nine buffaloes, and they spare his life. But it is clear he must leave the Manden. He departs, accompanied by his family (mother, sister, and a younger brother, Manding Bokary).

Along the way, he makes various stops; this portion of the narrative is quite flexible and subject to regional variation. Sometimes he moves on because his host has been paid to kill him, sometimes because of hostility. Sometimes he passes tests. He comes eventually to Mema, where the ruler Mema Farin Tunkara takes him in.

This section of the epic is a necessary transition but is never so polished as to command great attention for its literary value. It is of greater interest to historians and ethnographers. The travels link Sunjata with local traditions and families, depending upon the route selected. The Nine Witches of the Manden certainly merit examination (one of them, incidentally, is the woman often given to the Traore brothers in exchange for Sogolon Conde), although information on this group may be disappearing.

The travels are sometimes dramatized by incidents in which Sunjata's sister, also named Sogolon, restrains him from anger at various moments, warning him about prophecies that had been made. The presence of the sister, the mother, the brothers, and sometimes the jelimuso Tumu Maniya singing before them on the path might recall the motif of the marvelous march encountered in Central Africa and in the Kusa story of Mareñ Jagu.

SUMANGURU CONQUERS THE MANDEN

Many stories attach to Sumanguru Kante. He is said to have been born of three mothers. The unborn child passed from womb to womb, frolicking during the night and protracting the triple pregnancy. Finally, the women tricked him by placing a mortar in the room, which he mistook for the womb to which he was returning in the dark. When dawn came, he was found outside the womb and declared “born.”

Later he is said to have exchanged his sister for the balafon that he got from the jinns. This was a voluntary act on her part; knowing her brother's need, she abandoned her child Fakoli and gave herself to the jinns.

Dankaran Touman sent a sister in marriage to Sumanguru, accompanied by a jeli, Jankuma Doka (Doka the cat). Jankuma Doka found Sumanguru's secret chamber, which contained the balafon, and could not resist the temptation to play it. Sumanguru caught him, and the jeli began to sing his praises. Sumanguru found this so sweet that he refused to let Jankuma Doka go. Sumanguru cut the tendons of the singer's legs so he could not flee and renamed him Bala Faseke Kouyate.

Sumanguru then betrayed Dankaran Touman and invaded the Manden. Dankaran Touman fled into the highlands of Guinea, and Sumanguru established his rule over the land. His oppression is most frequently described through the metaphor of putting gourds over people's mouths.

He also alienated members of his own family. His nephew Fakoli had a wife whose one pot could prepare as much food as the pots of Sumanguru's 333 wives. Sumanguru took the wife away. Fakoli abandoned him and went over to the side of Sunjata.

In many ways, Sumanguru is the antithesis of Sunjata: they contrast in birth, in behavior, in outlook.²⁴ But he was, and remains, a figure of power in his own right. One praise name widely accorded him makes him the “First and Native King” (mansa folo-folo ni mansa duguren), which is a curious title for a ruler often portrayed as a usurper.

He is not a simple usurper. He is also a blacksmith and in theory is thus barred from political authority—which he nevertheless seizes, disrupting the accepted social order. In some ways he is monstrous—not, perhaps, in his treatment of the sister married to the jinns (such exchanges are frequent), but in the image presented of him when Jankuma Doka penetrates his secret chamber. The griot's song says that Sumanguru enters the Manden wearing garments of human skin. The chamber is the site of sorcery and hostile magic. As a hunter, Sunjata also traffics in occult power, but his is used for beneficial ends (e.g., supplying each of the nine witches with her own buffalo to eat). Sumanguru's purposes seem darker.²⁵ In mythological terms, the contrast is between chaos and social order; and the actions of the two rulers constitute a checklist of themes and narrative details by which to differentiate the poles represented by the two figures.

But the opposition thus developed would of necessity be somewhat limited if the reality of Sumanguru's power were not recognized. Sumanguru taps into sources of power and is commemorated in lines of tradition somewhat different from those of Sunjata. He recalls the creative power of blacksmiths. He appeals to those not subject to Keita authority. Some griots note that the Bamana still worship Sumanguru, and the distinction between Sunjata and Sumanguru might reflect some symbolic dividing line between the closely related Malinka and Bamana groups.

SUNJATA IS SUMMONED

The oppression of Sumanguru is such that the people of the Manden decide to seek a savior. Divination tells them they must find Sunjata, and so a delegation sets forth carrying Mande foodstuffs (spices and vegetables).

They come eventually to Mema, and Sunjata's sister Sogolon Kulunkan discovers them in the market, where they are selling their Mande foods. Delighted, she brings them home. To honor them, she prepares a meal but discovers she has no meat. She uses her occult power to remove by magic the inner organs of the animals that Sunjata and his brother, Manding Bokary, have just killed while hunting in the bush. When the brothers butcher their kills, they are somewhat surprised at the absence of organs, but Sunjata recognizes that this is his sister's doing. When they return home, however, Manding Bokary expresses his anger at Sogolon. In the altercation that follows, her wrap-around cloth falls off. Sunjata or the sister then curses Manding Bokary: his line will never gain kingship.

The messengers present their case, and Sunjata is willing to return home. But he will not go without his mother, and she is too old and ill to travel. He goes into the bush and prays: if he is truly to unite and lead the Manden, he asks that his mother die that night, and she does.

He then asks the ruler of Mema for land in which to bury his mother, and Mema Farin Tunkara demands gold. Sunjata instead sends him old potsherds with dust, arrowheads, gunpowder, and guinea fowl feathers. The prince's advisers interpret this riddle: if they do not give Sunjata the land, he will destroy the town like an old pot, with arrows and bullets, and guinea fowl will be left to play in the dust. The prince gives him the land, and Sunjata sets off for home.

Curiously, the death of Sunjata's mother and the riddle of the potsherds is perhaps the most constant element of the epic, present in almost every version with a minimum of change. This moment balances that earlier moment when his mother was at center stage, when Sunjata was inspired by her humiliation to overcome his limitations and rise. Here again the mother serves as a springboard, or perhaps as an offering to Sunjata's future power. The trade-off is almost explicit. Following her death, Sunjata begins to assert his power through the riddling response (with its implied threat) to Mema Farin Tunkara's demand for gold. The threat is taken seriously: this is a measure either of Sunjata's actual powers or of the king's assessment of his future capability.

The story of the messengers with their Mande foodstuffs (a device to find Sunjata) and the incidents involving the sister can be linked with many other details. The themes of food and social relations (respect for kinship and women) recur. Sogolon Kulunkan, the sister, now takes over from her mother as the female figure of power in the story, and her introduction at this point establishes her as an independent character. Later she returns as a seductress who helps Sunjata gain the secret of Sumanguru's power.²⁶ In her association with magic and her devotion to her brother's (the good brother's) good fortune, she recalls Nsongo of the Lianja tradition and Haintainkourabe of the Kusa. But she is far more individualized: her delight in the market, her concern for her guests (with her exceptional solution to a hostess's dilemma), and her anger at her brother make her a somewhat more firmly grounded character.

SUNJATA DEFEATS SUMANGURU

A wealth of different incidents may mark Sunjata's return to the Manden and his confrontation with Sumanguru: he crosses the river thanks to a bargain struck years before by his mother with the leader of the Somono boatmen; he is joined by generals who may or may not have a foregrounded role in the coming action; he sends a partridge with a message to Sumanguru. The details of these incidents vary with the individual version.

Sunjata is at first unable to defeat Sumanguru and is defeated in a series of battles. Things look very bad for the hero. Clearly Sumanguru's control of nyama, occult power, is greater than his own, and unless he can learn Sumanguru's secret, he will never succeed.

His sister, Sogolon Kulunkan, comes to his rescue. She goes to Sumanguru and offers herself to him, and as their intimacy progresses she lures him into revealing his secret. Sometimes his mother warns him against telling too much to a one-night woman. Sumanguru disregards his mother, or may even do violence to her in his passion. He reveals his secret to Sogolon Kulunkan: he can be killed only by an arrow tipped with the spur of a white cock.

She steals out at night—it is not always clear whether the relationship is consummated—and escapes. Sometimes she is helped by a hero who fights a rearguard action against Sumanguru's pursuing troops. She comes to her brother with the information, and the battle is won.

In the next battle, Sumanguru's army is defeated. The king himself is forced to flee, riding away with his wife before him on the saddle. He is pursued by Sunjata and his companions. Sometimes he vanishes into the caves at Koulikoro, a set of rapids on the Niger downstream from Bamako. Sometimes he leaps the river, and is struck by the arrow on the other side, and there he turns to stone. He remains venerated by the Bamana even today, it is said.

The social value of this opportunity to narrate the valorous exploits of the ancestors of noble (and rich) clans at critical moments in the story of Sunjata is clear: the performer can include audience members in the triumph of Sunjata himself, and this inclusion leads to material rewards.²⁷

The action of Sunjata's sister seems more problematic. It is a Delilah-motif, widespread throughout the epic traditions of the Sahel. It occurs with variations in the hunters' traditions (e.g., in the stories of Siramori or Kambili) and in the cycle of the conquests of Segou (see chapter 6). The gesture marks the selflessness of Sunjata's sister and her devotion to her brother's welfare (hence, perhaps, the need for the previous incidents in Mema to explain the relationship). It is not clear whether it casts Sumanguru as a fool or as a victim, but it is proof that Sumanguru cannot control his appetites, as was already clear in the case of Fakoli's wife.

The erotic element, which was nonexistent in the case of Sunjata's conception, is problematic. Many versions deny that the couple actually slept together, either through some measure of prudishness or because of the social transgression involved. Sumanguru was a smith, a numu, and thus barred from union with the nobles, the horon. This aspect can easily compound Sogolon's appeal in his eyes—a forbidden fruit offering itself. It also explains some reticence in describing the fulfillment of the relationship. Of the available versions, that of Camara Laye (a literary version) carries the sex furthest, but it is unclear whether this was his embellishment or whether he got it from his jeli informant, Babu Conde. The topic raises the much broader issue of erotica in oral performance.

The importance of the magical element in the conflict can hardly be overstated; this runs counter to the battle orientation of much European epic. As Charles Bird and Martha Kendall note, the real conflict takes place on the level of occult power; once that is settled, the battle is something of a foregone conclusion and can be rapidly dismissed, as with the phrase “The laughter went to the Mande, the tears to the Sosso.”²⁸ The magic involved is not simply a cheap form of sorcery. Rather, it expresses a world obeying hidden and not always positive forces, and the hero's creative relation with, and control of, those forces. It is thus attached to the notion of a deeper order in life.

Further, for the culture the fighting is not really that important, nor what makes the story central. Rather, the series of tests passed and choices made by Sunjata or Sumanguru in the course of the story define what the proper outcome should be: Sunjata wins because he is in the right.

LATER CONQUESTS

Following his victory, Sunjata holds an assembly of his generals at Dakajalan and allots lands to them all.²⁹ Thereafter, a number of incidents may conclude a given performance or be given separately. The most frequent is the conquest of the Jolof by Tira Magan. Sunjata sent a messenger to buy horses in the Tekrour. Returning through the Jolof, the messenger was summoned by the Jolof-fin Mansa. The king took away the horses and gave the messenger some dogs instead, saying that as Sunjata was only a hunter-king, he had no use for horses. The insult is compounded with the gift of buffalo hides to make sandals.

When the messenger returns to the Manden, there is some dismay and discussion about how to break this unpleasant news to Sunjata. A jeli does so. Sunjata is furious and swears revenge; his generals vie for the honor of completing the mission. The task is finally given to Tira Magan Traore, who has shown his determination by wrapping himself in a shroud and lying in a tomb (hence a Traore praise name, “Slave of the Tomb”). Tira Magan conquers a series of kings, saying that he is “walking the dogs.”

A second possible sequel tells how Fakoli defeats the king of Nyani, who had refused to submit to Sunjata and who was known for wearing clothing of iron that made him invulnerable. Fakoli succeeds when the king's wife betrays her husband and lures him into a bath where he is naked and vulnerable. She is later killed.

The death of Sunjata is not recounted in performance. Rather, the moment of his victory carries over into stories of the establishment of empire, or the movement of peoples, and thus down into the present. Of these, the most important is that of Tira Magan and the conquest of the Jolof (or the Gambia). Where his story often closes the epic on the Mande side, it serves as a starting point for the traditions of Kaabu (or Gabou) in the Gambia. It is also the sort of narrative that might receive additional prominence when the President of Mali's last name is Traore, as was the case through the 1970s and 1980s. The stories of Fakoli and the king of Nyani, by contrast, are not so well attested in the Sunjata tradition and seem to reflect the influence of the traditions of Segou in which the motif of betrayal-by-wife marks one of the best-known episodes, that of Douga of Kore (see chapter 6).

The conquest of the Jolof is considered strong evidence for the role of hunters' associations at the beginning of the empire of Mali, if not for the process of state-formation in general. The king's insult provides, at least in reflected form, some suggestion of outside assessment of the nature of the Mande state. The insult about walking, echoed elsewhere in Sahelian tradition, reflects the symbolic and economic importance of horses in their roles as luxury items, status symbols, and military resources. The tsetse fly, it must be remembered, ensures that horses survive only on the northern fringe of sub-Saharan Africa. It was during the Middle Ages, the time of Sunjata, that large-scale importation of horses apparently took place.³⁰

Why the epic should move from Sunjata to his generals, from victory to victory, without covering the hero's death, is almost self-explanatory. The story is not that of the hero alone, however much the narrative may reflect the patterns of traditional heroic biography. It is the story of the Manden and its days of greatness.

Other problems underlie Sunjata's death. David Conrad has written about the need for obscurity on such a matter: even Sunjata's resting place is unknown (or hidden) because it is the repository of such great power.³¹ On a more material level, discussion of Sunjata's death also entails the question of his succession and opens the door to scrutiny of the claims to legitimacy and power of a variety of local ruling families who claim the name of Keita. The testimony of Arab authors establishes that succession in the empire of Mali did not follow a smooth father-to-son pattern but moved through fraternal succession, interrupted at least once by a usurper, Sekura. The link between the common myth of origin and the genealogical claims of a given ruling family is often somewhat suspect, and thus the shift of attention away from the figure of Sunjata himself into his delegation of authority and conquest serves to discourage uncomfortable inquiries.

VERSIONS OF THE EPIC OF SUNJATA

The number of versions of the story now available, from the earliest (1892, if the fourteenth-century mention of Mari Diata by Ibn Khaldun is excluded) to the most recent, is sufficiently great that some description and categorization may be useful. Readers should consult the work of Stephen Bulman, who has, in a sense, become a Sunjata archivist.³²

COLONIAL-ERA VERSIONS

This time frame covers the period of initial contacts and reports (ca. 1890) until independence (1960). None of these is a real transcription of an oral performance, although the versions of Frobenius and Franz de Zeltner identify their informants, and Frobenius especially gives a full and detailed story supplemented with genealogical information. Oral traditions were considered interesting primarily for their historic value. Most European writers consider their reports to be history and edit them accordingly, omitting legendary and supernatural details.³³ The culmination of colonial-era historiography was the 1929 monograph by Charles Monteil, Les empires du Mali, which synthesized the information then available from written and oral sources. This work has been superseded by that of later writers,³⁴ but it represents a useful window on the perspectives and information available at that time.

This period also provides some indigenous accounts. Nioro manuscripts and traditions have been described in chapter 4.³⁵ All of them give the story of the Manden following that of Wagadu. However, they represent an external, Soninke-based and Islamicized tradition. A common feature of this Islamicized tradition is that when Sunjata rises, he does so using his father's cane rather than a token from his mother; they also omit the story of the death of Sogolon Conde in Mema. In other words, this local written element represents something of a minority and revisionist viewpoint, one that should be contrasted with the valuable account by Mamby Sidibe.³⁶

The principal and most useful extended accounts from this period are probably those of F. Quiquandon, Frobenius, de Zeltner, and Mamby Sidibe. While their representation of the living oral tradition is of necessity distorted by their methods of collecting, they do provide valuable detail for the study of the narrative content of the tradition.

TRANSCRIBED VERSIONS FROM ORAL PERFORMANCE

Since the years of independence, a growing number of recordings and transcriptions have illuminated the dimensions of the oral tradition. A cluster of texts represent the traditions of the Diabate jelilu of Kita/Kela, who are associated with the septennial re-roofing ceremony in Kangaba: Kele Monson Diabaté, Mahan Djehabate, Fa-Digi and Magan Sisókó (a father-son pair), Kanku Mady Jabaté, and Lansina Diabate. Of these texts, the earliest are the richest in verbal texture and poetic detail. The version of Kanku Mady Jabaté was produced under almost official pressure, in response to the visit of a governmental delegation intended to obtain a “standardized” version of the tradition for pedagogic purposes from a source then recognized as authoritative. The versions of this group of jelilu can be described as a regional variant; they do agree closely in much of their narrative content and in fact provide the core of the tradition. So far, there is little evidence for a rival regional variant, although the material now being recorded in upper Guinea, the other half of the Manden, may well challenge this Malian dominance.

The best-known English versions are those of Gordon Innes, collected in the Gambia.³⁷ He provides three versions of the epic, representing different tendencies among performers: the first, that of Bamba Suso, is a dry narrative by a performer reputed for his historical knowledge. Indeed, the last five hundred lines (of a total of some fourteen hundred) are devoted to the details of the settlement of the Gambia. The second, that of Banna Kanute, is a flashy performance of great artistic appeal but represents a very unusual—indeed, unique—arrangement of the story that seems to reflect the traditions of Segou as well as of Sunjata. The third, by Dembo Kanute, is an ordinary version of a selected portion of the epic, dealing with the exploits of Fakoli. The first and third, then, are regular versions, comparable in many ways with the group of texts from Kita; the second is anomalous.

A third major source is represented by the published words of Wa Kamissoko, the jeli from Krina who served as informant at the SCOA-sponsored conferences on the history of Mali, held in Bamako in 1975 and 1976. His contributions, recorded and transcribed by Youssouf Tata Cissé, have been published in two volumes.³⁸ They consist largely of separate interviews on historical topics (perhaps roughly comparable to Bamba Suso's presentation of his knowledge for a school audience) that cover most of the history of the Manden. But Wa Kamissoko's slant on the record, especially as refracted through the prism of Youssouf Tata Cissé's ideological agenda, is unusual; and his contributions should be read in combination with the analysis of Paolo de Moraes Farias, which contextualizes and helps to interpret this unique collaborative venture.³⁹

NIANE'S VERSION

Perhaps the chapter should have begun with Niane's version. For much of the world, this is now the canonical version of the epic of Sunjata. It appeared in 1960, the fruit of Niane's research in upper Guinea (the English translation appeared in 1965). Since then it has been dominant, influencing curricula around the world and feeding back into the oral tradition.

Niane's version lies halfway between literature and history; it is a valorization of the oral tradition as a historical source, and it marks the first salvo in Niane's effort to recoup African traditions. But it is not a simple transcription from an oral source; while Niane no doubt did spend hours listening to Mamadou Kouyaté, he has recast the material for publication. A historian's sense of the probable and the acceptable informs some of the choices he has made, but so also has a poet's. He is sensitive to the needs of French prose, which was his medium, and his narrative is filled out with flowery phrases because sentences must be continuous and diction varied. Causality acquires greater weight, and transitions are less elusive because he provides the necessary background detail. He goes beyond any single performance to present a master narrative.

Niane presents a single story and makes no attempt to document the variant traditions encountered in the versions of different jelilu. He also nuances his story; the fantastic episode of the Buffalo-Woman is presented as hearsay, as a traveler's tale told by an unreliable (and left-handed!) narrator. Various heroes who later join Sunjata in his wars are made his childhood companions. And above all, griots are woven into the story.

Here, Niane follows his own purposes. Griots are indeed woven into the story in the oral traditions. At least two or three “origin of griot” legends can be identified in the ordinary narration (two of them are examined in chapter 1). Niane concentrates these stories in one figure: Bala Faseke Kouyate, Sunjata's griot, who is present to sing the “Song of the Bow” when Sunjata rises (he succeeds with the iron rods), who organizes his travels, and who finally comes to serve him. Thus, Niane diminishes the role of women in the story. As noted, most of the oral versions say that the songs sung when Sunjata rises (and not with the iron bars) are sung by his mother and other women. Often, in available recorded versions, the griot who accompanies Sunjata early in his travels is not Bala Faseke, but a woman, Tumu Maniya, and it is she who composes and sings the “Song of the Bow.”

These points do not suggest inaccuracy on Niane's part, but they do draw attention to the nature and tendency of his editing. His hero is not so much Sunjata the king of Mali as it is the griots (jelilu), beginning with Bala Faseke Kouyate, who have preserved Sunjata's story and can recall him from oblivion. Niane wishes to rescue griots from the low esteem into which they had fallen and to recall the power and the magic with which they were formerly endowed: the power of creation, of reanimation, of memory. James Olney's essay, “Of Griots and Heroes,” very appropriately recognizes that the major figure in Niane's book is the griot and in fact accurately identifies the “myth of the griot” as Niane presents it: as the repository of historical lore, the epitome of traditional wisdom.⁴⁰

CAMARA LAYE AND OTHERS

While Niane's version represents the most influential textualization of the Sunjata epic, it is hardly the only one. There is one other major literary rendering of the epic and a number of lesser versions. The second major version is Camara Laye's Le maître de la parole (Guardian of the Word, in James Kirkup's translation). Like Niane's version, it is based on the traditions of Guinea from a named informant, Babu Conde of Fadama; and also like Niane's version, it is not a simple transcription.⁴¹ In many ways, it is a richer account. Laye's poetic sensibility accepts the marvelous and the fantastic in the story, and so he does not censor the more lurid details. It is clear that he intended to exploit the market appeal of the oral tradition with this work. He was in bad health and in need of money at the time the book appeared. Still, as a version of Sunjata the book is a solid and valuable resource. It is still finding its place in the public eye in relation to Niane and to Laye's earlier works.⁴²

The Malian writer Massa Makan Diabaté has tried in three publications to render a single recorded performance by Kele Monson Diabaté into print. (There is also a separate transcription of the same recording with the original Maninka text.)⁴³ Most other written versions (Gbagbo, Konare Ba, Konake, and others described by Bulman) depend on available published sources, particularly on Niane and Wa Kamissoko. They represent a transformation and appropriation of traditional material. Adame Konare Ba's historical account is perhaps the most interesting, for while she attempts a synthetic history of the life of Sunjata for a popular press (the book is one of a series on great leaders of Africa), she also claims to be offering a woman's insights into the story. But it appears to be a standard account of the story.

APPROACHES TO THE SUNJATA

Most work on the Sunjata epic has been historical in intent, aimed at documenting the oral tradition or elucidating specific aspects.⁴⁴ Literary analysis has concentrated on a vision of the work as an example of oral tradition and thus foregrounds the text's performative aspects. This focus may be helpful since it avoids the problem of expressing skepticism about the accepted historical record. But it also represents hesitancy and uncertainty about methods for dealing with such a multifarious and weighty tradition. Visions of the Sunjata epic based on the English translations alone (usually Niane and Innes's three Gambian texts) are of necessity incomplete. The task of identifying, obtaining, and analyzing other versions can be intimidating. Study of the tradition, and of specific instances, would be facilitated by reference tools: a listing of names, for instance, or of motifs; but these have not yet been developed.

Sunjata is in many ways a hero of tradition in the sense generally employed by folklorists and others: his life story conforms to a widespread pattern and has been shaped according to definable narrative rules. But agreement between Sunjata and the hero's paradigm as defined by Lord Raglan may not be central to an understanding of Sunjata. Raglan's categories are so general that the specific cultural values of individual heroes dissipate. There would be a risk of confusing Sunjata with Theseus or Krishna. The pattern is valuable as an interpretive tool because it points to those elements of the story that show most signs of narrative streamlining, that make the hero almost generic. An example might be those versions that present Sumanguru as the reigning king at the birth of Sunjata so that the opposition of hero and tyrant is clean and direct, uncluttered by the confusion of sibling rivalry and vanishing fathers.

But where Sunjata the man may agree with the model hero of tradition in many particulars, Sunjata the epic does not. Instead of a clean biography, a single story line, there is a multiplication of threads. The epic works in at least four time frames, including the present of the performance or recording: it unites the pre-Sunjata past, often anachronistically, with the time and figure of Sunjata and the events after his time that are the past to our present. Of these three periods, those before and after Sunjata probably preserve information of the greatest historical value. The epic may also offer tales of creation (Eden, for instance) before shifting to the later periods of the lands of Do and Kri.⁴⁵ These episodes provide the necessary prelude to the story of the Manden and possibly also a thematic cue. The result is that Sunjata's life is only a part of the story. After Sunjata goes into exile, the field of action divides to incorporate Sumanguru and his actions; after Sunjata is victorious, Tira Magan marches off. The epic would seem to violate certain canons of artistic unity, unless the association of Sunjata with the larger story of the Manden is kept in mind.

Any study of the tradition must come to terms with its idioms and methods. Physical prowess is not valorized in this narrative world; what matters is moral character, strength of will and purpose, mastery of self and other. Sunjata's heroes define themselves not by killing giants or hosts but by demonstrating their determination. Tira Magan lays himself in his grave, and thereafter his conquests are simply enumerated. Fakoli's head swells at one point to unimaginable proportions (an objective correlative?). Sunjata himself has already demonstrated his will by overcoming his deformity and uprooting the baobab.

The victory over Sumanguru occurs through seduction and betrayal. Is this an instance of moral turpitude? The contrast with the same motif in “Bassi of Samanyana” from the cycle of Segou may be instructive. In Segou, the enemy is a rebellious vassal, the emissary a slave girl, and the audience's sympathy remains with the enemy. In the epic of Sunjata, the emissary is not a slave but a sister who goes voluntarily; Sumanguru betrays himself against the warnings of his own family. The opposition is not one of strength, physical or occult, but of social bonds: Sumanguru is only as strong as the loyalties he commands (and observes). Sunjata has the strength of those who support him.

This does not mean that Sunjata goes unquestioned. He is repeatedly tested within the story, from his childhood to his ultimate victory. In the patterns of contrast between Sunjata and Sumanguru, Sunjata defines proper social behavior and loyalty to the Manden. In the versions of Fa-Digi Sisókó and Magan Sisókó, Sunjata swears oaths—echoing those sworn by his mother to make him rise—that catalogue the clans of the Manden and link his fate to that of the people of the Manden. Sunjata does not seek power but the fulfillment of destiny. After the Manden summons him for redress against Sumanguru, Sunjata becomes the vehicle of the collective will.

This aspect of the epic reflects its function in binding the various elements of the Manden and the people who trace some attachment to Sunjata across substantial geographic distances. Such a purpose is rare in European epic; the “national epics” of the curriculum are largely the constructs of nineteenth-century nationalisms rather than the consensual collective histories of peoples. One exception might be the matter of Britain and the tales of King Arthur in all their fractured complexity.

Here Sunjata is perhaps not to be seen as a “human” figure at all, meaning by “human” that he could be subject to doubts, weaknesses, and failings. Rather, he is an embodiment of power, and in proportion as his destiny is glorious, he is possessed by the power to bring it about. This is not a purely positive vision. Heroes, in the Mande conception, are trouble, for they represent disruption, change, and the drive for self-fulfillment along the fadenya axis. Sunjata compels respect because of his power; the same is true of Sumanguru, and their struggle is not a simplified moral allegory of right and wrong. But the multiplication of other elements in the story, such as the repeated testing, establishes Sunjata as the proper focal point for multiple interests.

It is rewarding to view the performances as an effort to conserve and reconcile (within defined parameters) a multiplicity of local traditions. A significant difference between the Sunjata tradition and the stories of origin recorded in Central Africa lies in the cultural heterogeneity of the cultures associated with Sunjata and the relative homogeneity of the Central African milieu. The Sunjata tradition is not only a myth of origin merging into a politically significant genealogy. It is an almost self-consciously artificial construct regrouping many different traditions and providing common ground for the interrelations of many different populations. Such a vision reads the epic of Sunjata in terms of local idioms and interests and also recognizes the need to extend beyond the historical into the ethnographic realm, to incorporate available information on social patterns, beliefs, lifestyles, and practices. But in many ways the tradition is in flux, as is the world of the Manden. For this reason the colonial-era versions are, despite their possible flaws, vital objects of study since they serve to ground the contemporary renditions.

OTHER TRADITIONS

Beyond Sunjata, the Manden offers a variety of heroes and cycles, although they are incompletely documented. The hunters' songs that have already been discussed are an important component of Mande oral art. The more recent narratives of the Gambia (dealing with the fall of Kaabu) are treated separately in chapter 8. The Manden has more recent heroes. The nineteenth century offers two great and terrifying men whose stories are emerging as the process of collection extends beyond Sunjata alone.

Samory Toure established a centralized state in the southern Manden and then proceeded to fight the French for some decades before he was defeated. Yves Person has documented his career in great detail. David Conrad has recently collected some texts in Guinea dealing with Samory Toure, which foreground in particular his younger brother Keme Brema, who died in battle. Samory also appears incidentally in the Kambili of Seydou Camara, a hunters' epic; the figure is not historical but represents a type of powerful and merciless ruler.

The second figure actually precedes Samory and represents a foreign intrusion: al-Hajj Umar Tall, the Tukolor religious leader who marched through the Manden while en route to Segou and Massina. The growing epic tradition associated with this figure (for he is sung in Fula and Zarma, as discussed in chapters 7 and 8) reflects his importance within the local vision of Islam. He is effectively portrayed as a second Prophet, charged with bringing Islam to the Sahel. Some accounts reported in the 1970s⁴⁶ touch on the actual wars fought by the Tukolor forces of the religious leader and seem to criticize his actions. Recent texts seem far more hagiographic.

In addition to the epics of these heroes, a wealth of localized historical narrative lends itself easily to epic singing in the hands of jelilu. As recording, rather than textual publication, becomes more widespread, a great deal more material from this fertile homeland will become available.

Notes

1. David Conrad (1992) has explored the echoes of royal pilgrimages in oral tradition, concentrating on the figures of Fajigi and Sunjata's general Fakoli.

2. Tal Tamari (1991, 1995) has best documented the parallels among status groups in the region and has suggested that the patterns may have been imposed from above, but the idea has met resistance.

3. See Person 1981.

4. See Innes 1974; Bakari Sidibe 1980.

5. See Camara 1992, Knight 1973, Charry 1992, Duran 1995, Hoffman 1990, Harris 1992, and Jansen 1998 for discussion specifically of griots. Conrad and Frank 1995 offers the most accessible survey of the nyamakala groups of the Mande. McNaughton 1988 discusses the numuw, blacksmiths, as does N. Kante 1993.

6. See Zahan 1963 for a fuller discussion of the forms. Majamu and burudyu appear to be name-centered declamations, whereas faasa evokes a more complex and potentially narrative form.

7. See Johnson 1978, 1980, 1986.

8. In one case, the request had the weight of a governmental commission behind it. See Kanku Mady Jabaté 1987.

9. In fact, documentation of the ceremony is problematic. The basic source is a lengthy article, Dieterlen 1955, which has been updated by the account of the same ceremonies in de Ganay 1995. Meillassoux et al. 1968 includes an account of his relatively unsuccessful attempt to observe the ceremonies. The event was scheduled to occur in 1996 but for a variety of reasons occurred late.

10. See the essay by Seydou Camara (not the hunter's bard) in Austen forthcoming.

11. See Belcher 1985 for a first analysis; Bulman (1990) studied a larger number of versions and reached the same conclusions.

12. See Greene 1991. Solange de Ganay reminds us that the ceremonies at Kangaba were actually modeled on another nearby center (1995, pp. 62ff.), and M. P. Ferry documents a similar ritual in eastern Senegal (1968, pp. 183-85).

13. …

14. The current president has no genealogical connection to Sunjata, but his wife might be said to have appropriated the king by writing a book on him; see Adame Konare Ba 1983.

15. See Jansen and Zobel 1996.

16. See Bulman 1989.

17. Frobenius 1913, vol. 2.

18. The “Song of the Bow” (Bara kala ta …) is perhaps the principal song associated with Sunjata and figures largely in the Sunjata-Faasa, which might be considered the established Keita praise song. See Belcher 1985, appendix 2, for a discussion of the songs in the Sunjata epics, and Knight 1973 for the repertoire of Gambian Mandinka griots.

19. Innes 1974, p. 104.

20. See Bird 1971, 1972b, and the introduction to Seydou Camara 1974; see also Bird and Kendall 1980.

21. See Conrad in Austen forthcoming.

22. Zahan 1963, p. 130, documents the sexual symbolism of this pair of implements.

23. Fa-Digi Sisókó, in Johnson 1986, interweaves this song exquisitely with Sunjata's travels in exile.

24. This theme deserves further exploration. See Belcher 1985, 1991.

25. The contrast might also be seen in the terms defined by de Heusch (1982a) for the Central African myths: between the drunken king and the virtuous hunter.

26. Different versions ascribe a different number of sisters to Sunjata. One widespread variant says that Bala Faseke Kouyate accompanied one of Sunjata's sisters, who was sent to marry Sumanguru.

27. Innes 1974 notes how the third of his three versions, performed by Dembo Kanute, was oriented to highlight the deeds of the Darbo ancestor of the host for the performance.

28. See Bird and Kendall 1980, p. 20. Frobenius (1925, p. 325) also notes a similar phrase.

29. This occurs in Niane 1960 but not in most of the oral versions.

30. See Law 1980 for a study of the horse in West African history.

31. See Conrad 1994.

32. See Bulman 1997.

33. See Quiquandon 1892, Humblot 1951, Pageard 1962, Vidal 1924, C. Monteil 1929, and Delafosse 1913.

34. E.g., Levztion 1973; Ly-Tall 1976, 1977; Niane 1972, 1974, 1975; and others. One virtue of Monteil's work is that he recognized very early the importance of working with oral traditions and did so carefully; a disadvantage is that he did not reproduce his informants' words exactly.

35. Represented by the publications of Adam 1904, Arnaud 1912, Lanrezac 1907, Delafosse 1913, and Labouret 1929.

36. The account was written in 1937 but published in Notes Africaines only in 1959.

37. See Innes 1974.

38. Cissé and Kamissoko 1988, 1991.

39. See de Moraes Farias 1993.

40. Olney 1975.

41. Lilyan Kesteloot has evidence that it is based on actual recordings. Personal communication, June 1994.

42. See Adele King 1980 and Hale 1982.

43. Diabaté 1970a, 1970b, 1975, 1986. The Maninka version is given with an interlinear translation in Moser 1974.

44. The essays of David Conrad (1984, 1985, 1992, 1994, 1995a, and 1998 [forthcoming]) provide valuable analyses of the Sunjata tradition. Conrad is also editing texts collected in Upper Guinea that will vastly expand the material available.

45. The mention of Eden, as in Johnson 1986, would be an Islamic intrusion. Do and Kri are two of the states that pre-existed the Manden. Do or Du is the site of the “Buffalo-Woman” episode.

46. For instance, in Tradition historique peul.

References

On the list of references, items marked with an asterisk (∗) represent primary sources (i.e., they contain, in some form, material from the oral tradition) ….

∗Adam, M. G. 1904. Légendes historiques du pays de Nioro (Sahel). Paris: Augustin Challamel.

∗Arnaud, Robert. 1912. “La singulière légendes des Soninkés: Traditions orales sur le royaume de Koumbi.” In L'Islam et la politique musulmane en Afrique occidentale française. Paris: Comité de l'Afrique Française. Pp. 156-84.

Austen, Ralph, ed. Forthcoming. In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature, and Performance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Ba, Adame Konare. 1983. Sunjata: Le fondateur de l'empire du Mali. Libreville: Lion.

Barber, Karin, and Paolo F. de Moraes Farias. 1989. Discourse and Its Disguises: The Interpretation of African Oral Texts. Birmingham: Center of West African Studies.

Belcher, Stephen. 1985. “Stability and Change: Praise-Poetry and Narrative Traditions in the Epics of Mali.” Ph.D. diss., Brown University.

———. 1991. “Sunjata, Sumanguru, and Mothers.” Paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, St. Louis, Mo.

Bird, Charles. 1971. “Oral Art in the Mande.” In Hodge 1971. Pp. 15-25.

———. 1972b. “Heroic Songs of the Mande Hunters.” In Dorson 1972. Pp. 275-93.

Bird, Charles, and Martha Kendall. 1980. “The Mande Hero: Text and Context.” In Explorations in African Systems of Thought, ed. Ivan Karp and Charles Bird. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pp. 14-26.

Bulman, Stephen. 1989. “The Buffalo-Woman Tale: Political Imperatives and Narrative Constraints in the Sunjata Epic.” In Barber and de Moraes Farias 1989. Pp. 171-88.

———. 1990. Interpreting Sunjata: A Comparative Analysis and Exegesis of the Malinke Epic. Ph.D. diss., University of Birmingham.

———. 1997. “A Checklist of Published Versions of the Sunjata Epic.” History in Africa 24:71-94.

———. Forthcoming. “Sunjata as Written Literature: The Role of the Literary Mediator in the Dissemination of the Epic.” In Austen forthcoming.

∗Camara, Sydou. 1974. Kambili. Ed. and trans. Charles Bird, Bourama Soumaoro, Gerald Cashion, and Mamadou Kante. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.

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