Sundiata

Mandingo founder of Mali (r. 1235-1255)

• Born: c. 1215
• Birthplace: Near the confluence of the Niger and Sankarani rivers, Kingdom of Kangaba (now in Guinea)
• Died: c. 1255
• Place of death: Near Niani, Kingdom of Mali (now in Guinea)

Founder of the thirteenth century empire of Mali in the western Sudan, Sundiata became the unifying cultural figure for the Mandingo peoples of West Africa.

Early Life

Sundiata (soon-DYAH-tah) is mentioned in written sources by medieval Arabs, but his life is best known from the oral epic poetry of his descendants, the Mandingo peoples of West Africa. That poetry, sung by hereditary performers commonly known as griots (or as jeli or djeli in Mandingo), is filled with contradictory and mythical accounts of Sundiata’s life and deeds. While many details of this tradition must be dismissed as exaggerated, a biographical sketch of the historical Sundiata emerges from the griot’s song.

Great attention is given to names and their meanings in Mandingo epics, where names may vary in form from region to region and version to version. Sundiata’s name, for example, is alternately spelled Soundiata, Sundiata, Son-Jara, and Sun-Jata. According to various interpretations, sundjata means Prince Lion or Thief Lion. In the Arabic sources, he is known as Mari Jata, or Lord Lion. Association with the lion gives Sundiata the power and authority of this beast, which is considered both physically and spiritually powerful in Mandingo culture. Other names in the tradition illustrate a similar variation and significance.

Genealogies are also important for the Mandingo. The oral tradition of Sundiata associates his lineage with Islam and with certain families, such as the Konnatés, Keitas, and Kondés, who are still prominent in the modern Mandingo world. Thus, Sundiata’s father, whose name is usually given as some variation on Maghan Kon Fatta, or Fatta Magan, the Handsome, can trace his ancestry back to the African Bilali, companion of the Prophet Muḥammad and one of the first converts to Islam. The immediate predecessor of Sundiata’s father is sometimes said to have been the first Muslim ruler of the area and a maker of a hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. Through his mother, Sugulun, Sundiata is related to the Kondés and associated with traditional African religious beliefs, such as fetishism and animism.

Sundiata’s father was a local ruler in the Mandingo heartland on the border between the modern nations of Guinea and Mali. He took Sugulun as one of his several wives. She is described in the tradition as a deformed or ugly woman from the region of Du (Do) near the modern city of Ségou, Mali. Sundiata, born about 1215, is usually said to have been a younger son of his father but his mother’s firstborn.

In his infancy and childhood, Sundiata was a weak and crippled youth who did not walk until an advanced age and showed little promise. The death of his father during this period left the lame Sundiata and his foreign mother vulnerable to the scorn and mistreatment of his older half brothers. At the same time, his whole family suffered from the cruel oppression of Sumanguru Kanté, king of the Susu, near modern Bamako, at whose hands all Sundiata’s elder brothers are said to have been killed or defeated in battle. As a teenager, Sundiata left his home to escape either the dangers of family rivalry or, perhaps, Sumanguru. After a period of wandering, he was a guest of Tunkara, who was the king of Mema, a Soninke state located on the border of modern Mauritania and Mali.

Life’s Work

In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, West Africa experienced a severe population upheaval and political fragmentation caused by the waning of the power of Wagadu. Located on the borders of the Sahara Desert, Wagadu is often identified with the great empire of ancient Ghana. This major movement of peoples, often called the Soninke dispersion, included the migration of the Susu from Ghana where the ancestors of their ruler, Sumanguru, were said to have been members of the slave class. As the strongest king in the region, Sumanguru took advantage of the power vacuum, according to Arabic sources, by attacking Ghana and reducing it to slavery around 1203. He then moved to subdue the region to the south, including Sundiata’s homeland. In this conflict, Sumanguru defeated Sundiata’s older half brother Dankaran, who then sought refuge in the region of Kissidougou in Guinea, where many inhabitants still claim descent from him.

Sumanguru’s ruthlessness and cruelty is illustrated in the tradition by two crimes, the theft of Sundiata’s griot and the abduction of the wife of his own nephew, Fa Koli. Both these actions galvanized opposition to Sumanguru, encouraged Fa Koli to break with his uncle, and sent some Mandingo to seek the help of the exiled Sundiata.

From exile, Sundiata organized an army against Sumanguru. His allies included Fa Koli and Fran Kamara, from the mountainous Fouta Djallon region of modern Guinea. Sundiata’s sister, Sukulung Kulukang, is also thought to have played an important role in her brother’s war by marrying Sumanguru and robbing state secrets from her husband. Around 1235, Sundiata’s army defeated the forces of Sumanguru, and Sumanguru himself is said to have disappeared mysteriously in the hills near Koulikoro. After this victory, many Susu refugees fled to the region of modern Sierra Leone, where their descendants still live.

Following the defeat of Sumanguru, Sundiata oversaw a great gathering of the clans at Ka-ba, the traditional center of the Mandingo world. There each chief swore allegiance to Sundiata as mansa, or king, and was granted authority over his own province. For the first time, the various Mandingo peoples were organized under one head; this assembly is thus considered to mark the beginning of the ancient empire of Mali. About this time, Sundiata also established a new capital for his empire, probably near modern Niani, Guinea. This city was well known to medieval Arab travelers and was inhabited for several hundred years. Its exact location, however, remains the subject of scholarly debate.

Sundiata’s position in West Africa’s great religious conflict between Islam and animism is uncertain. The Arabic sources consistently refer to Sundiata as a Muslim, but in the oral tradition, he exhibits both Islamic and animistic features. As a result, some twentieth century scholars have referred to Sundiata as an animist, while others consider him a champion of Islam against fetishism.

Around 1240, Sundiata led a successful military expedition against the weakened power of Ghana and incorporated this kingdom into his growing empire. During his reign, Sundiata may also have begun a policy of commercial and political expansion along the Gambia River. After the defeat of Sumanguru, Tira Makhang, Sundiata’s greatest general, is said to have gone as far west as the Gambia and to have founded several towns in that area.

In his later years, Sundiata apparently led no military campaigns but pursued the life of a farmer, a noble occupation that has remained for centuries the mark of a free Mandingo warrior. There are several versions of his death, many mythical in nature. The most common tale is that he was accidentally killed by an arrow at a festival held in his capital city. In Mandingo oral tradition, the deaths of great men are usually shrouded in mystery, but cult shrines in Sundiata’s memory have long existed along the Sankarani River near Niani.

Sundiata founded not only an empire but also a dynasty. According to Arab sources, Sundiata was succeeded by his son Mansa Uli, who is said to have made a hajj in or around the years 1260-1277. Since succession from brother to brother rather than from father to son is not unusual in Mandingo culture, Uli was followed in succession by each of his two brothers. Sundiata’s greatest descendant was Mansa Mūsā, who reigned from 1312 to 1337 and whose pilgrimage to Mecca was so spectacular that word of it reached even contemporary Europeans. Members of the Keita family, as descendants of Sundiata, continued to rule in this region for centuries after his death. The first president of modern Mali, Modibo Keita, was also a member of this important family.

Significance

Sundiata was a great military leader and conqueror. His victories over Sumanguru and Ghana mark the beginning of the Malian Empire, which, at its height in the fourteenth century, stretched from Senegal and the Gambia on the Atlantic Ocean to Gao and Es-Souk on the Sahara Desert and controlled the gold and salt trade across the desert. The empire of Mali lasted until the fifteenth century, when its authority was replaced by the Songhai of Gao, under the leadership of Sonni (or Sunni) ՙAlī. The Mandingo heartland and Sundiata’s capital of Mali remained independent until a Bambara prince seized the region in about 1670.

As founder of the empire of Mali, Sundiata is known as the father of the Mandingo world. His military conquests and policy of political expansion began the great geographic growth of the Mandingo, who form a major cultural and linguistic group in modern West Africa. As the victor over the ruthless Sumanguru, Sundiata is considered by the Mandingo to have been their first great liberator and champion of the oppressed.

Sundiata has continued to serve as a major unifying element in Mandingo culture. His genealogy has established a system of kinship and interfamily obligations on which Mandingo society has operated for centuries. For example, the ancient conflict between Sundiata and Sumanguru still affects relationships between their descendants, the Keitas and the Kantés. The religious ambiguity of Sundiata, who can be seen as both animist and Muslim in the oral tradition, reflects West Africa’s tendency toward religious assimilation. Through the oral poetry linked with Sundiata’s name, the Mandingo, who live in wide areas of modern Mali, Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea, have managed to preserve an intense sense of cultural cohesion over great spatial and temporal distances.

Bibliography

Conrad, David C., ed. Epic Ancestors of the Sunjata Era: Oral Tradition from the Maninka of Guinea. Illustrated by Mohamed Chejan Kromah and Sidiki Doumbia. Madison, Wis.: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, 1999. Includes map, illustrations, bibliographical references.

Fage, J. D. A History of West Africa: An Introductory Survey. 4th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969. A standard history of the region with specific discussion of the rise of the empire of Mali and the life of Sundiata. Several excellent maps are included as well as a useful annotated bibliography arranged according to period.

Innes, Gordon. Sunjata: Three Mandika Versions. London: University of London, 1974. This publication contains three versions of the story of Sundiata from The Gambia in the original Mandingo with parallel English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes.

Johnson, John William. The Epic of Son-Jara: A West African Tradition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. An English translation of an oral performance of the epic transcribed under careful ethnographic conditions. Includes an excellent introduction to Mandingo culture and epic poetry, explanatory notes, genealogical charts, illustrations, and an extensive annotated bibliography.

Johnson, John William. The Epic of Sun-Jata According to Magan Sisòkò. Bloomington, Ind.: Bloomington Folklore Publications Group, 1979. An oral performance of Sunjata is here translated and annotated. The singer of this version is the son of the performer of Johnson’s 1986 variant. Many notes found in this version are repeated word for word in the 1986 text.

Laye, Camara. The Guardian of the Word. New York: Vintage Books, 1984. This literary reworking of the epic by an important Guinean author was first published in French in 1978. One map is included.

Levtzion, Nehemia. Ancient Ghana and Mali. New York: Methuen and Co., 1973. This detailed history of the area pays particular attention to the rise of the empire of Mali and its founder and includes a good summary of the oral tradition of Sundiata’s life along with a comprehensive bibliography.

Niane, Djebril T. “Mali and the Second Mandingo Expansion.” In UNESCO General History of Africa. Vol. 4, Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries. Paris: UNESCO, 1984. Part of an excellent universal history of Africa, this article analyzes the history of the empire of Mali, the life of Sundiata, and the archaeological evidence for his capital at Niani with maps and photographs of sites and archaeological finds.

Niane, Djebril T. Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali. Translated by G. D. Pickett. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1965. An eminent scholar of early Mali, publishing this literary version of the epic at the time of the African independence movement, introduced the epic into the mainstream of Western literature. A map and some explanatory notes are included in this English translation of Niane’s French adaptation of the oral epic.

Pageard, Robert. “Soundiata Keita and the Oral Tradition.” Présence africaine 8 (1961): 53-72. An essay review of Niane’s book in the English edition of this periodical with a highly politicized but thorough analysis of the oral tradition of Sundiata.

Suso, Bamba, and Banna Kanute, eds. Sunjata: Gambian Versions of the Mande Epic. Translated and annotated by Gordon Innes with the assistance of Bakari Sidibe, edited with a new introduction and additional notes by Lucy Duran and Graham Furniss. London: Penguin, 1999. A reprint of the English translations published in 1974 by London’s School of Oriental and African Studies as Sunjata.

Wisniewski, David. Sundiata: Lion King of Mali. New York: Clarion Books, 1992. Designed for young readers, the story of Sundiata, who overcame physical and social obstacles to rule Mali. Illustrated.