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A Checklist of Published Versions of the Sunjata Epic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Stephen P.D. Bulman
Stephen P.D. Bulman*
Affiliation:
Newman College, Birmingham
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Extract

This checklist of published versions of the Sunjata epic aims to include the widest possible corpus of written variants of the Mande tradition available through publishers, libraries, and in unpublished higher degree dissertations. It builds upon the work of Guy Tombs, Stephen Belcher, John Johnson, David Conrad and Ralph Austen. Entries are arranged alphabetically, by the name of thejeli (griot or bard, plural jeliw) or writer. Included in each entry are (1) the bibliographical reference (and subsequent references if the item has been republished or published in a translation or excerpted form); (2) the name of the performer (or writer); (3) details of the location and date of the performance; (4) details of the recorders) and translators); (5) the format of the published version (including the language(s) and the type of translation); and (6) the coverage of the published version. Coverage is indicated by use of a simple five-fold division of material traditionally included within the epic:

  1. 1. Paternal ancestry of Sunjata—links with the Middle East, Bilali, the Three Simbons, etc.

  2. 2. Buffalo-woman tale

  3. 3. Birth and childhood of Sunjata

  4. 4. Exile of Sunjata

  5. 5. Return and war with Sumanguru

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 24 , January 1997 , pp. 71 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1997

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References

Notes

I wish to thank Ralph Austen, Stephen Belcher, David Conrad, Paulo Farias, and the interlibrary loan staff of the Library of the University of Birmingham for their help in locating obscure versions of the Sunjata epic. I am grateful to Jan Jansen for providing details on the Sunjata recordings he has made in Mali. David Conrad also most kindly provided details of oral performances from Guinea he is shortly to publish, while Tim Geysbeek graciously gave me his translation of forthcoming Guinean versions of Sunjata he had recorded.

1. I have not included vinyl, tape, or compact disc recordings of jeliw, which often include songs (fasaw) about Sunjata or other figures associated with the epic. See, e.g., An Be Kelen/We Are One: Griot Music from Mali (Pan Records, Leiden, Netherlands, 2015 CD, 1994).Google Scholar

2. Austen, R. A., “Africans Speak, Colonialism Writes: The Transcription of Oral Literature Before World War II,” Cahiers de Littérature Orale, 28 (1990), 29–53Google Scholar; Belcher, S. P., “Stability and Change: Praise Poetry and Narrative Tradition in the Epic of Mali” (PhD., Brown University, 1985)Google Scholar; Conrad, D. C., “Oral Sources on Links between Great States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga,” HA, 11 (1984), 35–55Google Scholar; idem., “Searching for History in the Sunjata Epic: The Case of Fakoli,” HA, 19 (1992), 147-200; Johnson, J. W., The Epic of Son-Jara: A West African Tradition (Bloomington, 1986), 227–239Google Scholar; Tombs, G., “An Historical Interpretation of the Sundiata Epic,” M.A., Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 1978.Google Scholar

3. Where the performer is unknown, versions are listed by recorder.

4. Different editions of the same performance or literary reworking of the Sunjata epic are arranged chronologically and given consecutive numbers. Consecutive lower-case letters within an entry refer to different performances by the same jeli. Where a jeli's name is given in capitals in an entry it indicates a cross-reference to another entry in the checklist.

5. More detail on many of the versions, their performers and coverage is given in Bulman, S. P. D., “Interpreting Sunjata: A Comparative Analysis and Exegesis of the Malinke Epic” (Ph.D., Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 1990)Google Scholar, and idem., “Sunjata as Written Literature: The Role of the Literary Mediator in the Dissemination of the Sunjata Epic” in In Search of Sunjata: the West African Epic as History, Literature and Performance, ed. R. A. Austen (Bloomington, forthcoming).