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Sangalan Oral Traditions as Philosophy and Ideologies1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Mohamed Saidou N'Daou*
Affiliation:
Chicago State University

Extract

Sangalan is located in northeast Guinea in the région of MaliYambering. It was a federation of groups of villages, consisting of three taane (kafo in Malinke, districts or groups of villages): Dombiya, Uyukha, and Djulabaya. To these three taane correspond three ethnic subgroups, the Dombiyanne, Uyukhanne, and Djulabayanne. The Dombiyanne were mostly the Keita families; the Uyukhanne the Camara; and the Djulabayanne the Nyakhasso. The people of Sangalan are Dialonka—those living in Sangalan are called the Sangalanka. They are originally all from Dialonkadougou, at first a province of the Soso empire founded and ruled by Sumanguru Kante, and later a province of the empire of Mali, created by Sundiata Keita in the thirteenth century. The Sangalanka call themselves “Sosoe Forine” (Old Sosoe), the Sosoe who lived on the high mountains (dialon) of both the Soso and Manden empires. They call the other Sosoe, living along the Guinean coast, Bani Sosone (Sosoe of the Coast, near the water). The Soso Forine and Bani Sosone lived in the Futa Jallon and were driven away by the Fulani invaders in the eighteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1999

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Footnotes

1

Versions of this paper have been presented at the First International Symposium: West Africa and the Global Challenge, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, 22-28 June 1997, and the annual meeting of the African Studies Association. Columbus, 13-16 November 1997. Among the many informants who helped me in the field, I would like to thank in particular El Hadji Bacar Keita, Samoura Dansokho, Ahmadou Keita, Batourou Nyakhasso, Salematou Camara, and Danfaga Aissatou. I thank them for adopting me as their Dialonka son and initiating me into what they call “the secrets of the spirit of the Dialonka people.”

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