¹ Monteil, V., ‘Al-Bakrī (Cordoue, 1068), Routier de l'Afrique blanche et noire du Nord-ouest’, Bull. de l'IFAN, sér. B, XXX, i (1968), 74.Google Scholar

² Mauny, R., Monteil, V. V et al. , Textes et Documents Relatifs à l'Histoire de l'Afrique. Extraits tirés des Voyages d'Ibn Baṭṭūta (Dakar, 1966), 46–7.Google Scholar For the location of Zāghārī in the Sokolo area see Hunwick, J. O, ‘The mid-fourteenth-century capital of Mali’, J. Afr. Hist. XIV, ii (1973), 203.Google Scholar

³ Mauny, et al. , Textes et Documents, 57.Google Scholar

⁴ Dozy, R. and de Goeje, M. J., Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne (Leyde, 1866), 6–8.Google Scholar For a recent discussion of al-Idrīsī's Western Sudanese geography, see McIntosh, S. K,‘A Reconsideration of Wangara/Pololus, Island of Gold’, in J. Afr. Hist. XXII, ii (1980).Google Scholar

⁵ A version of al-Idrīsī's work was certainly known to the Wangara community in Kano in the mid-seventeenth century: see Al-Hajj, M., ‘A seventeenth century chronicle on the origins and missionary activities of the Wangarawa’, Kano Studies, I, iv (1968), 7–16.Google Scholar

⁶ Ta'rīkh al-fattash: see Houdas, O. and Delafosse, M., Tarikh el-Fettach (Paris, 1913)Google Scholar, Arabic text 38, French translation 65.

⁷ Niane, D. T, Sundiata: an Epic of Old Mali (London, 1965), 3.Google Scholar

⁸ Mauny, R., ‘The question of Ghana’, Africa, XXIV, iii (1954), 209.Google Scholar

⁹ Watson, A., ‘Back to gold – and silver’, Economic History Review, ser. 2, XX, i (1967), 1–7, 21.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid. 27.

¹¹ Ibid. 14 (italics original).

¹² Levtzion, N., Ancient Ghana and Mali (London, 1973), 142–3, 162–3.Google Scholar

¹³ Watson, , ‘Back to gold’, 16–20.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid. 32–4.

¹⁵ Braudel, F., ‘Monnaies et civilisation: de l'or du Soudan à l'argent d'Amérique’, Annates. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, I, i (1946), 12–13.Google Scholar

¹⁶ João De Barros, Asia, in Crone, G. R, The Voyage of Cadamosto (London, 1937), 109–10.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See ‘The northern factor in Ashanti history: Begho and the Mande’, and ‘A medieval trade-route from the Niger to the Gulf of Guinea’, J. Afr. Hist., II, i (1961)Google Scholar and iii, ii (1962). The present paper was commenced in 1962. Versions of it were read at Northwestern University, 18 Oct. 1965, Boston University, 22 Oct. 1965, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 20 Feb. 1969. Many of the arguments advanced have by now become widely accepted, but considerable confusion still exists on some matters. I have therefore been prompted to revise the paper for publication.

¹⁸ João De Barros; in Crone, , Voyage of Cadamosto, 115.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Duarte Pacheco Pereira: see Mauny, R., Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis (Bissau, 1956), 123Google Scholar, and comment by Lawrence, A. W, Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (London, 1963). 25.Google Scholar

²⁰ Vogt, J., Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast 1469–1682 (Athens, Georgia, 1979), 66, 217–20.Google Scholarde Magalhães Godinho, V., L'Économie de l'Empire Portugais aux XVe et XVIe siècles (Paris, 1969), 228–243.Google ScholarRyder, A. F. C., ‘The Portuguese in West Africa’, paper presented to the Third Conference on African History and Archaeology, S.O.A.S., University of London, 1961.Google Scholar

²¹ Duarte Pacheco Pereira, in Mauny, , Esmeraldo, 122–3.Google ScholarBlake, J. W, Europeans in West Africa, 1450–1560 (London, 1942), 1, 93.Google Scholar

²² See Mauny, , Esmeraldo, 123–5.Google Scholar The alternative name given for the Adanse, ‘Souzo(s)’, is obscure, though a form such as asuoso would represent a perfectly good Akan toponym.

²³ Th. Monod, , Mota, A. Teixeira da and Mauny, R., Description de la Côte Occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels, par Valentim Fernandes (1506–1510) (Bissau, 1951), 46–7.Google Scholar

²⁴ Blake, , Europeans in West Africa, 1, 240.Google Scholar

²⁵ See recently, for example, Garrard, T. F, Akan Weights and the Gold Trade (London, 1980), 25.Google Scholar

²⁶ Rui da Pina, in Blake, , Europeans in West Africa, 1, 73.Google Scholar De Barros, in Crone, , Voyage of Cadamosto, 114–23.Google Scholar Archives of Propaganda Fide, Rome, Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali: Scritture Originali, series i, vol. 103, fos. 85–6, ‘Relatione de' Christiani della Mina’.

²⁷ Silveira, L., Edição Nova do Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné feito pelo Capitão André Alvares D'Almada (Lisbon, 1946), 33.Google Scholar The elephant is considered by the Akan pre-eminent among the beasts, and the elephant tail is the symbol of achievement: see Wilks, I., ‘The Golden Stool and the Elephant Tail: an Essay on Wealth in Asante’, in Dalton, G. (ed.), Research in Economic Anthropology, II (Greenwich, Connecticut, 1979), 16.Google Scholar

²⁸ See for example, Diogo d'Alvarenga to King Manuel I of Portugal, dated Elmina, 18 Aug. 1503, in Blake, , Europeans in West Africa, 1, 96.Google Scholar

²⁹ Wilks, I.,‘The Mande Loan Element in Twi’, Ghana Notes and Queries, 4, (01–06 1952), 26–8.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Garrard, Akan Weights, ch. 7, and for a discussion of other possible borrowings of weight names, 269–71.

³¹ See De Marrees, P., Beschryvinghe ende Historische Verhael van het Gout Koninckrijk van Gunea (Amsterdam, 1602).Google Scholar

³² For example, Angelino Dulcert (1339) and Abraham Cresques (1375): see Ch. Roncière, de la, La Découverte de l'Afrique au Moyen Age (Cairo, 1925), 1Google Scholar, plates vii and XI.

³³ Crone, , Voyage of Cadamosto, 144–5.Google Scholar

³⁴ Niani on the Sankarani is generally regarded as having been the Malian capital, but see Hunwick, ‘The Mid-Fourteenth Century Capital of Mali’.

³⁵ For some discussion of this see Premier Colloque International de Bamako 27 Janvier-i^er Février 1975. Actes du Colloque, Fondation SCOA pour la recherche scientifique en Afrique Noir (Projet Boucle du Niger), 79–80.Google Scholar

³⁶ Ta'rīkh al-fattash, ed. Houdas and Delafosse, Arabic text 38, French translation 65. The passage also mentions a ‘supreme Sultan’; this is clearly a reference to God, though at some time, presumably for political reasons, the gloss ‘this is the Sultan of Istanbul’ was inserted into one text.

³⁷ Crone, , Voyage of Cadamosto, 85–90.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid. 21–3.

³⁹ It appeared to Cà da Mosto unlikely that there would be a market for salt on the coast. This presupposes that salt was produced in adequate quantities from the coastal lagoons at the time, and fails to take account of the preference, in view of the humidity of the climate, for the Saharan rock salt over the powdered product of the lagoons.

⁴⁰ de Cenival, P. and Monod, Th., Description de la Côte d'Afrique de Ceuta au Sénégal par Valentim Fernandes (1506–1507) (Paris, 1938), 84–5.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid. 86–7.

⁴² Idem.

⁴³ Ibid. 88–9. Crone, , Voyage of Cadamosto, 23 n.Google Scholar For a recent consideration of dumb barter, see de Moraes Farias, P. F., ‘Silent trade: myth and historical evidence’, History in Africa, I (1974).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Mauny, R., Tableau géographique de l'Ouest africain au moyen âge (Dakar, 1961), 358–60.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Blake, , Europeans in West Africa, 1, 13–14.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Mauny, , Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, 50–3.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ibid. 64–5.

⁴⁸ Ibid. 66–7.

⁴⁹ It seems likely that Pacheco was told that the goldfields lay forty journeys from Mali, and that he estimated the journey to be five leagues. Had he used a more realistic figure of a journey of three leagues, his calculation of the distance would have been accurate.

⁵⁰ Delafosse, M., La Langue Mandingue et ses dialectes, II (Paris, 1955), 760.Google Scholar For a mid-nineteenth-century reference in a Hausa context to ‘Tonawa or Asanti’ see Barth, H., Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (3 vols. New York, 1857–1859), III369.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Renaud, H. P. J., ‘La première mention de la noix de Kola dans la matière médicale des Arabes’, Hespéris, VIII (1928), 43.Google Scholar Al-Ghassânī notes that kola is known as gūru, with three points under the qāf. In various Malinke dialects the name of the nut is wuro, woro, guro and, in Hausa, goro.

⁵² ‘Abd al-Raḥman al-Sa‘di, Ta'rikh al-Sūdān: see Houdas, O., Tarikh es-Soudan (Paris, 1911)Google Scholar, Arabic text 11–12, French translation 22–3.

⁵³ Ta'rikh al-fattash, ed. Houdas and Delafosse, Arabic 39, French 68, and compare Arabic 48, French 94. Also Ta'rīkh al-Sūdān, ed. Houdas, Arabic 21, French 37.

⁵⁴ Hunwick, J. O, ‘A new source for the biography of Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī (1556–1627)’, B.S.O.A.S. XXVII, iii (1964), 572.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ G. Dieterlen, ‘Mythe et organisation sociale au Soudan Français’, and ‘Mythe et organisation sociale en Afrique Occidentale’, Journal de la Société des Africanistes, XXV, i–ii (1955)Google Scholar and xxix, i (1959); ‘The Mande creation myth’, Africa, XXVII, ii (1957).Google Scholar See also Zahan, D., ‘Aperçu sur la pensée théogonique des Dogon’, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, VI (1949), 131Google Scholar and note.

⁵⁶ Delafosse, M., Haut-Sénégal-Niger (Soudan français) (Paris, 1912), 1, 279Google Scholar note. Bernus, E., ‘Kong et sa région’, Études Eburnéennes, VIII (1960), 255.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ I worked in the Juula communities of Ghana, Ivory Coast and Upper Volta between 1959 and 1968. Field notes are available for consultation at the Melville J. Herskovits Africana Library, Northwestern University.

⁵⁸ Tauxier, L., Le Noir de Bondoukou (Paris, 1921), 439–40.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Denham, D., Clapperton, H. and Oudney, W., Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa (2nd edition, London, 1826), 11, 331Google Scholar and facing map.

⁶⁰ Binger, L. G, Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée (Paris, 1892), 11, 162.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Clozel, F.-J. and Villamur, R., LesCoutumes Indigenès de la Côte d'Ivoire (Paris, 1902), 32.Google Scholar

⁶² In Clozel, F.-J., Dix Ans à la Côte d'lvoire (Paris, 1906), 190.Google Scholar

⁶³ Delafosse, , Haut-Sénégal-Niger, 11, 211–12.Google Scholar There are numerous references to Nsoko (‘Insoko’, ‘Enzoko’, etc.) in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European sources. After the collapse of Bighu the greater part of the Bron community resettled at the town still known as Nsawkaw.

⁶⁴ Tauxier, , Le Noir de Bondoukou, 70.Google ScholarMarty, P., Études sur l'Islam en Côte d'Ivoire (Paris, 1922), 222.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Wilks, field notes, FN/i: interview dated 22 June 1966. Seku Khalidu was born in Buna, probably about 1880. He gives his descent as Khalidu b. Idrīs b. Nunga ‘Umar b. Ṣāliḥ b. Sa‘īd b. Imām Ṣaliḥ Bamba of Bighu. Imām Ṣaliḥ fled Bighu, and died in Buna; another of his descendants is Karamoko ‘Abdallāh (of Wenchi, born c. 1905) b. ‘Abd al-Qādir b. Sa‘īd b. ‘Umar b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Ṣaliḥ Bamba of Bighu. See Wilks, field notes, FN/78: interview dated 18 July 1966.

⁶⁶ Wilks, field notes, FN/7: interview with Hanihene Kofi Ampofo II, Kyeame Yaw Asare, et al., dated 12 Dec. 1963.

⁶⁷ Posnansky, M., ‘New radiocarbon dates from Ghana’, Sankofa (1976), 62.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Crossland, L. B, ‘Excavations at Nyarko and Dwinfuor Sites of Begho–1975’, Sankofa, II (1976), 86–7.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ See Clozel, F.-J., Dix Ans à la Côte d'Ivoire, 185–6.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Posnansky, , ‘New Radiocarbon Dates’, 61–2.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Posnansky, M., ‘Archaeology, technology and Akan civilization’, Journal of African Studies, II, i (1975), 28.Google Scholar

⁷² 1 base this upon interviews carried out by al-ḤHājj ‘Uthmān b. Isḥāq Boyo of the Institute of African Studies, Legon, in 1965.

⁷³ The language presently spoken by the Hwela differs little from the Ligbi of the Bamba and the Numu of the smiths. For the Hwela see, for example, Wilks, field notes, FN/49 and FN/79, interviews with Karamoko Ya‘qūb Kamaghatay of Namasa, 19 Dec. 1959 and ii Dec. 1963.

⁷⁴ Willett, F.,‘A survey of recent results in the radiocarbon chronology of western and northern Africa’, J. Afr. Hist. XII, iii (1971), 364.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Bravmann, R. A and Mathewson, R. D, ‘A note on the history and archaeology of “Old Bima”’, Afr. Hist. Stud. III, (1970).Google Scholar R. D Mathewson, personal communications, 5 Sept. and 18 Oct. 1967.

⁷⁶ N‘Diayé, Bokar, Les Castes au Mali (Bamako, 1970), 66–8.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Benquey, in Clozel, , Dix Ans à la Côte d'lvoire, 185–6.Google Scholar See also National Archives of Ghana, Kumase, File D. 216: Fell, T. E., Notes on the History of Banda, 15 07 1913.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Wilks, field notes, FN/71: interview with Karamoko Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm of Bonduku and Domaa Ahenkro, 17 June 1966. The ‘custodian’ of the manuscript was al-Ḥājj Fatigi Kamaghatay of Bonduku, but Karamoko Yūsuf explicated it in his status as ‘knowledge man for Fatigi, his uncle’. A copy of the work is accessioned as IASAR/79, Arabic Collection, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.

⁷⁹ Wilks, field notes, FN/i: interview of 22 June 1966 cited above.

⁸⁰ Ta'rikh al-Sūdān, ed. Houdas, Arabic text 16–18, French translation 30. Monteil, C., ‘Notes sur le Tarikh es-Soudan’, Bull. de l'IFAN, sér. B, XXVII, iii-iv (1965), 490.Google Scholar

⁸¹ See Mauny, et al. , Textes et Documents, 47.Google Scholar

⁸² Wilks, I., ‘The transmission of Islamic learning in the western Sudan’, in Goody, J. (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968), 162–97.Google Scholar See also Hunter, T. C, ‘The development of an Islamic tradition of learning among the Jahanka of West Africa’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1977)Google Scholar, especially chapter 2.

⁸³ Wilks, , ‘Transmission’, 196.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Wilks, field notes, FN/71, interview of 17 June 1966, cited above.

⁸⁵ Wilks, field notes, FN/i, interview of 22 June 1966, cited above.

⁸⁶ Renouard, G. C, ‘Routes in North Africa, by Abū Bekr eṣs ṣiddīk’, J. Royal Geogr. Soc. VI (1836), 100–13.Google ScholarMadden, R. R, Twelve Months Residence in the West Indies (London, 1837), 11, 183–9.Google ScholarWilks, I., ‘Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq of Timbuktu’, in Curtin, P. (ed.), Africa Remembered (Madison, Milwaukee and London, 1967), 152–69.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Barth, , Travels, III, 496.Google Scholar