¹ Hunwick, J. O., ‘The mid-fourteenth Century Capital of Mali’, F. Afr. Hist., xiv (1973), 205.Google Scholar

² Hiskett, Mervyn, The Development of Islam in West Africa (London and New York, 1984), 29.Google Scholar Niani is located on the Sankarani river in eastern Guinea near the border it shares with Mali. The erroneous placement on the Niger originates with Maurice Delafosse: Mohmoud Kati (wrote c. 1519) and al-Mukhtar, Ibn (wrote c. 1665), Tarikh el-Fettach, Arabic text and French translation by Houdas, O. and Delafosse, M. (Paris, 1913), 66 n. 2.Google Scholar

³ Murphy, E. Jefferson, History of African Civilization (New York, 1972), 412.Google Scholar Also, Shillington, Kevin, History of Africa (New York, 1989), 95–7Google Scholar; McKay, John P., Hill, Bennett D. and Buckler, John, A History of World Societies (3rd ed., Boston and Toronto, 1992), 472.Google Scholar

⁴ Levtzion, N. and Hopkins, J. F. P. (eds. ), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge, 1981), 411 n. 25.Google Scholar

⁵ Mande (or Manding) is a linguistic term which includes the interrelated Soninke, Bamana, Malinke, Dyula, Khasonke and Koranko among others: Greenberg, Joseph H., The Languages of Africa (Bloomington, 1966).Google Scholar

⁶ Cooley, W. D., The Negroland of the Arabs (London, 1841), 79–82Google Scholar; Binger, L. G., Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée (2 vols. ) (Paris, 1892), i, 56–7.Google Scholar

⁷ Delafosse, Maurice, Haul-Sénégal-Niger (3 vols. ) (Paris, 1912), ii, 173.Google Scholar For a discussion of Kangaba in the context of legitimizing claims by Mandekan speakers of peripheral areas that their ancestors came from Kangaba, and the accompanying claim that it was the capital of the Mali empire, see Green, Kathryn L., ‘“Mande Kaba”, the capital of Mali: a recent invention?’, History in Africa, xviii (1991), 127–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Gaillard, M., ‘Niani, ancienne capitale de l'empire mandingue’, Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de I'Afrique Occidentale française, VIII (1923), 620–36Google Scholar; Vidal, J., ‘Au sujet de l'emplacement de Mali (ou Melli) capitale de l'ancient empire mandingue’. Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de I'Afrique Occidentale française, viii (1923), 251–68 and 606–19Google Scholar; Delafosse, M., ‘Le Gâna et le Mali et l'emplacement de leurs capitales,’ Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de I'Afrique Occidentale française, IX (1924), 479–542.Google Scholar

⁹ Niane, D. T., Recherches sur l'empire du Mali au moyen âge (Conakry, 1962; reprinted Paris, 1975), 74–80Google Scholar; also, Niane, D. T., ‘Mali and the second Mandingo expansion’, in Niane, D. T. (ed. ), UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. 4: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century (London, 1984), 136–45.Google Scholar In Conakry, where Niane now lives, people other than the griots seem unaware of any possible alternatives to Niani. Conversations with university professors, students, government officials and museum administrators (July-August 1991) failed to yield any lack of conviction that Niani had been the imperial capital. This appears to be a national rather than an ethnic view, because it held true for people of non-Mande origin as well as Mande. It seems possible that Niani's location in Guinea-Conakry, and Dakajalan's location in modern-day Mali, might have caused ancient Mali's capital to become an issue of national sentiment; however, I have not heard Dakajalan mentioned outside bardic discourse in either country.

¹⁰ Levtzion, Nehemia, Ancient Ghana and Mali (London, 1973; 2nd ed., 1980), 61–2.Google Scholar Upon seeing a draft of this paper, Levtzion responded that he has no quarrel with the suggestion ‘that Dakajalan could have been the town of Sunjata and that the center of the Kingdom then moved elsewhere to the capital described by the Arab travelers’. Private communication, 24 April 1992.

¹¹ Meillassoux, Claude, ‘Ré-examen de l'itinéraire d' Ibn Battuta entre Walata et Malli’ (Unpublished paper, Conference on Manding Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 06 1972).Google Scholar

¹² Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpus: Al-‘Umari quoting Al-Dukkali, 261; Ibn Battuta, 287–91Google Scholar; Ibn Khaldun, 336.

¹³ ‘Mid-fourteenth’, 203–4.

¹⁴ Private communication, 24 April 1992.

¹⁵ Susan and Roderick Mcintosh find accumulating evidence that the causes and circumstances of the development of West African urban centers varied significantly. Mcintosh, S. K. and Mcintosh, R. J., ‘The early city in West Africa: towards an understanding’, African Archaeological Review, 11 (1984), 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Vidal, J., ‘Le véritable emplacement de Mali’, Bulletin du Cotnite d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale française, vi (1923), 607.Google Scholar They named Dieriba, Niani and two that became prominent after the sixteenth century. One of these, near Figuéra (which Youssouf Cissé identifies as ‘Figuiratomo’), was probably Manikura, and other was Kangaba.

¹⁷ Trimingham, J. S. has long since concluded that the residences of sudanic rulers were continually changing: A History of Islam in West Africa (London, 1962), 65, n. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Childe, V. G., ‘The urban revolution’, Town Planning Review, xxi (1950), 3–17Google Scholar; Sjoberg, G., The Preindustrial City, Past and Present (New York, 1960)Google Scholar; Mcintosh, Roderick J., ‘Early urban clusters in China and Africa’, Journal of Field Archaeology, xviii (1991), 199–212.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For Soninke successor states, see Levtzion, , Ancient, 81.Google Scholar

²⁰ Roderick, J. and Mcintosh, Susan Keech, Prehistoric Investigations at Jenne Mali (2 vols. ) (Oxford, 1980), ii, 429.Google Scholar

²¹ Private communications with Roderick Mcintosh and Tereba Togola, November 1991 and October 1993.

²² Mansa Musa relied on diviners for the correct time to depart for Mecca on his pilgrimage in 1324: Levtzion, , Ancient, 210–11.Google Scholar

²³ The nature of such quests is reflected in a visit by a wandering Sunjata to Kamanjan Kamara at Sibi or Tabo (which Y. T. Cissé identifies as ‘Tabou’), where they match sorcery in an archery contest (Jeli Mori Kouyaté of Niagassola).

²⁴ As ‘father’ of the blaw clans (crucial to the political movement resulting in Sunjata's accession to power), Fakoli represents the loose confederation of pre-imperial chiefdoms and signals important lineage connections between Soso and Mande: his father was a chief of the Mande heartland, but his mother was of Soso: Conrad, D., ‘Searching for history in the Sunjata epic: the case of Fakoli’, History in Africa, xix (1992), 166–72.Google Scholar

²⁵ Fortunately, some still endeavor to answer these questions, e. g. Stephan Bühnen examines the Portuguese sources as he presents arguments trying to locate Soso (Susu) in the area, Futa Jalon: ‘In quest of Susu’, History in Africa, xxi (1994), forthcoming.Google Scholar

²⁶ Private communication, 22 Sept. 1993; see Susan Keech Mcintosh (ed. ), Intermediate Level Societies in Africa (forthcoming).

²⁷ McDougall, E. Ann, ‘The Sahara reconsidered: pastoralism, politics and salt from the ninth through the twelfth centuries’, African Economic History, xii (1983), 272.Google Scholar

²⁸ Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpusi, 48.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ann McDougall, private communication, 22 Oct. 1993.

³⁰ Although the foreign term ‘Ghana’ seems to have stuck, the local‘Wagadu’ is more appropriate.

³¹ The southernmost of these would have been well established by the time of greater Ghana's demise, emerging as what we tend to think of as ‘successor states’, including Soso.

³² Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpus, 80.Google Scholar For the period between Ghana and Mali characterized by ephemeral successor states, tradition describes Sumanguru's power symbols, not as the blacksmiths’ anvil and forge (scholarly literature often describes him as ‘the blacksmith king’) but as distinctly portable objects. These include a hammock lethal to anyone - other than its owner-who lay in it, as well as four ‘magic’ royal insignia that received the blood of sacrificial offerings: the balafon known as Soso Bala; the spear called Tama Marakata; the sword Muru Pambanya and the drum Dundun Murukutu (Jeli Mori Kouyaté of Niagassola; Adama Diabeté of Siguiri).

³³ Monteil, Charles, ‘Les “Ghana” des géographies arabes et des européens’, Hespéris, xxxviii (1951), 445–50.Google Scholar

³⁴ Frobenius, Leo, Atlantis VI: Spielmannsgeschichten der Sahel (Jena, 1921), 53–60.Google Scholar Ann McDougall's research.

³⁵ Conrad, D., ‘Islam in the oral traditions of Mali: Bilali and Surakata’, J. Afr. Hist., xxvi (1985), 33–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Conrad, D., ‘Maurice Delafosse and the pre-Sunjata trône du Mandé’, Bulletin of S. O. A. S., xLvi (1983), 335–7.Google Scholar

³⁷ Conrad, , ‘Searching’, 155.Google Scholar

³⁸ This pilgrimage was made sometime during the period 1260–77 (Levtzion and Hopkins [eds.], Corpus, 333, 424). The degrees of difference between the perceived religious position of father (from unreliable oral tradition) and son (from reliable dated evidence) could be less than they seem, for example, if Sunjata was more involved with Islam than oral tradition indicates, and Mansa Wali was more politically than devoutly motivated to make the pilgrimage. Levtzion's recent usage of ‘Wali’ (Corpus) is close to the Muslim name ‘Ali’, but his earlier ‘Uli’ (Ancient, 64ff. ), which Niane renders ‘Oulin’, has more affinity with what we hear from oral tradition: Yérélin Kon, Dourounin Kon (Niane, Recherches, 22) and Jurunin Kun (Jeli Mori Kouyaté of Niagassola).

³⁹ See Levtzion, , Ancient, 64–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpus, 262.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid. 262, 288. Despite the name BYTY, Al-Dukkali's description most readily calls to mind Jenne-jeno (also known by at least four other names), which is surrounded by floodwaters from September through December annually: Mcintosh, Roderick J. and Mcintosh, Susan Keech, ‘The inland Niger Delta before the empire of Mali: evidence from Jenne-jeno’, J. Afr. Hist., xxii (1981), 9–10.Google Scholar However, Al-Dukkali's city was not encircled by a wall and Jenne-jeno was, from a. d. 800 (Mcintosh, and Mcintosh, , ‘Early city,’ 91).Google Scholar

⁴² Attaching significance to towns mentioned in song or narrative can be hazardous, because it is impossible to know when they were introduced into the discourse. Also, the names of certain towns of today have been changed from what they were in ancient times: e. g. in a text recently collected in Guinea, a jeli says the ancient name for Kita was Kèlikuru, Narena was Mènèmu and Niagassola was Jenujanfe (Adama Diabaté of Siguiri).

⁴³ Roderick and Susan Mcintosh associate the Jenne of oral tradition with Jenne-jeno or ‘ancient Jenne’, the ancestor of modern Jenne. They say Jenne-jeno was abandoned around A. d. 1400: Mcintosh, Susan Keech and Mcintosh, Roderick J., ‘From stone to metal: new perspectives on the later prehistory of West Africa’, Journal of World Prehistory, ii (1988), 117.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ly-Tall, Madina, Camara, Seydou and Diouara, Bouna (eds. and trans. ), L'histoire du Mandé d'aprés Jeli Kanku Madi Jabaté de Kéla (Paris, 1987), 205, 243;Google ScholarJansen, Jan (ed. ) and Kant́, Cemako (trans. ), Siramuri Diabate et ses enfants: une étude sur deux générations des griots Malinke (Utrecht and Bamako, 1991), 38ff.Google Scholar; Montrat, M., ‘Notice sur l'emplacement de la capitale du Mali’, Notes Africaines, lxxix (1958), 92.Google Scholar Massa Makan Diabaté identifies Bantanba and Kukuba as lost cities that were populated by blacksmiths: L'aigle et l'éervier ou la geste de Sunjata (Paris, 1975), 59 n. 113.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Mid-fourteenth’, 198. This brings to mind the town of Banamba in the Beledugu region north-east of Bamako, but that is about 70 miles from the Niger.

⁴⁶ Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpus, 261–7, 290–3.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Niane, , Recherches, 39.Google Scholar Formerly located in the Mande heartland, these towns have disappeared.

⁴⁸ Information about ancient Ghana received by Al-Bakri included details about the sacred grove in the king's town (Levtzion, and Hopkins, [eds.], Corpus, 80).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ This usage occurs in a historical narrative of Mande by Jeli Mori Kouyaté of Niagassola (1988).

⁵⁰ Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpus, 337 (Ibn Khaldun).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Narena, Koura near, in Monteil, Charles, Les Bambara du Segou et du Kaarta (Paris, 1923), 270Google Scholar; Tikko on the Niger, in Dieterlen, Germaine, Essai sur la religion Bambara (Paris, 1951)Google Scholar; Nora near Siguiri, Cercle Kankan (Guinea), in Traoré, D., ‘Makanta Djigui, fondateur de la magie soudanaise’, Notes Africaines, xxxv (1947), 24Google Scholar; Satigi Soumarouo (interview at Kabaya, 2 Sept. 1975); Seydou Camara (performances at Bamako, October 1975).

⁵² Vidal, , ‘Le véritable’, 607.Google Scholar The Diabaté of Keyla give the present location of Bamako as the northern limit of the old Mande heartland. The heartland includes territory on both sides of not only the Niger but also of several other rivers, including the Sankarani, Milo, Niandan and Tinkisso.

⁵³ Tarikh el-Fettach, 66. Here both Dieriba and Niani (‘the later capital’) are said to be near a river Kala (or Kaala). Delafosse locates that west of Jenne (66, n. 3), but the Diabaté say Dieriba is far to the south near where the Milo flows into the Niger.

⁵⁴ Niane, Djibril Tamsir, Soundjata ou l‘épopée mandingue (Paris, 1960), 17, n. 1;Google Scholar English translation by Pickett, G. D., Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (London, 1965), 87, n. 7.Google Scholar Niane says Niani became known as Nianiba (‘Big Niani’) after Sunjata made it into a great city.

⁵⁵ Niane's was a pioneering effort undertaken before standards for faithfully reproducing oral texts were in place, and his text is among those referred to as ‘reconstructed’ or ‘rewritten’: John W. Johnson, The Epic of Son-jara (Bloomington, 1986), 229.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Certain textual embellishments in Niane's book indicate that to provide a source for research was not his original intention, although he himself uses it uncritically as a historical source (‘Mandingo Expansion’, 117–71). As a pioneer in the field, Niane did not choose the best method of reproducing traditional oral discourse in print (not that there is an ideal method). His rendering of Mamadou Kouyaté's performance into European-style prose includes literary phrasing and flourishes that are designed to dramatize Mali's heroic past for a non-African audience. Compare the battle scene in Niane, , Sundiata, 65Google Scholar (Fr. Soundjata, 118–19), with those in Diabaté, , L'aigle, 74Google Scholar; Innes, Gordon, Sunjata: Three Mandinka Versions (London, 1974), 71Google Scholar; Johnson, , Son-jara, 175–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The texts by Bamba Suso, Banna Kanute and Dembo Kanute (Innes, Sunjata) were soon followed by Diabaté, , L'aigle (1975)Google Scholar; Cissé, Youssouf Tata and Kamissoko, Wâ, L'empire du Mali (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar; Johnson, John W., The Epic of Sun-Jata According to Magan Sisòkò (2 vols. ) (Bloomington, 1979).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For a bibliography of variants published up to 1986, see Johnson, , Son-jara, 233–9.Google Scholar Among more than a score of variant spellings, I follow Gordon Innes in my use of ‘Sunjata’. Even with the newly available variants, the translations do not provide as wide a range of viewpoints from all regions of the Mande culture zone as would be required to make the best use of the oral sources.

⁵⁹ Vidal, , ‘Au sujet’ (1923)Google Scholar; Gaillard, , ‘Niani’ (1923)Google Scholar; Delafosse, , ‘Le Gâna’ (1924).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Filipowiak, Wladyslaw, ‘Expédition archéologique Polono-Guinéenne à Niani (Guinée)’, Africana Bulletin, ix (1966), 116–27;Google Scholar‘Contribution aux recherches sur la capitale du royaume de Mali à l’époque du Haut Moyen Āge (Afrique Occidentale)’, Archeologia Polona (1968), 217–32Google Scholar; ‘L'expédition archéologique Polono-Guinéenne à Niani, en 1968’, Africana Bulletin, XI (1969), 107–17.Google Scholar These expeditions discovered that iron production of some sort had existed on the site since the sixth century a.d.

⁶¹ McNaughton, Patrick, The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power and Art in West Africa (Bloomington, 1988), 22ff.Google Scholar

⁶² Maret, Pierre de, ‘The smith's myth and the origin of leadership in Central Africa’, in Haaland, Randi and Shinnie, Peter L. (eds. ), African Iron Working (Oslo, 1985), 76.Google Scholar

⁶³ ‘Mid-fourteenth’, 196 n. 7ff.

⁶⁴ Filipowiak, Wladyslaw, Etudes archéologiques sur la capitate médiévale du Mali (Szczecinie, 1979), 41–2, n. 103.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Filipowiak, Wladyslaw, ‘Le complex du palais royal du Mali’, in 2000 ans d'histoire africaine: le sol, la parole et l'écrit: mélanges en hommage à Raymond Mauny (2 vols. ) (Paris, 1981), i, 71–89;Google ScholarFilipowiak, W., ‘Iron working in the Old Kingdom of Mali’, in Haaland, and Shinnie, (eds. ), African Iron, 36–49.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Roderick and Susan Mcintosh describe this practice as ‘particularistic’ because ‘it describes a particular site at a particular time in reference to particular historical documents.’ They reject historical particularism in favour of emphasis on ‘the regional framework and long-term evolutionary processes of city growth [permitting] the recovery of data relevant to questions of the causes and circumstances of West African urban genesis’ (‘Early city’, 92, 94).

⁶⁷ For example, Filipowiak describes the remains of a single dwelling he found at Niani that was larger and more elaborate than its neighbors and which was encircled by a wall. In support of his conclusion that this was the ‘royal palace’, he cites al-‘Umari's mention of walls but not the accompanying remark that the king had several palaces that were enclosed by them: Filipowiak, ‘Le complex’, 75, 82; Levtzion, and Hopkins, (eds. ), Corpus, 262.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ In addition to citing Niane's Sundiata, Filipowiak tries to support a claim that Niani was chosen as Sunjata's national headquarters by referring to a chapter from Ly-Tall's thesis, which reviews the Arabic and colonial sources, Niane's Sundiata and Filipowiak himself. It ends in only qualified agreement with Niane and Filipowiak: Ly-Tall, Madina, ‘Contribution à l'histoire de l'empire du Mali (XIIIe–XVIe siècles)’ (Thèse de Doctorat, Sorbonne, 1972) (publ. Paris, 1977), 116–25.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Connah, Graham, African Civilizations: Precolonial Cities and States in Tropical Africa: An Archaeological Perspective (Cambridge, 1987), 104Google Scholar; Filipowiak, , ‘Expédition’, 116–27Google Scholar, and; ‘L'expédition’, 107–17.

⁷⁰ Mcintosh, and Mcintosh, , ‘Early city’, 93.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid. 77; Filipowiak, , Éudes, 99–102.Google Scholar Filipowiak believes the necessary agricultural surplus was produced some 20–30 km to the south-west in the direction of the river Fié (‘Contribution’, 230–1).

⁷² Calvocoressi, D. and David, N., ‘A new survey of radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates for West Africa’, J. Afr. Hist., xx (1979), 1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sutton, J. E. G., ‘Archaeology in West Africa: a review of recent work and a further list of radiocarbon dates’, J. Afr. His., xxiii (1982), 291–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Confirming the C¹⁴ dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as those associated with the ‘Royal Quater’ buildings, Susan Mcintosh says the calibration at one standard error places these dates in calendar years at AD. 1460–1670 and a. d. 1442–1630. She notes that all of Filipowiak's arguments for the crucial thirteenthfourteenth-century period depend on ceramic analyses, the results of which are not published (private correspondence, 4 Aug. 1992)

⁷³ ‘Mandingo expansion’, 136.

⁷⁴ ‘Mid-fourteenth’, 197–8. He says ‘The one common feature of all these readings is that they begin with the letter ba’; not one begins with the letters nun or ya’ which the reading Nyani would require.’ The Levtzion and Hopkins translation renders Al‘Umari's Arabic for the capital's name as ‘BYTY’ (Corpus, 262).

⁷⁵ Vasi Kamara, interviewed by Jobba Kamara at Fombadu, Liberia, 21 Dec. 1985. I thank Tim Geysbeek for this.

⁷⁶ Leynaud, Emile and Cissé, Youssouf, Paysans malinke du Haut Niger (tradition et developpement rural en Afrique soudanaise) (Bamako, 1978), 147–53.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ly-Tall, , Camara, , and Diouara, (eds. ) L'histoire, 69–1Google Scholar; Cissé, and Kamissoko, , La grande, 263Google Scholar; Cissé, and Kamissoko, , L'empire (1975), 141Google Scholar; Vidal, J., ‘La légende officielle de Soundiata fondateur de l'‘empire manding’, Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale françfaise, vii (1924), 326Google Scholar; Diabaté, M. M., Janion et autres chants populaires du Mali (Paris, 1970), 51Google Scholar; Johnson, , Son-Jara, 136.Google Scholar There is some confusion about which Niani was involved. Ly-Tall's Jeli Kanku Madi Jabaté says the Niani of which Fakoli's victim was king is Niani-Kurula in northern Mande, about 30 km west of the Niger River and more than 100 km north of the Niani called Mali's ‘capital’ on the Sankarani river. Others connect Niani Mansa Kamara's town with Sunjata. Vidal, ‘La légende’, 325–6; Leynaud, and Cissé, , Paysans, 152.Google Scholar A third Niani lies about 25 km south-west of Kangaba, but Niani on the Sankarani is the one generally referred to in oral tradition.

⁷⁸ Vidal, , ‘La légende’, 325–6.Google Scholar From the present location of Niani on the Sankarani, the Fié River is about 12 kms west.

⁷⁹ Person, Yves, ‘Nyani Mansa Mamudu et la fin de l'empire du Mali’, in 2000 ans, ii, 643.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Ibid. 638, 743. Person says the Sunjata legend has ‘contaminated’ traditions of Niani Mansa Mamadu (643), but a Mande bard might well consider them parts of the same long tradition.

⁸¹ Exceptions include oral testimony describing Niani as a sorcerer's village and the place where Fakoli, one of Sunjata's generals, went to settle (interview with Lassa Camara, Funébugu, Mali, 5 March 1976). Also, in one accurately reproduced Sunjata text, the bard Tiémoko Koné mentions a Mamoudou of Niani in the time before Sunjata's birth: Lassana Doucoure (ed. and trans. ), Soundiata (Institut des Sciences Humaines du Mali) (recorded at Mourdiah, November 1967), 290.

⁸² Monteil, Charles, ‘Les empires du Mali’, Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidental française, xii (1929), 352.Google Scholar

⁸³ Montrat, , ‘Notice’, 90.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Jeli Mori Kouyaté of Niagassola (1988).

⁸⁵ Hervé, H., ‘Niani, ex-capitale de l'empire Manding’, Notes Africaines, lxxxii (1959), 52–3.Google Scholar Hervé was told that Niani had four lives: Niani before Mansa Namourou, Niani of Mansa Namourou destroyed in 1696, Niani of Nfa Kaba destroyed by Koro Madi of Segu, and Niani of Fadi Keita built after 1877. It is significant that the Balandougou elders’ testimony does not conflict with Yves Person's idea that Niani Mansa Mamoudou might be the ‘Sultan Mahmoud’ of Mali who, according to the Tarikh es-Soudan, laid siege to Jenne in 1599, although there were many Mansa Mamadus (i. e. Muhammads) through Mali's centuries of existence, and this must be regarded as speculative. Person, , ‘Nyaani Mansa’, 628ff.Google Scholar; es-Sa'di, Abderrahman, Tarikh es-soudan, trans. Houdas, O. (Paris, 1913–1914; reprinted 1974), 278–9.Google Scholar Person stresses that interviews conducted between 1955 and 1957 with four griots from neighboring regions in Guinea and Mali failed to yield a version of the tradition similar to Hervé's, nor did he acquire one at Niani in 1957. For these griots, the hero was called Niani Mansa Mamadu, not because he rebuilt Niani but because he was the last great king to live there and because he was expelled prior to his death (‘Nyani Mansa’, 638–9).

⁸⁶ Yves Person reported that none of his 1955–57 interviews gave him the 1696 date (‘Nyani Mansa’, 638). He lists griots as his only informants, so this is not surprising. As he doubtless knew, in the past griots hardly ever mentioned specific dates (now, owing to increased literacy and the radio, this has begun to happen). It is extraordinary that the elders of Balandougou mentioned 1696, and this should be regarded with caution. However, if Hervé can be believed, Person's experience is no reason to doubt the Balandougou elders.

⁸⁷ ‘Nyani Mansa’, 638–46.

⁸⁸ Private communication, 8 April 1992. She says ‘Even more important is the fact that the thin layer (30 cm deep) from which they come overlies deposits dating to the 6th century [calibrated AD. 560–680]’. See also Mcintosh, and Mcintosh, , ‘Early city’, 92.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Wright, Bonnie L., ‘The power of articulation’, in Arens, W. and Karp, Ivan (eds. ), Creativity of Power: Cosmology and Action in African Societies (Washington and London, 1989), 40.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Much of the praise is actually directed at the heroes’ mothers, who are recognized as the sources of their sons’ power.

⁹¹ Conrad, , ‘Searching’, 147–200.Google Scholar

⁹² Ba, Adam Konaré, Sunjata: le fondateur de l'empire du Mali (Dakar, Abidjan and Lomé, 1983), 15.Google Scholar The line rejoices at several years of abundant harvest following extended drought which Konaré Ba says had begun in II 50.

⁹³ Dieterlen, Germaine, ‘Myth et organisation sociale au Soudan française’, Journal de la Sociétedes Africanistes, xxv (1955), 42–5Google Scholar; English version ‘The Mande creation myth’, Africa, xxvii (1957), 125–7.Google Scholar Local ideas of Kri's size and whether it was a town or a region vary. Some maps show Kri-Koroni as a town lying just north of Niagassola: Poncet, Yveline, Mauny, R., Rouch, J., Cissé, Y. and Meillassoux, C., Atlas historique de la boucle du Niger (Bamako and Niamey, 1975–1977), maps 7, 14.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Interview with Kele Monson Diabaté at Kita, 30 Oct. 1975; Johnson, , Sun-Jata, 176.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ ‘Les empires’, 344. Monteil was told that the earliest chiefs of Kri were from a branch of the Traoré clan.

⁹⁶ Zeltner, Fr. de, Contes du Sénégal et du Niger (Paris, 1913), 30.Google Scholar In another variant from the same time and place, Habibou Sissoko, another Khassonke griot, lists Dakajalan among the many towns that had to be conquered by Sunjata during the process of unification (Zeltner, , Contes, 41–2).Google Scholar

⁹⁷ The alleged location of Dakajalan is over 100 km nearer to the battlefield than Niani. Tradition portrays Krina as both region and town. The accompanying map ‘Mande Heartland’ includes only towns mentioned in this article. Some modern cities (e. g. Bamako, Kankan) and the Mali-Guinea frontier are included for points of reference. Some ancient sites shown are according to Poncet et al., Atlas Historique, maps 5, 7, 14, and Cissé, Youssouf Tata and Kamissoko, Wâ, La grande geste du Mali des origines à la fondation de l'empire (Paris, 1988), 38, 130.Google Scholar These locate Manikura in two different places: left bank of the Sankarani opposite Figuéra (Cissé and Kamissoko, 130), and right bank of the Niger at the confluence with the Sankarani (Poncet et al., 5, 7).

⁹⁸ Vidal, , ‘La légende,’ 324Google Scholar; Conde, Alpha, Les sociétés traditionnelles mandingues (Niamey, 1974), 91.Google Scholar In a praise song to Sunjata, Kele Monson Diabaté sings: ‘All of Mande battled/For its ancestor at Dagayala’ (Diabaté, M. M., Janjon, 34).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Conrad, , A State, 191–3 and 36, 94.Google Scholar At the same time, there is no claim in tradition that conquering armies were not slowed down by problems of crossing large rivers. One major variant of the Sunjata epic contains a lengthy river-crossing episode, typically describing the problem in terms of Sumanguru employing sorcery against Sunjata (Johnson, , Son-Jara, 169–70).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Ly-Tall, , Camara, and Diouara, (eds. ), L'histoire, 58, 69, 71Google Scholar; Johnson, John W. et al. (trans, and ed. ), The Epic of Son Jata According to Alkaw Kònè (unpublished transcript recorded 18 12. 1973), 350Google Scholar; Diabaté, , L'aigle, 86 (recorded 18 03 1966)Google Scholar; Cissé, and Kamissoko, , La grande, 175Google Scholar; Fadian Soumanou (Bamako, 23 Nov. 1975); Mamady Diabaté (Keyla, 3 March 1976).

¹⁰¹ Niane, , Soundjata, III; Sundiata (English), 59.Google Scholar

¹⁰² Niane, , Soundjata, 133, 146Google Scholar; Sundiata (English), 73, 81.

¹⁰³ Cissé, , L'empire, 91.Google Scholar The griots often speak of another location, Kurukanfuwa, as a site of important assemblies.

¹⁰⁴ Kaké, D. T. Niane Ibrahima Baba, Histoire de la Guinée 3e et 4e Années (Dakar, Abidjan and Lomé, 1986), 31.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ ‘Mandingo expansion’, 136. In this Niane disagrees with his informant for the book Sundiata, where Masmadou Kouyate says Sunjata was preceded ‘on the throne of Niani’ by 16 previous generations of Keitas and that Sunjata made the capital of an empire out of Niani, his father's village: Niane, , Soundjata, 115, 148Google Scholar; Sundiata (English), 62, 82.

¹⁰⁶ ‘Mani’ is sometimes seen in place of ‘Mali’ as with usages of the town Manikura or Mali Kura (New Mali), but here Niane apparently uses it synonymously with Niani.

¹⁰⁷ In this case it seems unlikely that Niane would be thinking of the childhood episode of step-brother rivalry (fadenya) that precedes Sunjata's exile to Mema in some variants of the epic. For a discussion of fadenya see Charles S. Bird and Martha B. Kendall, ‘The Mande hero: text and context’, in Karp, Ivan and Bird, Charles S. (eds. ), Explorations in African Systems of Thought (Bloomington, 1980), 22–3.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ ‘Mandingo expansion’, 136. Filipowiak also stresses the importance of Niani's defenses against northern invasion (‘Contribution’, 230; ‘Le complex’, 73).

¹⁰⁹ ‘Mandingo expansion’, 136.

¹¹⁰ Levtzion, and Hopkins, (ed. ), Corpus, 286.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Seydou Camara of the Institut des Sciences Humaines, Bamako, Mali, at the Conference on the Sunjata Epic, Northwestern University, 15 Nov. 1992.

¹¹² ‘Notice’, 90–1. Montrat found that these attitudes toward sacred places of the departed applied to a number of towns including Niani, but he concluded that, while the ruins at Niani surely mark the presence of powerful kings, it was probably not the principal capital of Mali.

¹⁰³ Cissé, and Kamissoko, , La grande, 4.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Montrat, , ‘Notice’, 91.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Wâ Kamissoko's reference to Dakajalan as Sunjata's final resting place is contrary to other informants’ claims that Sunjata drowned (Vidal, , ‘La légende’, 328Google Scholar; Montrat, , ‘Notice’, 91.Google Scholar ) There is no clear evidence for the cause of Sunjata's demise, but the idea that he drowned may reflect political and cosmological factors as well as any historical event. An important local deity is Faro, a celestial being with an early manifestation that dwells in rivers and lakes, as do water spirits known as. faaro or jidenw (‘water children’). See Conrad, , A State, 71, n. 660.Google Scholar Thus, traditions of heroes drowning can be metaphors describing their departure to lahara (‘heaven’ or ‘God's kingdom’). On a political level, claims of drowning might reflect early efforts to conceal burial places of deceased royalty.

¹¹⁶ This attitude is supported by recollections of Dakajalan as a temporary refuge for royalty in times of crisis, e. g. a tradition that when the sixteenth-century ruler Mansa Mamadu was expelled from Niani he first fled to Dakajalan (Person, , ‘Nyani Mansa’, 639).Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ For details on functions of boliw see Brett-Smith, Sarah, ‘The poisonous child’, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, vi (1983), 47–64Google Scholar, and Bazin, Jean, ‘Retour aux chosedieux’, Le Temps de la Réflexion (special number on ‘Le corps des Dieux’), vii (1986), 253–73.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ According to a Niora savant named Batchili, Segu's important boliw were burned by al-Hajj ‘Umar when he led the Tukulor into Segu in 1861. Arnaud, Robert, ‘L'Islam et la politique musulmane française en Afrique Occidentale Française, suivi de la singulière légende des Soninkés’, tirage à part du Comité de l'Afrique française (Paris, 1911), 184.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Ly-Tall, et al. , L'histoire, 59, 69, 71, 74.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Vidal, , ‘Le véritable’, 607Google Scholar; Montrat, , ‘Notice’, 91.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Cissé, and Kamissoko, , La grande, 5, 15.Google Scholar