The hilly country between the Faleme and the Bafing, with the Tambaoura escarpment, is one of the two great goldfields of West Africa (the other, Bure on the upper Niger, is the gha sheet's).
Its villages dig gold from pits and shafts and wash it from the river gravels in the dry season, and sell it to Soninke and Wangara traders who carry it to the Senegal and north across the desert, where it ends in the dinars of the Almohads and of Egypt. Al-Idrisi's 'island' of gold, 300 by 150 miles, is often read as this country. The villagers are Mande-speakers in later times; no lord over them is known, and their strength was that no one could make them dig.
The Jakhanke clerical town of Diakha on the Bafing exists on 1 January 1200 only if al-Hajj Salim Suwari is dated about 1200 (Wilks); on the later dating (late fifteenth century) it does not.
Who holds it
- Title
- Village chiefs and the masters of the gold pits
- Since
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
French Wikipedia (Bambouk): Bambuk was never a centralised state but small, scattered, fairly autonomous villages that sometimes joined against neighbours' incursions. No chief is named for 1200.
Overlord
None that can be named for 1200.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing gold villages.
Customs
Village autonomy; the masters of the earth and of the pits control digging; gold is dug after the harvest; alliances of villages against raiders (later evidence).
Assemblies
Village councils; ad hoc leagues of villages (later evidence).
Overlord claims
Whoever controls the gold trade claims a share: Ghana in the eleventh century, perhaps Takrur through Barisa in the twelfth; the Sosso and Mali later. Al-Idrisi says the men of Barisa, Silla, Takrur and Ghana raided the land of Lamlam to the south for captives; whether that meant these villages is not known.
Where the sources disagree
- The date of al-Hajj Salim Suwari and of Diakha-Bambuk is disputed (Wilks about 1200; Sanneh and Wikipedia late fifteenth century, died 1525).
Evidence: General Arabic references to the gold country; later European and ethnographic description; no dated mine.
On the map: The goldfield country, back-projected.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.