The Sosso kingdom of the Kante

Who rules

Name

Not pinned between two men. Kemoko (Sosoe Kemoko in Mamadou Kouyate's version), who in Niane's account united Kaniaga and Sosso into one kingdom towards the end of the twelfth century; or his son Soumaoro (Sumanguru) Kante, whose reign the same tradition starts 'about 1200' (Niane gives 1200-1235). Delafosse called the father Diara Kante and dated him 1180-1200. Camara Laye's version names the father Diarra Diarrasso. Conrad (1984) found no evidence linking Delafosse's Diara Kante to Soumaoro, and noted there may have been several Kante kings of whom only Soumaoro is remembered.

Title

King of Sosso (the epic calls Soumaoro king, sorcerer-king; Kaniaga is the Malinke name for the country, meaning 'north')

Since

Kemoko: towards the end of the twelfth century (Niane); Soumaoro: about 1200 (Niane after Kouyate; Delafosse). Not pinned against 1 January 1200.

Born

Not known

Family

The Kante, a clan of smiths (numu). In Laye's version Soumaoro's father had three wives (Kaya, Daby and Sansoun Toure); Soumaoro's sisters Kassia (mother of Fakoli Koroma) and Kangouba Kante appear in the epics; the nephew Fakoli later commands for him and then deserts to Sundiata. No dates for any of them.

Confidence

low

Niane, UNESCO GHA IV, pp. 124-126; fr.wikipedia Soumaoro Kante and Royaume de Sosso; en.wikipedia Sosso Empire (Conrad 1984; Bühnen 1994; Levtzion 1976).

Overlord

None. The Sosso began as subjects of Ghana (one tradition makes them a clan of the Kaya Maghan's slaves; Conrad 1984) and have thrown off its rule.

What the realm holds

• The royal town of Sosso, which Fofana (2007) places at the village of that name near Boron (Banamba district); the site is not excavated
• Kaniaga, the country between Wagadu and the Beledugu (Levtzion 1976): the Sahel round Mourdiah, Boron and Banamba
• The northern Beledugu, where the tradition makes Soumaoro a provincial governor before he was king (Bühnen 1994)
• The hill country above the Niger at Koulikoro (the epic's refuge of Soumaoro) and, in the tradition, the fortress of Kukuba on the cliff above Bamako (Koulouba)
• Towns named in the epic and tentatively identified: Bantamba (perhaps Banamba), Nyemi-Nyemi (perhaps Niamina), Kambasiga (not identified)

How it was acquired

Independence from Ghana under the Diarisso (date not pinned; Bathily's tradition gives 1148 for a proclamation at Narena, which conflicts with everything else); the Kante seized power about 1180 by Delafosse's and Niane's reckoning.

Allies and rivals

Rivals: Ghana (Wagadu), whose throne the Sosso will soon dominate; Diara (Zara), which 'took part in the struggles for domination and came into conflict with the Soso' (Niane); later the Mande chiefs. Allies: none named for 1200. The Kante are hostile to Islam in the tradition, and so to the Muslim merchant communities of Ghana.

The realm that morning

The Sosso hold Kaniaga and the northern Beledugu and are the strongest power between the Senegal and the Niger. Their king that morning is Kemoko or his son Soumaoro (not pinned). Whether they already dominate Ghana is not pinned (see the Ghana record). The Mande chiefdoms to the south are still free; Diara to the west is still free and hostile.

Threats

• War with Diara over the succession to Ghana's lands
• The resistance of the Muslim merchants and of Wagadu
• In the longer run, the Mande chiefs (the coalition that destroys Sosso at Kirina about 1235)

Ruler and household

The king and his kin of the Kante clan; his sisters and their sons (Fakoli) in the epic. The epic's palace: a tower of seven storeys, with the king's fetishes, the heads of nine conquered kings and walls hung with human skins, guarded by a serpent and owls (Laye; Niane). These are images of the epic, not description.

Army

No figures. The epic gives the Sosso a strong force of horsemen and of smiths' iron weapons; Fakoli commands for Soumaoro before he deserts. The Kante's command of iron-working is a real advantage in a land of iron-smelting villages.

Trade

Iron and smiths' work; the grain and herds of Kaniaga; the gold road from Bure to Wagadu runs through or past Sosso country, which is one reason the Sosso later annex the Mande.

Relations

With Islam: hostile in the tradition ('a clan of smiths who showed a clear desire to reject Islam', Niane). With the Muslim merchants: harsh. With the Mande: the Kante are a Malinke-speaking clan; the epic makes the Sosso the Mande's oppressors in the next generation.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. About 1200 (Niane after Kouyate; Delafosse)Soumaoro Kante succeeds his father Kemoko (Diara Kante in Delafosse) as king of Sosso, if he has not done so already.Depends on: Kemoko's death or retirement; not pinned to a year. Stopped by: A rival Kante claimant, or Kemoko living on.
2. Later (1200s-1220s, not pinned)The Sosso conquer Diara and Gajaaga (Galam), and later annex Mande in the reign of Sundiata's half-brother Dankaran Tuman.Depends on: Success against Ghana first. Stopped by: Defeat by Diara or the Mande.

Later, on the likely course

1. About 1203 (Barth's and Delafosse's date)The Sosso take Wagadu and make its king tributary.Depends on: Sosso strength and Ghana's isolation. Stopped by: An alliance of Ghana, Diara and Mema.

Where the sources disagree

• The Sosso's centre is disputed: Levtzion (1976) puts it south of Wagadu and north of the Beledugu; Fofana places the town near Boron; Bühnen (1994) argues for the Futa Jallon, a minority view. The drawing follows Levtzion and Fofana.
• Wikipedia (Mali Empire) says Soumaoro 'came to power' in 1203; Niane gives about 1200; Delafosse 1200 after a father who reigned 1180-1200. None of these years comes from a written source.
• Bathily's tradition (1148 for a proclamation at Narena, defeat by Mande in 1245) cannot be reconciled with the rest and is not followed.

Evidence: Ibn Khaldun names the Susu as the conquerors of Ghana and the defeated enemy of Mari Jata (Sundiata), with no dates. Everything else is oral tradition (the Sundiata epic in several versions, Soninke and Kante traditions) and modern reconstruction. No excavation.

On the map: No border of Sosso is recorded; the block is drawn from Levtzion's 'south of Wagadu and north of the Beledugu' and from the places named in the tradition. The site of the capital is uncertain.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of the Sudan, Abd al-Rahman al-Sadi (about 1655, at Timbuktu). The Timbuktu tradition on the middle Niger four and a half centuries later, and the only narrative there is: the Za (Zuwa) kings of Gao and Kukiya, whose fifteenth king Za Kusoy is said to have accepted Islam in 1010 and whose successors ruled at Gao through the twelfth century; the foundation of Jenne and the conversion of its king Kunburu with his people towards the end of the sixth century of the Hijra, that is about 1200, with Jenne's early trade; and the position of Mali and Ghana as al-Sadi understood it. Read online
• The Chronicle of the Researcher, Ibn al-Mukhtar (attributed to Mahmud Kati); rewritten by Nuh ibn al-Tahir (about 1665, rewritten about 1830 to 1845). Later than the Tarikh al-Sudan and far less reliable: a seventeenth-century Timbuktu chronicle rewritten in the nineteenth century to serve the Masina caliphate, with insertions. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• The Book of Geography, Ibn Said al-Maghribi (Ali ibn Musa ibn Said) (about 1250 to 1275). Written two generations after 1200 but drawing on the travels of Ibn Fatima, a merchant who had been in the Sudan, Ibn Said gives the first clear picture of Kanem as an empire: the mai Dunama Dibalemi (reigned about 1210 to 1248), his capital Njimi, his Muslim subjects and his reach to the Fezzan, Tajuwa and the Zaghawa, with the Sao and other peoples on his borders. Read online
• The Epic of Sunjata, Various (Mande jeliw, the hereditary bards) (oral; the main recordings date from the twentieth century; Niane's version published 1960). Oral tradition, not a text of the period, but the only account from the Mande side of the world of 1200: the Sosso kingdom of Sumanguru (Sumaoro) Kante, which the epic shows ruling over the old Ghana lands and pressing on the Manden chiefdoms, with its smith-kings; the Manden of Sunjata's father Nare Maghan as a cluster of small chiefdoms; and the Mema, Diara and other states that sheltered the exile.
• Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, Various (edited by N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins) (ninth to sixteenth centuries; the collection published 1981). The standard English collection of every Arabic passage on the western and central Sudan.