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. The chronology is modern inference (Sunjata's victory at Kirina is conventionally put about 1235 on the strength of Ibn Khaldun), so in 1200 the Sosso are rising and Sunjata is not yet born or a child. The epic's politics and genealogy have been reshaped by every generation of performers.
About this source
- Title
- Sunjata (the Mande epic)
- Author
- Various (Mande jeliw, the hereditary bards)
- Author's dates
- oral tradition recorded from the 1890s to the present
- Written
- oral; the main recordings date from the twentieth century; Niane's version published 1960
- Language
- Maninka and other Mande languages; French and English versions
- Covers
- the end of the Sosso ascendancy and the founding of Mali, placed about 1230 to 1255
- Kind
- Poem
All versions are under copyright; the Internet Archive holds lending-only copies. Ibn Khaldun's Ibar is the only written source near the events; the Tarikh al-fattash adds a little.
Where to read it
Editions
- D. T. Niane, Soundjata ou l'épopée mandingue (Paris, 1960), from the performance of Djeli Mamoudou Kouyaté (not freely online)
- J. W. Johnson and Fa-Digi Sisoko, The Epic of Son-Jara: a West African tradition (Bloomington, 1986; 3rd ed. 2003) (not freely online)
- D. C. Conrad (ed.), Sunjata: a West African Epic of the Mande Peoples, from the performance of Djanka Tassey Condé (Indianapolis, 2004) (not freely online)
Translations
- G. D. Pickett (tr.), Sundiata: an Epic of Old Mali (London, 1965), English version of Niane (not freely online)