The Representation of Status in Mande: Did the Mali Empire Still Exist in the Nineteenth Century?1

2. Person, Yves, “Nyaani Mansa Mamadu et la fin de l'empire du Mali” in Le Sol, la Parole et l'Ecrit. Mélanges en hommage à Raymond Mauny (Paris 1981), 613–54Google Scholar, and Niane, D.T., Recherches sur l'Empire du Mali au Moyen Age (Paris 1975).Google Scholar Person collected his material in the period 1954-1958, and Niane must also have worked in the 1950s, since his arguments are a copy of his rather obscure articles in Etudes Guinéennes, n.s. 1–4(1959), 35–46Google Scholar; 1(1960), 17-36; 2(1961), 31-51.

3. For instance, Leynaud, E. and Cisse, Y., Paysans Malinke du Haut Niger (Bamako, 1978)Google Scholar; Ly-Tall, M., L'empire du Mali (Dakar, 1977)Google Scholar; Camara, Seydou, “La tradition orale en question: conservation et transmission des traditions historiques au Manden: le centre de Kela et l'histoire de Mininjan” (Thèse doctorat, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris 1990)Google Scholar; and Green, K.L., “‘Mande Kaba,’ the Capital of Mali: a Recent Invention?” HA 18 (1991), 127–35.Google Scholar

4. I will focus on this heuristic error. Person also used the idea that “one name is equal to generation is equal to 30 years.” I think that this idea is completely outdated nowadays, and that is why I do not see any reason to pay attention to it by repeating the arguments that others, in particular, David Henige, have already made.

5. Person “Nyaani,” 627.

6. Ibid., 613, 629.

7. Ibid., 629.

8. Ibid.

9. For the history of Kangaba see Leynaud/Cisse, Paysans Malinke; Camara, “Tradition oral,” and Green, “Mande Kaaba.”

10. Jansen, Jan, De draaiende put; een studie naar de relatie tussen het Sunjata-epos en de samenleving in de Haut-Niger (Mali) (Leiden 1995).Google Scholar

11. “An Bè Kelen/We Are One—Griot Music from Mali” (field recordings by Jan Jansen (PAN-records 2015CD, Leiden).

12. This is the reason why there is hardly any written material on this region.

13. Vallière, : “Exploration du Lieutenant Vallière dans le Birgo et le Manding” in Gallieni, J.S., Voyage au Soudan français (Haut-Niger et pays de Segou) 1879-1881 (Paris, 1885), 256–58.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., 338.

15. Ibid., 578

16. Gallieni, J.S., Deux campagnes au Soudan français, 1886-1888 (Paris, 1891), 590.Google Scholar

17. Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 47Google Scholar, although they do not mention their source.

18. Park, Mungo, Travels into the Interior of Africa (London, 1983).Google Scholar Park wrote about Kangaba six times: ibid., 147, 181, 197, 233, 243f, 248 (the index of the book mentions only three of these).

19. Peroz, M.E., Au Soudan français; souvenirs de guerre et de mission (Paris, 1889), 252.Google Scholar

20. Information on the anti-Kangaba stance of French colonial administrators can be found in Leynaud/Cisse, Paysans Malinke, and Camara, “Tradition orale.” Surprisingly, Green, “Mande Kaaba,” does not use this information, and invents the notion of strong French support of Kangaba.

21. Nyama or nyamana is equivalent to kafu; see Person, , “Nyaani,” 24.Google Scholar

22. Surprisingly, Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 144Google Scholar, say that they have not been able to identify the descendants of the Joma brothers. However, for Person—who worked in Joma—it is clear that the brothers represent the Joma region. My main informant in Kela, Lansine Diabate, pointed south and said “Guinea” when I asked about the two brothers.

23. Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 145.Google Scholar

24. Peroz, , Au Soudan, 223.Google Scholar

25. Bühnen, Stephan, “In Quest of Susu,” HA, 21(1994), 9.Google Scholar

26. Vallière, , “Exploration,” 314.Google Scholar

27. This has been recorded by Camara, “Tradition orale,” 133.

28. Anonymous, Ministère de la Marine et des Colonies—Sénégal et Niger: la France dans l'Afrique Occidentale, 1879-1883 (Paris 1884).Google Scholar

29. Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 271.Google Scholar

30. For a discussion on the tension between half-brothers see Bird, C.S. and Kendall, M.B., “The Mande ‘Hero’ in Explorations in African Systems of Thought (Bloomington, 1980), 13–26.Google Scholar For a critical comment on this article see J. Jansen and C. Zobel, “Beyond Bird and Kendall 1980” in The Younger Brother in Mande: Ethnographic Studies on Legitimacy and Kinship Politics, ed. J. Jansen and C. Zobel, forthcoming.

31. Cissé, D. and Diabété, M.M., La dispersion des Mandeka (Bamako, 1970), 91–92.Google Scholar

32. Although Kita Kuru and Mansa Ganda are not mentioned as human beings (kings or brothers) in the praise lines for Kita.

33. Niane, , Recherches, 96.Google Scholar

34. Person, , “Nyaani,” 631.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., 647.

36. Ibid., 633-34.

37. Ibid., 631.

38. For instance, it can be found in the three versions (recorded in 1923, 1979, and 1992) of the Sunjata epic told by the griots of Kela, the official court historians of the rulers of Kangaba: Vidal, J., “La légende officielle de Soundiata, fondateur de l'empire Manding,” Bulletin du Comité d'Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, 7(1924), 317–28Google Scholar; Ly-Tall, M., Camara, S., and Dioura, B., L'histoire du Mande d'après Jeli Kanku Modi Jabate de Kéla (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar; Jansen, J., Duintjer, E., and Tamboura, B., L'épopée de Sunjara, d'après Lansine Diabate de Kela (Leiden, 1995).Google Scholar

39. Niane, , Recherches, 95f.Google Scholar

40. Information from David Conrad, August 1994. For the story see Ly-Tall, , Histoire, 53fGoogle Scholar, and Jansen, , Epopée, 133.Google Scholar

41. Leynaud/Cisse Paysans Malinke. Although I am surprised that this genealogy is said to have Kela as its origin, I do not consider it either to be wrong or pure coincidence. When I read through my fieldwork notes I found the following note made the day after my arrival in Mande (Kela, 25 October 1991, translated from the Dutch): “I explained to D. [male, son of L., circa 20 years old] that I had come to hear stories about Sunjata. He nodded and said: “Yes, Sunjata and Mande Bori.” “Mande Bori, who is that?” I asked. D. was astonished. “You don't know him? He is the older brother of Sunjata.”

42. Stephan Biihnen (personal communication, 2 May 1995): “I think that we may disregard the Kisi Keita as actively engaged in the political history of Manding, because of Kisi's out-of-the-way location, its non-centralised political structure and its Kisi (non-Mande) population…Yet, in genealogies these marginal lineages may be used to play on the younger/older pattern.”

43. Person, , “Nyaani,” 627.Google Scholar

44. Jan Jansen, “The Younger Brother and the Stranger: In Search of a Status Discourse for Mande,” paper presented at the Third International Conference on Mande Studies, Leiden, March, 1995. See also the articles in Jansen/Zobel, Younger Brother.

45. Niane, D.T. “Histoire et tradition historique du Manding,” Présence Africaine, 89 (1974), 65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. She started to sing when the baby was born, according to Conde, M., Etude d'une école de tradition orale: Fadama (Kouroussa) (Kankan, 1989), 9.Google Scholar

47. For this story see the Kela versions of the Sunjata epic: Ly-Tall, Histoire; and Jansen, , Épopée, 45–52.Google Scholar

48. Interview, 19 December 1992.

49. This is the key idea in Jansen De draaiende put.

50. A similar division exists between tasks attributed to the stranger (lolan in Bambara, “allochtone” in French) and the “founder” (duguren in Bambara, “autochtone” in French). This is partially a logical process. If compounds split due to tension between brothers, the younger brother is bound to leave, since the oldest has the right to succession. When this younger brother has left he must necessarily arrive in another location. In the perspective of the population of that location, he is the stranger.

This stranger and younger brother actually are two manifestations of the same social process and this comes to the fore in the tasks attributed to the stranger. The function of village chief does not belong to descendants of the founder of the village, but to the family which is said to have settled “recently,” A Mande village chief is responsible for external contacts; for instance, he receives guests. Thus both younger brother and stranger are responsible for the representation of ‘the group’ towards other groups. Therefore, being the ‘last arrived,’ whether by birth or immigration is a very prestigious status position.

The territory of the village is distributed by a so-called “earth chief,” a descendant of the founder of the village. Again, there is a similarity. The one who came first, comparable to the oldest brother, is the one responsible for the reproduction of the village or the compound. For the analysis of the relations stranger-founder see Amselle, J. L., Logiques métisses, Anthropologie de l'identité en Afiique et ailleurs (Paris, 1990) and Jansen, Younger Brother.Google Scholar

51. Peroz, , Au Soudan, 385f.Google Scholar

52. Jansen, , Younger Brother, 14f.Google Scholar

53. Camara, , Tradition orale, 124f.Google Scholar

54. Bühnen, , “Quest,” 32–33.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., 9.

56. Roberts, Richard L., Warriors, Merchants and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700-1914 (Stanford, 1987), 2.Google Scholar See also Bazin, Jean, “Etat guerrier et guerres d'état” in Guerres de lignages et guerres d'états en Afrique, ed. Bazin, Jean and Terray, Emmanuel (Paris, 1982), 319–74.Google Scholar

57. Roberts, Warriors.

58. Peroz, , Au Soudan, 239.Google Scholar

59. Ibid., 386-87.

60. See, for instance, Roberts, Warriors.

61. Peroz, , Au Soudan, 385–86.Google Scholar

62. Kangaba's prestige is such that it has become part of the history of foreign nation states. At Guinea schools it is taught that Sunjata founded the Mali empire—pictured as a predecessor of the present day nation state of Guinea—at the assembly at Kurukanfuga, a plain adjoining…Kangaba. This story in still widespread in Northeastern Guinea, in Hamana, where Mande Bori's descendants rule. In the text editions of the Kela version it is not part of the Sunjata epic, although my informants knew the story very well.

63. Camara, “Tradition orale,” 113.

64. Park, , Travels, 187.Google Scholar

65. Vallière, , “Exploration,” 336.Google Scholar

66. Ibid., 330.

67. Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 145, 448–51.Google Scholar

68. Seydou Camara gave the following two arguments against my hypothesis, Bamako, 6 October 1994. He was not convinced by my answers.

69. For the relation between Kangaba and Segou see Roberts, Warriors, chapter 1; for oral traditions on this relationship see Camara, , “Tradition orale,” 124ff.Google Scholar

70. The territory of the Mali empire must have been greater than present Mande, that is, the triangle Kouroussa-Kita-Bamako, as demonstrated by both written and oral evidence. The Mali empire stretched along the Niger up to Gao, mentioned as “Gaogao” in Arab sources. Al ʿ Umari wrote that Mali's capital was surrounded by the river Nile. With such a description one is eager to search for its location in the Niger delta. Since al-ʿUmari complained about the unbearable heat in Mali, this can hardly refer to the present-day Mande region, which has a very pleasant climate. In this context it is interesting to note that even in the extremely wet year of 1994 the town of Kangaba, located five kilometers from the river Niger, was not surrounded by water, although the water almost reached the village at some spots.

Interesting, and hitherto unmentioned, sociolinguistic information is given by Mungo Park. On his way from Segou to Koulikoro, he noted (Travels, 177): “and I arrived in the evening at Taffara, a walled town, and soon discovered that the language of the natives was improved, from the corrupted dialect of Bambarra, to the pure Mandingo.” This is interesting information in combination with the fact that the holy rocks in Koulikoro are considered to be a transformation of Sunjata's opponent Sumaoro Kante. In the Kela version (Epopée, 160) of the Sunjata epic Sumaworo remarks that “this is the limit” at the moment he transforms himself into the rocks. Sunjata replies that “you [Sumaworo] could never have stayed in Mande, if you had not done this.” This means that Koulikoro is the limit of Sunjata's Mande, and this is strikingly similar to Park's observation of a linguistic border.

Therefore the northern/northeastern border of the Mali empire/Mande seems to have ‘crawled’ in the upstream direction of the Niger from the Middle Ages onwards. However, it is also possible that the Mali empire was ‘chased’ upstream, from the inner delta of the Niger to present-day Mande, since we never hear anything about the empire's borders in the southern direction.

71. The only exception may be a “religious army” of Koranic teachers in Kangaba, since the Haidara are still an isolated group in Mande society. Haidara is a patronymic common in the north, but not in Mande. The Haidara led the Koranic school at the former “royal” court in Kangaba (Vidal, “Légende”). In 1960 they all still lived together in Kela. Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans malinke, 9, 136Google Scholar, mentioned for 1960 900 Haidara in Haut-Niger, 770 of them living in Kela (ibid., 448). This may be the result of an immigration which ‘really’ happened. However, there were sometimes foreign invaders in Kangaba: see Roberts, , Warriors, 44f.Google Scholar

72. This may explain why ‘tradition’ is still so vivid in present-day Mande, which is nowadays often accused of being a ‘conservative’ region.

73. Person, , “Nyaani,” 627.Google Scholar

74. Ibid., 637.

75. Mambi, the ruler of Kangaba, had done so when the French armies attacked Kangaba.