Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples

"Conrad is a superb scholar, an expert in the oral traditions of the Mande. He is wrestling with all of the various traditions that concern Sunjata. It’s an interesting problem because it gets at the question of the relevance of oral traditions for anterior historical developments in West Africa. The principal problem, of course, is that the traditions, by and large, were collected in the 18th century and beyond. But they purport to talk about developments in the early 13th century. So the question is: how reliable are they? Are they really about circumstances in the 13th century or do they speak more to the context within which they were developed, in the 18th and 19th centuries? Conrad wrestles with this question and he is very attuned to the sociological interpretations of the traditions, the ways in which the traditions work, how they were collected and the themes of the different traditions. So we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Conrad for these collections and for his critical analysis of them. The most popularised version has been published in French and English, maybe other languages, by Djibril Niane as Sunjata: The Epic of Old Mali . That is the popular version. But Niane did some work of his own in collecting oral traditions, in particular from one griot [a West African bard-cum-royal advisor]. He also conducted his own scholarly research into Mali, as well as other dimensions of West African history. So, he has a context out of which he was approaching this material. Niane refers to it as an epic and I like that. I have adopted that same kind of characterization in African Dominion . “The challenge is to try to figure out what’s myth and what’s not” There are those who don’t believe that it’s an epic and, of course, it cannot be separated from other kinds of traditions in other parts of Africa and outside of Africa. The objective is to try to determine what parts of these traditions are indigenous to the region and the degree to which they may shed light on historical development. These are the challenges—but there are lots and lots of these traditions. There is this epic that Niane weaves together, but there are other collections that purport to represent the life of Sunjata, or some aspect of his life and those collections continued on into the 20th century. Yes. In my view there are threads that are common to the story of Sunjata. One relates to his origins and his mother. I argue that represents an effort to talk about the disempowerment of women in society. I think that’s one theme. In the Islamization of Mali there seems to be a process of the disempowerment of women, who formerly held political positions—overtly political positions. I think that’s one of the things that you see. I think another theme in various traditions is the supernatural quality of Sunjata’s early life which, of course, is an effort to identify him as someone who was divinely chosen to establish the Empire. Another theme has to do with sibling rivalry as he’s growing up and maturing, his rejection by one part of the royal family and his going into exile which, of course, is a very common theme in many other sagas. The subsequent theme is how he is able to establish relationships with other polities, other entities, that will eventually become the building blocks for the Empire, once he becomes its leader. And then there are the sequences around war with the Susu, which is another Mande-speaking group, under the rule of Sumanguru and his defeat of Sumanguru and the establishment of the Empire. These are the constitutive elements that you will see referred to in all of these different traditions. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The challenge is to try to figure out what’s myth and what’s not. Scholars are going back and forth about that. What I try to do is make an argument for the reconsideration of oral traditions as a legitimate source of information for this distant past. I make a tri-level argument and always insist that no historical development can be established if it’s not corroborated by an independent source. With that understood, I think that there are some basic elements about the life of Sunjata that can be substantiated: that Sunjata did exist, and that there was war with the Susu. These are matters that have been independently established by people like Ibn Khaldun . Beyond that we get into the specifics and what I try to do in African Dominion is to talk about what was likely and what was unlikely."