Epic
The Epic of Sundiata
Sunjata
Anonymous · 1300
Synopsis
Naré Maghann Konaté, king of Manden, marries Sogolon, an ugly woman, on the strength of a prophecy, and she bears him a son, Sundiata. The child does not walk; the king's first wife, Sassouma Bérété, mocks him, and when his father dies he is excluded from the succession. One day he rises, leaning on a branch in one version, uprooting a baobab in another, then goes into exile with his family as far as the kingdom of Mema, while Soumaoro Kanté, the sorcerer king of Sosso, attacks Manden.
Context
The epic is passed on by word of mouth by the griots, and each recitation varies according to the one who tells it and those who listen; according to the variants, it comprises more than forty episodes. Every seven years, at Kangaba, the re-roofing of the Kamablon, a sacred hut built in 1653, brings together the Keïta and the griots, those of the neighbouring village of Kéla telling there the history of the Manden. The written versions differ: the shortest, published in 1960 by Djibril Tamsir Niane, follows the account of a single griot; Youssouf Tata Cissé collected, from 1988 to 1991, a very detailed bilingual version from Wâ Kamissoko.
Who it is for
A narrative for which one must choose a written version, brief or detailed; none is authoritative.
Prizes and reception
The septennial rebuilding of the Kamablon of Kangaba and the Manden charter were inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2009.