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Masking Sunjata: A Hermeneutical Critique*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jan Jansen
Jan Jansen*
Affiliation:
Leiden University
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Extract

Among the rich legacy of African oral traditions, the Sunjata epic is still one of the most complex phenonema, because it undoubtedly goes back to the times of Ibn Battuta, because of the limited variety between the available text editions, and because of its present-day popularity in sub-Saharan West Africa among people of all kinds of social background. In scholarly discussion, the epic has challenged many academics since Delafosse used the Sunjata epic as evidence for his reconstruction of the Mali empire as a thirteenth-century vast centralized polity. Although his views have been criticized since then, they have become part of history lessons at primary schools in Mali, the Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea. All these countries belong to the so-called “Mande,” an area inhabited by various ethnic groups that have close similarities in language, oral tradition, and social organization.

In the last decade History in Africa has given room to discuss the Sunjata epic, in particular in order to explore how data from the epic can be used as historical sources, and as what history for whom. Articles by David Conrad, Tim Geysbeek, Stephan Bühnen, Stephen Bulman, Kathryn Green, George Brooks, Ralph Austen, and myself come my mind. All these authors have treated the Sunjata epic as a text. This seems to be a logical and inevitable choice for the historian.

However, this approach implies a choice that limits the range of interpretations which can be made about the Sunjata traditions as a source for African history.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 27 , January 2000 , pp. 131 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2000

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Footnotes

*

Fieldwork and research in the period 1991-2002 have heen financed by the Netherlands Organization for the Development of Tropical Research (WOTRO) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

References

1 In this context the following anecdote is illustrative for the Sunjata epic's status in Mali. In 1991, I was at the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako, looking for colleagues who worked on the Sunjata epic. I presented myself to the librarian, and he showed me the door of the Department of History. I asked him if he did not make a mistake, and proposed the next door: Department of Oral Tradition. “No, you make a mistake,” the librarian replied, “Sunjata is history, not oral tradition.”

2 Cf. Austen, R.A., In Search of Sunjata: the Maude Epic as History, Literature, and Performance (Bloomington, 1999).Google Scholar

3 Levtzion, Nehemia and Hopkins, J.F.P., Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge, 1981), 293.Google Scholar

4 McNaughton, Patrick R., The Mande Blacksmiths (Bloomington, 1986), 136–37.Google Scholar

5 Dieterlen, G., Essai sur la religion Bambara (Bruxelles, 1988), 171–72.Google Scholar

6 Jan Jansen, J., Duintjer, E., and Tamboura, B., L'épopée de Sunjara, d'après Lansine Diabate de Kela (Leiden, 1995), 117–18.Google Scholar

7 In the Sobara region traditional healers a(somaw) form the most active participants of Komo ceremonies. Their traditional headgear with dozens of amulets they sometimes call Fakollifugula, Fakoli's hat.

8 P. Weil, P., “Masks of Mande Musulu, the Creation and Performance of Masks by Women in Wuli Kingdom, Senegambia” (1994 version of a paper presented at the Second International Conference on Mande Studies, March 1993. I talked with Peter Weil on the topic in Bamako, in March 1993. In 1997 this paper was being prepared for publication in African Arts.)

9 At the end of the chapter Camara “demystifies” the happening by claimimg that the noise was made by the elder young men themselves.

10 Arnoldi, M.J., Playing with Time. Art and Performance in Central Mali (Bloomington, 1995)Google Scholar; PAN records 4010 KCD Bamana and Bozo songs from Kirango, Mali (The Music Collection of the Royal Tropical Institute) gives a picture of “Sigi,” the bush buffalo mask.

11 For the Sobara region see Zobel, C., “Les génies du Kòma: Identités locales, logiques religieuses ct enjeux socio-poltiques dans les moms Manding du Mali,” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 36(1996), 630–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There are no bridges in the entire region. In August this mountainous region is often isolated from the rest of the world by deep brooks that are formed after heavy and long-lasting rains.

12 Webb, J.L.A., Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change along the Western Sahel, 1600-1850 (Madison, 1995).Google Scholar

13 Jansen, Jan, “Politics and Political Discourse: Was Maude Already a Segmentary Society in the Middle Ages,” HA 23 (1996), 121–28.Google Scholar

14 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 Maude d'après Jeli Kankn Madi Jabate de Kéla (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar; Jansen et al., Epopée.

15 Archives Nationales du Mali à Koulouba, FR (I-E-70 Rapports Politiques et Rapports de Tournée, Cercle de Bamako, 1921-1944.

16 See my “Hot Issues: The 1997 Kamabolob Ceremony in Kangaba (Mali),” IJAHS 31 (1998), 253–78.Google Scholar

17 Conrad, D.C., “A Town Called Dakajalan: the Sunjata Tradition and the Question of Ancient Mali's Capital,” JAH 35(1994), 355–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Bulman, S.P.D., “A Checklist of Published Versions of the Sunjata Epic,” HA 24(1997), 71–94.Google Scholar