Essay On Mandinko

Bassirou Kebe

SSC 2371 01

Paper 1

Islam and the Traditional Mande Culture and Society

Who are the Mandinko?

The Mandinko recall that their ancestors come from Manding which is the local name of the former Mali Empire. Mandinko means those who come from Manding, whose territory lies in today’s Mali. Mali was a province of the bambara, those who are called Mandinko and who came from the East. Mali was one of the major black African civilisation . The empire occupied a great part of the northern half of West Africa. Tumbuctu, one of the most important city of the empire was known for its mines of gold. According to Arab geographers, in 1324, the emperor Mansa Musa distributed such big amounts of gold in Egypt that the people were completely amazed. The Mandinko are not only inhabitans of Mali, they moved to the Gambia and Casamance led by one of the war chief of Sundjata Keita, the legendary king of the Mali empire. Indeed, many Mandinka Kingdonms along the Gambia and Casamance rivers pleaded allegiance to the king of Mali. Kabu, present-day Guinea Bissau, rose as a great power in the 16th century and drew under its influence the Mandinko kingdoms of Senegambia. These kingdoms would progressively become autonomous from the Mali and under the influence of British and France during the period of colonization in the 19th century.

Beliefs and Social Structures in the Pre-Islamic Mande culture and society

Before the coming of Christianity, Islam and Judaïsm, animism was prevalent in West Africa. Indeed, most African ethnicities attributed spirits not only to human beings, but also to objects, trees, wood, animals and the like. Unlike Islam which allows no debate about the oneness of God, the pract...

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...s, to tell the future, and to cure illnesses. The traditional animist culture of the Mandinko has still a long life ahead. Nowadays, Mandinko in pakao celebrate all the Muslims celebrations, and recite the kuran. Nevertheless, they still hold on to some sacred trees and rituals. However, the mosques and the prayer houses have replaced the fetish spots and the place of animist worships.

Bibliography

Schaffer Matt , and Cooper hristopher , Mandinko. The Ethnography of a West African holy land. ‘Waveland Press, Inc.), 1980.

D.T. Niane, Sundiata An Epic of Old Mali. Pearson: Longman Africa Writers, 2006.

Yeelen, directed by Souleymane Cissé, 1987

Dr Ross Presentation

Dr Roy Presentation

Class Notes

Paper1:

Islam and the traditional Mande Culture and Society

SSC 2371 01

Bassirou Kebe