Michael A. Gomez

“As was true throughout the Americas, newly arriving Africans, referred to as “fresh” or “saltwater” blacks, often underwent a painful period of adjustment known as “seasoning,” lasting up to three years. It was during this time that captives became enslaved, whereas prior to disembarkation anything was possible, including mutiny. Seasoning involved acclimating to a new environment, new companions, strange languages and food, and new living arrangements. Above all, seasoning involved adjusting to life and work under conditions cruel and lethal. As a result of brutal treatment, the shock of the New World, disease, and the longing for home, between 25 and 33 percent of the newly arrived did not survive seasoning.”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora

“Having claimed one of the most illustrious figures in Islam, these same traditions maintain Bilāl’s descendant, Mamadi Kani, becomes a “hunter king,” establishing the title of simbon or donso karamoko or “master hunter,” achieved through a special relationship with the jinn of “the forest and bush” and the special favor of Kondolon Ni Sané, twinned deities of the chase.43 Mamadi Kani will rule a following of hunters, connoting the Mande idea of polity developing from hunter guilds, the donson ton.”
― Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa