African Dominion Quotes

“Sassuma’s threat to behead Sunjata also targets his mother Sogolon Kedju, his sister Sogolon Kolokon, and his half-brother Manden Bukari (or Manding Bori), son of Maghan Kon Fatta’s third wife Namanje (of legendary beauty and daughter of the “king of the Kamaras”), a marriage strengthening the alliance between the Kamaras and the Keitas. Destined to be the right hand “of some mighty king,” oralists assert Manden Bukari becomes Sunjata’s best friend, and that they form a close bond with Fran Kamara of Tabon and Kamanjan (or Nan Koman Jan) of Sibi, with whom they grow up.”
― Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa

“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

“Keyla was/is a kumayoro or “specialized center” from where heralds the jeliw ngaraw or master griots, guardians of the traditions, having inherited the responsibility from the Kuyate clan of jeliw.19 The Mande were eventually joined by griots from all over the western Sudan during the reroofing of the Kama-Bolon for an instructional period lasting from six months to a year, explaining the epic’s existence in Pulaar, Wolof, Soninke, Zarma, etc.20 The Kama-Bolon reroofing was not the only occasion for reciting the Sunjata epic, but it was apparently the most critical.”
― Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa

“The songs are embedded in an overall presentation often requiring musical accompaniment, and therefore classified as a specific type of performance, a foli.12 Songs commemorating ancestors are fasaw (s. fasa), with the janjon its highest form.”
― Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa