Sundiata Keita or Sunjata Keita (1190? - 1255?) is a semi-historical hero of the Mandinka people of West Africa and is celebrated in the Epic of Sundiata as founder of the Mali Empire. He was said to have defeated the great enemy, Sumanguru at the battle of Kirina. He was the son of a hunchback, Sogolon, and Maghan Kon Fatta. At age 7, he still couldn't walk, and Maghan's other wife used this against him, as she (Sassouma Berete) thought Sundiata would try to kill her son, Prince Dankaran Touman, to become the leader of Mali. Sundiata learned to walk with the help of a blacksmith who made braces for his legs. He is said to be a ruler of Mali Empire between 1235? and 1260?. He was the granduncle of Mansa Musa.
Possibly identical with Marijata, also celebrated as founder of Mali empire in one or more pieces of oral history recorded by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun in the late fourteenth century.
Sunjata and his mother, who now had given birth to two daughters and adopted a second son from Konaté's third wife Namandjé, suffered the scorn of the new king and his mother.
Sundiata Keita established his capital at his home village of Niani, Mali, near the present-day Malian border with Guinea.
Sundiata Keita died in 1255, probably of drowning.
Keita hails from Bamako, Mali's capital city, which is as important to the great flowering of African music over the past several decades as New Orleans or Chicago were to American Jazz in the early years.
Malian musicians sing in one or another of the languages traceable to the Mandingan empire in Western Mali of the 13th to 15th century founded by SunjataKeita, a renowned warrior, who is an African version of the proud Aztec or Incan dynasts of the same time period.
Keita sings in a medium tempo, with a penetrating high tenor voice rooted in the Islamic style of the muzzeins, who call people to prayer each morning.
Feeds |
Contact