He serves under a great general and proves his military and tactical prowess, and then earns the position of viceroy to the king.

While in Mema, Sundiata grows and is said to develop the strength of a lion. Although many kingdoms in the region refuse to take them in, the Mema kingdom offers them asylum. Soon after, Sassouma jealously drives Sundiata and Sogolon into exile. He then uproots a baobab tree in another demonstration of strength. He successfully attempts to walk using the rod, which bends into the shape of a bow under his strength. At one point, after Sassouma insults Sogolon, Sundiata obtains an iron rod from the blacksmith. After Naré Maghan dies around 1224, his first son Dankaran Tuman claims the throne in defiance of his father’s call for Sundiata to become king and fulfill the prophecy.īecause Sundiata was born unable to walk, and because of his mother Sogolon’s ugliness, both are subject to the ridicule of the new king and his mother Sassouma Bérété. He recalls seer’s prophecy and marries this woman, Sogolon, with whom he has another son, Sundiata. Although already married and the father of a son, Naré Maghan is presented with an ugly woman with a hunched back.

His story begins when his father, the Mandinka King Naré Maghan Kon Fatta, is told by a seer that if he marries an ugly woman, their son will be destined to become a powerful king. Sundiata lived in the 13th century and led the Mali Empire. Niane’s 1960 French novelization of the epic as spoken by the griot Djeli Mamoudou Kouyaté. Modern versions likely stem from material amassed in the 20th century in French-controlled Sudan. French and German versions were published just prior to the 20th century, and West Africans began writing variations by the 1930s. Sundiata first appeared in written Arabic in the late 1800s.

Sundiata by Djibril Tamsir Niane