40 pages • 1 hour read
Djibril Tamsir Niane (D.T. Niane), Transl. G. D. PickettSundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Sunjata)
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1200A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Baobab Leaves”
Merchants selling baobab leaves arrive in Mema. Sundiata’s sister Kolonkan is pleased to see the product, which is rare in the region, and identifies herself as a native of Mali. The merchants ask to be hosted at her mother’s house. Once they see Sogolon, who is now old and sickly, they reveal themselves as the party searching for Sundiata. They ask Sundiata to return to vanquish Soumaoro, and he agrees. That night Sundiata prays to bury his dying mother in Mema, sparing her the hardship of the coming war. By morning, Sogolon has died. Sundiata goes to the king of Mema, asking to depart but requesting permission to bury Sogolon first. The king sees Sundiata as ungrateful and demands he pay to bury his mother. Sundiata brings him a barrel of pottery shards and plucked feathers as payment. The king’s advisor tells the king this is Sundiata’s message that if he is not shown more respect, he will destroy Mema. The king allows Sogolon to be buried with full honors.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Return”
The king of Mema gives Sundiata half his army. With this army, Sundiata marches to Wagadou to collect more troops. From there, they go to Tabon to fulfill Sundiata’s promise to Fran Kamara. On the way, soothsayers relate to Sundiata the story of Alexander, whom Sundiata hopes to surpass in territory and wealth.
Tabon, ruled by Fran Kamara (now called Tabon Wana, meaning “the dread man of Tabon”), is already at war with Soumaoro. Soumaoro sends out a faction led by his son Sosso Balla to block Sundiata from joining forces with Wana. Sundiata viciously attacks this force, and they flee. Shocked, Soumaoro decides to march on Tabon with a larger force.
Soumaoro arrives with his forces and watches from a hill as they battle Sundiata. Though he tries to ensnare Sundiata with a regiment of smiths, Sundiata uses his cavalry and archers to handily defeat this attack. Soumaoro then joins the battle. Sundiata hurls his spear, but it bounces off Soumaoro. He then fires an arrow, but Soumaoro catches it in the air. As Sundiata charges, Soumaoro vanishes and reappears on the distant hill.
Sundiata retires for the evening, questioning what magic Soumaoro possesses; he does not sleep all night. The next day the advance toward Mali continues. The following evening Sundiata and his men are ambushed by Soumaoro’s forces after they make camp. They manage to resist this attack with little damage done.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Names of the Heroes”
Soumaoro returns to Sosso to regroup. As Sundiata continues his advance, all the villages open to him and offer soldiers in the battle against Soumaoro. Sundiata reenters the region surrounding Mali, where Sundiata and all his allies meet in a great plain. The narrator lists the notable kings allied and assembled with Sundiata, who declares that together they will shirk Soumaoro’s control and live free, just as their ancestors did.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Nana Triban and Balla Fasséké”
At Sibi, a city in Southern Mali, Sundiata consults with soothsayers for information on how to defeat Soumaoro. He is told to sacrifice 100 white bulls, 100 white rams, and 100 white cocks. During this sacrifice, Balla Fasséké and Nana Triban, daughter of Sassouma Bérété, arrive. Nana Triban professes that she was always loyal to Sundiata despite her mother’s hate. She explains that after Sundiata’s exile, she was sent by Touman to be a wife of Soumaoro. She secretly worked with Fasséké to discover the source of Soumaoro’s powers. They discovered that Soumaoro uses a tana, or a hereditary taboo, to channel the power of his ancestors into a supernatural force. In exchange, he is forbidden from touching ergot, of which a cock’s spur is comprised, or he will lose his magic.
As Sundiata’s army assembles, Fasséké ceremonially begs a demonstration of strength by Tabon Wana, who fells a tree with a single stroke of his sword. Fasséké asks the same of the king of Sibi, who carves a tunnel into a mountain with his sword. Fasséké then proclaims all the war chiefs by name, and they all perform great feats.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Krina”
So far, Sundiata and Soumaoro have made no formal declaration of war. Since no war can occur without a declaration of its reasons, Soumaoro advances to Krina in the Koulikoro region of Mali. There, he declares his rights to the area by sending word through a magical owl, which perches on Sundiata’s tent and speaks words directly from Soumaoro. Sundiata and the owl argue over the rights to Mali.
Fakoli, the nephew who deserted Soumaoro, arrives after this conversation. He explains his quarrel with Soumaoro and declares himself and his warriors allies of Sundiata. Sundiata sees that Fakoli’s cause for vengeance is just and accepts his allegiance.
The night before the great battle arrives, and Sundiata holds a feast for his men. Fasséké gives a rousing speech of these kings’ right to the land of Mali. He compares Sundiata’s difficult childhood and his current strength to the upheavals in Mali’s political history, and describes Mali’s current delivery to a new age under Sundiata (62). He inspires Sundiata to add his name to the list of great kings of Mali by succeeding in battle. In the morning Sundiata readies his weapon: a bow and arrow pointed with the spur of a white cock.
The battle begins with Sundiata and his cavalry successfully overtaking Soumaoro’s horsemen. Soumaoro attacks Fakoli’s forces, who give ground under the pressure. Sundiata joins this battle, and Soumaoro retreats behind his men. Sundiata shoots his spur-pointed arrow, grazing Soumaoro on the shoulder, which is enough to rob Soumaoro of his magic. A black bird flies over them, a sign of Soumaoro’s defeat.
Soumaoro flees, and his forces are decimated. Sundiata and Fakoli pursue Soumaoro and his son all night on horseback. By evening, they are right behind the fugitives, chasing them up Koulikoro mountain. Fakoli catches Sosso Balla, Soumaoro’s son. Wishing to take Soumaoro alive, Sundiata kills Soumaoro’s horse with his spear and continues his pursuit on foot. Soumaoro escapes into a cave as night falls, making pursuit impossible. He is never heard from again.
Many kings ally with Sundiata, and they quickly overtake the city of Sosso. Balla Fasséké shows Sundiata Soumaoro’s chamber of fetishes, which is now decrepit since Soumaoro’s power is gone. Sundiata burns the city to the ground.
Chapters 10-14 Analysis
This sequence of chapters documents Sundiata’s return to Mali and his triumphant clash with Soumaoro. Notably, Sundiata’s return to Mali and the beginning of his final step toward kingship is preceded by end of Sogolon’s life. As Sogolon has said previously, she has served her life’s purpose in raising Sundiata, and now that Sundiata is a man, she can die peacefully. Though Sundiata’s prayer to bury Sogolon at Mema may seem strange to modern readers, this prayer represents his recognition of the transition in his and his mother’s lives, and it is a fitting death for this nurturing character. In Sundiata’s negotiation with the king of Mema over Sogolon’s burial, he again showcases his diplomatic and tactical skill. For the first time he also shows his willingness to destroy entire cities to reach his goal—an act he carries out at the close of Chapter 14.
As Sogolon’s purpose as an ally to Sundiata ends, several other allies come to the foreground of the story and prove themselves useful to Sundiata’s quest. The first of these is Kolonkan and the Mandinka search party. Here, citizens of Mali prove themselves loyal to Sundiata’s memory, and Kolonkan shows herself to be an ideal sister in her skill with domestic craft (recognizing the baobab leaves, the Mandinka condiment the search party bears) and hospitality. The baobab leaves are also symbolically significant: They are a traditional Mandinka condiment, and they are of the same species of tree that Sundiata uprooted on the day his exile from Mali was sealed. Baobab leaves accompany Sundiata’s exit from Mali, and they also lead him home. This, like the gathering of all Sundiata’s allies to fight together against Soumaoro, represents the full circle of his exile.
The next ally these chapters emphasize is Fran Kamara, now called Tabon Wana. Wana, like Sundiata, has become a great leader and a powerful warrior. This demonstrates the value of Sundiata’s early diplomacy, which comes to fruition in a powerful military alliance.
Allegiances continue to grow throughout these chapters. Because Sundiata is worthy and just—unlike Soumaoro, who is disrespectful and selfish—villages open themselves to him and many heroes step forward. The narrator’s emphasis on the heroes’ names is a form of litany—or poetic list typical of the epic form—that helps demonstrate the assistance of varied ancestral groups in the formation of the Mali Empire. This poetic form glorifies the assembled kings and includes all their varied descendants, who may be listening to the poem, in this narrative of communal ancestry and ancestral pride.
The next allies that appear before Sundiata are Nana Triban, Balla Fasséké, and Fakoli Koroma. Sundiata’s reunion with his griot signifies the imminent arrival of his kingship, but it is not particularly surprising, as Fasséké’s loyalty was never in question despite his long absence. On the other hand, the allegiances of Triban and Koroma are remarkable, as both men should by ancestry despise Sundiata. Triban is the daughter of his mother’s rival Sassouma, and Fakoli is the nephew of Soumaoro himself. However, Sundiata’s honor contrasts with the disreputable character of Soumaoro, who abused their allegiances. While Soumaoro’s despicable actions cost him allies, Sundiata’s goodness secures new friendships. Nana Triban’s friendship is indeed quite beneficial to Sundiata, as it is through Nana Triban that Sundiata learns of Soumaoro’s “Achilles’s heel,” the touch of a cock’s spur. This information enables Sundiata to construct a magical weapon that can defeat his opponent.
Sundiata and Koroma’s final chase of Soumaoro shows Sundiata’s absolute resolve to defeat this oppressor. Soumaoro’s vanishing into a cave is a somewhat unsatisfactory end that reflects the historical record, which does not detail the fate of the real Soumaoro after the battle of Krina. In the destruction of Sosso, Sundiata asserts his power not just as a king but as an all-powerful emperor—rendering Sosso nothing but rubble as women and children beg for mercy (69).
