Sundjata’s Conception - Anonymous

After it had happened

That Sundjata’s mother had become pregnant,

When she had been pregnant for one year,

Susu Sumanguru Baamangana’s diviners by stones said to him,

‘The child who will destroy your kingship

Has been conceived within Manding.’¹ 

Sumanguru gathered together all the women of the town of Manding

And for seven years

He kept them within a walled town.

A man and a woman did not lie on the same bed,

A man and a woman did not come near each other.

As for those women who did become pregnant,

If they gave birth to a child and that child was a male,

Its throat was cut — for seven years.

When it became known that Sundjata had been conceived,

The griots composed this song:

      Ah, it is of Jata that I speak, great stock,

      Simbong, it is of Jata that I speak,²

      Great stock destined for high office.

In those seven years,

Any woman who became pregnant in Manding

Was taken inside that walled town,

And this went on for fourteen years:

For fourteen years

Sundjata’s mother was pregnant with him,

But the diviners by stones foretold it;

They told Susu Sumanguru Baamangana,

‘The child who will destroy your kingship

Has already been conceived.’

Susu Sumanguru Baamangana went to the leader of the Siises,³

And sent him into retreat for forty days.

The child who was to destroy the kingship — Had he been born yet?

Or had he not?

Was he in Manding?

These were the questions he must answer.

He must devise some strategy

So that he can work magic against the child and so be able to kill him.

The leader of the Siises went into retreat;

He came out

And he found Susu Sumanguru Baamangana⁴ —

      Cut and Sirimang,

      It is forging and the left hand,

      Senegalese coucal and swallow,

      Cut iron with iron,

      What gives iron its excellence,

      Big kuku tree and big silk-cotton tree, 

      Fari and Kaunji — 

He was sitting.

He told Sumanguru, ‘I went into retreat

For forty days;

I saw the seven layers of the sky,

Right to where they finish;

I saw the seven layers of the earth,

Right to where they finish;

I saw a black thing in a pond;

By the grave of God,

The creature which comes and gives me information in the night

Came and stood beside me and said,

“Allahu ahary rajakufa mang kaana kaafa,

Ming muusi, janafang kumjai kuna”.⁵

God declares that by his grace,

Whomsoever he has created king,

He has made in his own likeness

And nothing will be able to injure that person.

Those things which you must enjoy,

Enjoy them now before this child is born,

For after he is born

You will be powerless against him.’

---

Anon (13th century) Ghana

Translated by Gordon Innes

Source: African Poems [from Sunjata Three Mandinka Versions by Gordon Innes, SOAS, 1974]

1. Manding: the people of the region where the story takes place call themselves Mandinka.
2. Simbon: a hunter’s title, which Sundjata gained while still a boy.
3. The Siises: the priests and fortune-tellers.
4. the griot breaks off to sing one of the songs belonging to the Sundjata story. Names and events are contracted into cryptic lines whose full meaning is the complete story itself.
5. the words are deliberately meaningless.