The Epic of Sundiata

The Epic of Sundiata is a West African tale that tells the story of the rise to power of Mali's greatest king, Sundiata (Son-Jara). In this epic, the griot Djeli Mamoudou Kouyate begins the story from the humiliating childhood of Son Jara (Sundiata), to the jealousy between his stepmother Sassouma and his half brother Dankaran Tuma, to the continue conflicts with the great sorcerer Soumaoro and the later achievements of Sundiata for his fatherland and his people.
The Empire of Mali rose out of what was once the empire of Ghana. Mali had been a state inside of the Ghana Empire (Goucher, 2…