The Mandinka and Dan are two distinct West African ethnic groups with rich histories and unique cultural practices. This article explores their origins, traditions, social structures, and presence in countries like Liberia and Ghana.
The Mandinka People
The Mandinka, also known as Malinke, are a West African ethnic group primarily found in southern Mali, The Gambia, southern Senegal, and eastern Guinea. Numbering about 11 million, they are the largest subgroup of the Mandé peoples and one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in Africa.
They speak the Manding languages in the Mande language family, which are a lingua franca in much of West Africa. The Mandinka are predominantly subsistence farmers and live in rural villages.
Nowadays, the Mandinka inhabit the West Sudanian savanna region extending from The Gambia and the Casamance region in Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau. Although widespread, the Mandinka constitute the largest ethnic group only in the countries of Mali, Guinea and The Gambia.
Most Mandinka live in family-related compounds in traditional rural villages. Their traditional society has featured socially stratified castes.
Read also: Zimbabwe's Notable Figures
Mandinka communities have been fairly autonomous and self-ruled, being led by a chief and group of elders.
The history of Mandinka, as with many Mandé peoples, begins with the Ghana Empire, also known as Wagadu. Mande hunters founded communities in Manden, which would become the political and cultural center of the Mandinka, but also in Bambuk and the Senegal river valley.
The Camara (or Kamara) are believed to be the oldest family to have lived in Manden, after having left Wagadou, due to drought. They founded the first village of Manding, Kiri, then Kirina, Siby, Kita. A very large number of families that make up the Mandinka community were born in Manden. Manding is the province from which the Mali Empire started, under the leadership of Sundiata Keita.
During the rule of Sundiata Keita, these kingdoms were consolidated, and the Mandinka expanded west from the Niger River basin under Sundiata's general Tiramakhan Traore. This expansion was a part of creating a region of conquest, according to the oral tradition of the Mandinka people.
With the migration, many gold artisans and metal working Mandinka smiths settled along the coast and in the hilly Fouta Djallon and plateau areas of West Africa. Their presence and products attracted Mandika merchants and brought trading caravans from north Africa and the eastern Sahel.
Read also: Making Millions in Ghana
The caravan trade to North Africa and Middle East brought Islamic people into Mandinka people's original and expanded home region. The Muslim traders sought presence in the host Mandinka community, and this likely initiated proselytizing efforts to convert the Mandinka from their traditional religious beliefs into Islam.
In 1324, Mansa Musa who ruled Mali, went on Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca with a caravan carrying gold. The Mandinka people of Mali converted early, but those who migrated to the west did not convert and retained their traditional religious rites.
With the arrival of Portuguese explorers in Africa as they looked for a sea route to India, the European purchase of slaves had begun. Slavery grew significantly between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Portuguese considered slave sources in Guinea and Senegambia parts of Mandinka territory as belonging to them; their 16th to 18th-century slave trade-related documents refer to "our Guinea" and complain about slave traders from other European nations superseding them in the slave trade.
Scholars have offered several theories on the source of the transatlantic slave trade of Mandinka people. According to Boubacar Barry, a professor of History and African Studies, chronic violence between ethnic groups such as the Mandinka people and their neighbours, combined with weapons sold by slave traders and lucrative income from slave ships to the slave sellers, fed the practice of groups raiding for captives, conducting manhunts, and taking slaves.
Read also: Ghana's Notable Figures
As the demand grew, states Barry, Futa Jallon, led by an Islamic military theocracy, became one of the centers of this slavery-perpetuating violence. These jihads captured the highest number of slaves to sell to Portuguese traders at the ports controlled by Mandinka people.
In the 21st century, the Mandinka continue as rural subsistence farmers who rely on peanuts, rice, millet, maize, and small-scale husbandry for their livelihood. During the wet season, men plant peanuts as their main cash crop. Men also grow millet. The women grow rice (traditionally, African rice), tending the plants by hand.
While farming is the predominant profession among the Mandinka, men also work as tailors, butchers, taxi drivers, woodworkers, metalworkers, soldiers, nurses, and extension workers for aid agencies.
Some Mandinka syncretise Islam and traditional African religions. Among these syncretists, it is believed that spirits can be controlled mainly through the power of a marabout, who knows the protective formulas. In most cases, the people do not make important decisions without first consulting a marabout.
The conversion of the Mandinka to Islam took place over many centuries. According to Robert Wyndham Nicholls, Mandinka in Senegambia started converting to Islam as early as the 17th century, and most of Mandinka leatherworkers there converted to Islam before the 19th century. Mandinka musicians, however, were last, converting to Islam mostly in the first half of the 20th century.
In Mandinka society the lu (extended family) is the basic unit, and is led by a fa (family head) who manages relations with other fa. A dugu (village) is formed by a collection of lu, and the dugu is led by the fa of the most important lu, aided by the dugu-tigi (village head or fa of the first lu that settled there). A group of dugu-tigi form a kafu (confederation) headed by a kafu-tigi.
The Mandinka people have traditionally been a socially stratified society, as are many West African ethnic groups with castes.
The Mandinka society has been "divided into three endogamous castes - the freeborn (foro), slaves (jongo), and artisans and praise singers (nyamolo).
The Mandinka practice a rite of passage, kuyangwoo, which marks the beginning of adulthood for their children. At an age between four and fourteen, the youngsters have their genitalia ritually mutilated (see articles on male and female genital mutilation), in separate groups according to their sex. During this time, they learn about their adult social responsibilities and rules of behaviour.
Preparation is made in the village or compound for the return of the children. A celebration marks the return of these new adults to their families.
Marriages are traditionally arranged by family members rather than by either the bride or groom. This practice is particularly prevalent in the rural areas. The suitor's family formally sends Kola nuts, a bitter nut from a tree, to the male elders of the bride-to-be.
Polygamy has been practiced among the Mandinka since pre-Islamic days. A Mandinka man is legally allowed to have up to four wives, as long as he is able to care for each of them equally. Mandinka believe the crowning glory of any woman is the ability to produce children, especially sons.
Mandinka culture is rich in tradition, music, and spiritual ritual. The Mandinka continue a long oral history tradition through stories, songs, and proverbs.
In rural areas, the influence of western education is minimal; the literacy rate in Latin script among these Mandinka is quite low. But, more than half the adult population can read the local Arabic script (including Mandinka Ajami). Small Qur'anic schools for children where this is taught are quite common.
The Mandinka have a rich oral history that is passed down through sung versions by griots. This passing down of oral history through music has made the practice of music one of the most distinctive traits of the Mandinka. They have long been known for their drumming and also for their unique musical instrument, the kora.
The kora is a twenty-one-stringed West African harp made from a halved, dried, hollowed-out gourd covered with cow or goat skin. The strings are made of fishing line (these were traditionally made from a cow's tendons). The kora has become the hallmark of traditional Mandinka musicians.
Malian author Massa Makan Diabaté wrote novels that refer to Mandinka legends, including Janjon, which won the 1971 Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire.
In 1976 American writer Alex Haley published his novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, tracing his family connections through free and enslaved generations to an 18th-century ancestor taken captive and brought to North America, a Mandinka man known as Kunta Kinte.
Mr. T, of American television fame, once claimed that his distinctive hairstyle was modelled after a Mandinka warrior that he saw in National Geographic magazine.
A 14th-century European depiction of Mansa Musa, the famous Mandinka ruler of the Mali Empire, from the Catalan Atlas (1375).
The Dan People
The Dan or Mano-Dan are a Mande ethnic group from northwestern Ivory Coast and neighbouring Liberia. There are approximately 700000 members of the group and their largest settlement is Man, Ivory Coast. Neighboring peoples include the Krahn, Kpelle and Mano.
They are officially known as Yacouba (or Yakouba). They speak the Dan language, a Southeast Mande language and are closely related to the Maghan people of the Ghana Empire and of the Gbara of the Mali Empire.
The Dan originally came from the western Sudan region to the north, part of present-day Mali and Guinea. The Dan had a reputation as a fierce warrior society.
After Liberia became a nation in 1847, the new government in Monrovia began pacifying the Dan people.
The Dan are primarily a farming people who annually clear forest land to grow their staple foods and cash crops, such as rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, and a variety of maize. Today, they also grow cocoa, coffee, and rubber. Women are given a small plot of ground on which to grow their own vegetables to use in the households or to sell in the market.
Dan men do most of the agricultural work, but women help with the harvesting and weeding. Men also do all of the hunting and most of the fishing, while women tend to such domestic duties as caring for the children and preparing the meals. Children help by chasing cattle, or wild animals and birds away from the crops.
The Dan also raise livestock such as cattle, cow, sheep, and goats, fowls, and chicken.
The basic unit of Dan culture is the family. Dan culture is patrilineal and polygamous, so this unit comprises a husband, one or more wives and their children.
Lineages, or groups of people descended from a common ancestor in the paternal line, live in distinct sections of the town, which are called quarters in Liberian English.
Dan arts are notable for wood sculpture, including a huge variety of masks, each with unique forms and purposes. Dan masks are the most important art form of the Dan people.
Dan men have their own fraternal societies, which marks their initiation into manhood and guides them throughout their lives. Men's societies, curator Barbara Johnson writes, "form the real socio-political unit of power in the Dan community today, as they did in the past."
These societies controlled by the elders and acts as a source of power for the community. Boys initiated into the society are prepared to encounter the mysteries of the spirit world and to learn the rules of adult Dan men.
These societies demonstrate their power and effectiveness through masquerades, wherein they call upon and control tutelary spirits from the bush, who appear as masked figures in this context. Using these mask-spirits, the societies are able to settle disputes, enforce rules, and correct behavior.
Like many Mande cultures, societal organisation centers around "societies": either age group, caste, occupational, or geographic.
In the recent historic period, Dan communities were for the first (known) time allied into a political organization, created through the Leopard society (Gor).
Dan villages are divided into quarters, each housing an extended family or lineage. Each quarter is headed by a "quarter chief", who is chosen either for being the oldest male in the family or for having the most aggressive personality. Although the village or town chief administers authority over the whole village, the real power comes from the council of elders who assist the chief in all decisions.
Popular articles:
tags: #Ghana
