Page 29 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

to feed the people of Wagadu if ever there was a famine (a dangerous
shortage of food).

iS There hiSTory in The legend?
The Wagadu legend’s magical elements are obvious. But parts of it
reflect social and environmental realities that could have actually been
a part of Soninke history.
The kind of competition seen between the younger brother, Diabe
Cissé, and his older brother, Khiné, was common in families of the
Soninke people. In the early history of the Western Sudan kingdoms,
there are many stories of brothers being involved in bloody rivalries for
their father’s throne (especially in the Songhay Empire).
The offer made by the snake-killer’s mother to provide for any refu-
gees from Wagadu is also of interest. It corresponds to what one Arab
geographer said about matrilineal descent (power passed to the son
of the king’s sister) in those early times. There might even have been
instances of female chieftains.
Looking at the environmental elements in the legend, it is a fact
that pythons are equally at home in the water and on land. Their pres-
ence was a sure sign of a climate with enough water to support a settle-
ment, and this is suggested by the bargain struck between Bida and
Diabe Cissé. In recent times, zoologists (scientists who study animals)
have found that during the heat of the day in the dry season, pythons
usually seek water in which to submerge themselves.
Before the arrival of Islam and Christianity in Africa, the great
pythons were sacred religious symbols throughout sub-Saharan West
Africa, from the Sahel to the Atlantic coast. So it is not difficult to see
how the idea of the great snake as a highly spiritual water guardian
could develop.
As for the riches symbolically linked with the great snake Bida,
there is a real connection between rainfall and gold production. In
ancient times, when the climate supported cities of the Sahel such as
Kumbi Saleh, the annual rain fell very heavily, flooding otherwise dry
gullies and washing gold into alluvial deposits (layers of sand, rock,
and debris deposited by flowing water). In the ancient goldfields of
Bambuk, the gold was collected from just such alluvial deposits.
If the climate of Ghana dried up and there was a drought for many
years, the lack of an annual rush of water through the dry gullies would

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