Page 60 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

Cha P ter 3

thE sonGhay EmpirE

SONGHAY WAS THE THIRD OF THE GREAT EMPIRES IN THE op p os it e
medieval Western Sudan. The Songhay people came to dominate the This monumental
eastern side of the Niger Bend. Eventually they developed an empire pyramidal tomb of
that covered a vast portion of the Western Sudan. mud-brick was built
around 1495 in the Songhay
In ancient times, several different groups of people combined to
capital of Gao, after Askia
form the Songhay. Among the first people in the region of Gao were Muhammad returned from
the Sorko, who established small settlements on the banks of the Niger Mecca. It is now a UNESCO
River. They were specialists in everything that had to do with the river. World Heritage Site.
They built boats and canoes from the wood of the caïlcédrat tree. This caïlcédrat tree. This caïlcédrat
is an evergreen tree with fine-grain wood that can grow to 90 feet tall.
The Sorko fished and hunted from their boats, and provided water
transportation for goods and people.
A second group that moved into the area to take advantage of the
Niger’s resources were hunters known as Gow. They specialized in kill-
ing river animals such as the crocodile and hippopotamus.
The other known group of the time was called Do (pronounced
Doh). They were farmers who raised crops in the fertile lands that bor-
dered the river.
Sometime before the 10th century, these early settlers were
joined by more powerful horse-riding people who spoke the Songhay
language. These horsemen established control over the other people
in the area. All these people together gradually began to speak the
same language. They and their country eventually came to be known
as Songhay.
The dominant Songhay horsemen became recognized as masters
of the eastern arc of the Niger Bend. The history of how this happened
is not clear. Historians would not even know about the earliest dynasty
of kings were it not for an ancient cemetery near a village called Saney,
near Gao. Inscriptions on a few of the tombstones indicate that the