Page 82 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

t h e s o n i n k e p e o p l e o f t h e G h a n a E m p i r e

the ruins of rectangular buildings in Kumbi Saleh. The larger buildings
of stone include mosques and the residences of wealthy Arab traders.
In the ruins called Kumbi Saleh, the northeastern part of the town
was built of stone and had large buildings, some of them two stories
high. This appears to have been the neighborhood occupied by wealthy
merchants from North Africa. In the southern section of the town
there are some stone buildings, but the evidence indicates that most
were made of mud brick (called banco, it is similar to adobe in the

What Happened to Bida?

what about the sacred serpent Bida, from of kingship, bring them near the cave,
the legend of wagadu? somewhere in the and pronounce known formulas. Then the
land of the soninke during the time al-Bakri snake approaches them and smells one
was writing, they still had shrines with live man after another until it prods one with
snakes. al-Bakri heard about a snake shrine its nose. As soon as it has done this it turns
of people he calls Zafqu, who were probably away towards the cave. The one prodded
the people of dia (the diafunu). they lived follows as fast as he can and pulls from its
some distance from Ghana’s capital city, tail or its mane as many hairs as he is able.
but were probably soninke. according to His kingship will last as many years as he
what al-Bakri heard, the snake was “a mon- has hairs, one hair per year.
strous serpent with a mane and a tail and a
head shaped like that of the Bactrian camel” obviously, some of the arab geogra-
(quoted in levtzion and Hopkins). the snake phers were prepared to believe anything
he described is partly the product of some they heard about the strange things to be
traveler’s wild imagination, but the general found in the land below the sahara. one
ritual at the cave is clearly similar to the one would think that even writing from far away
described in the legend of wagadu. in spain, al-Bakri would know that snakes
the snake lived in a cave, and just outside do not have hair. Nevertheless, this story
it lived the priests who handled its feeding and indicates that hundreds of years after the
supervised the rituals and ceremonies. al- founding of wagadu, great pythons like Bida
Bakri wrote (quoted in levtzion and Hopkins): were still important religious symbols of
soninke society. it also makes it clear that
When one of their rulers dies they assem- many populations of the western sudan had
ble all those whom they regard as worthy still not converted to islam.

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