Where is mandinka located

The origins of the Mandinka ethnicity in The Gambia can be traced back to Manding Kangaba , which was one of the kingdoms of the ancient Mali Empire. According to oral historians, there are four variations of the Mandinka group as they are referred to in Senegambia, Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Mali. These include Mandinga, Mandinka, Mandingo and Mandinko as they are widely referred to in areas close to the Guinea Conakry and Guinea Bissau borders, all the way to Saloum and throughout the whole of present-day The Gambia.

However, the group gained their independence from previous empires in the 13th century and founded their own kingdom, which stretched across West Africa. It was in the second half of the 19th century that this linguistic group converted to Islam, and today 99 per cent still practice the faith. The Mandinka arrived in The Gambia during the 14th century, at a time when the Mali Empire was at its height.

The Mali Empire having been founded by Sundiata Keita. Historians argue over this, but many believe that the reasons for emigrating to the west include the need to find a favourable climate for agriculture in the Senegambia region in order to boost crop production. Another reason given is that many Mandinka merchants wanted to move to areas where there was less competition in trade.

The areas west of the Mali empire did not take part in the trans-Sahara trade, and so these Mandinka traders believed they would have a better chance to grow rich. A general named Tiramang Taraore led the expansion westwards, accompanied by thousands of settlers. As a result, they conquered and settled in large parts the Cassamance region in Senegambia and Guinea Bissau. Taraore never returned to Mali and later died in Basse, a major town in present-day Gambia.

The two traditions morphed over time into the role of the marabout. Today, a marabout in Mandinka society may play many roles.

Although he is usually versed in the Qur'an, he might write down some of its passages to be included in custom-made amulets that are then worn for protection from evil spirits or from other forms of harm or to effect the demise of enemies. Or he may control or even create those spirits using, for example, animal sacrifice. Or he may cure someone possessed by evil spirits using traditional, herbal medicine.

In addition to these Animist practices, many Mandinka observe December 25 as a holiday. Most Mandinkas still live in small, rural settlements today. As elsewhere in the developing world, this often restricts their access to formal education. Females in particular still suffer from a low literacy rate. Yet literacy among the Mandinka has two aspects. They use both Roman and Arabic scripts. The Roman script is used in modern schools.

Here, it is the inability or the unwillingness of parents to send girls to school that accounts for their lower literacy rate. The Arabic script is used in the semi-formal Islamic schools often run by marabouts.

Only boys are admitted into these schools. Beside their continued location in small, traditional villages, most Mandinkas still rely on subsistence farming and fishing for their livelihood. It is here that their indigenous knowledge thrives. Their earliest migration was westward from the Niger River.

This was followed by a southeastern movement. They successfully exploited the natural resources they encountered and formed a succession of kingdoms including fourteen in the Senegambia region of Senegal and The Gambia. They also established new trading routes as they expanded their territory.

For a while, they even successfully resisted European colonial forces. Maize corn , millet, rice and sorghum have traditionally been Mandinka subsistence staples, although they have recently added peanuts as a cash crop. Livestock is also, but less commonly, kept, eaten, ritually sacrificed and traded including within their own communities as bride payment. In times past the Mandinka were among the main traders in the region, but very few are concerned exclusively with trade these days.

When they are, it is mainly their craft products that form the bulk of the merchandise. Human labor was once strictly gender- and age-specific among the Mandinka. Today, some gender roles are more blurred. So it is quite common to see women and girls tending crops as well as working alongside men and boys during harvest time. They are also more likely to be involved in art and craftwork than before. Nonetheless, other traditional gender- and age-specific roles are still observed and strictly enforced.

For example, only Mandinka men will leave their village to pursue wage-labor income. Daily household tasks like meal preparation and caring for young children is still a female-only endeavor. This societal norm is established and maintained through a series of youth affiliations. The closest institution in our society would be a youth club. The Islamic schools for young boys mentioned above are one example, but there are others.

The Mandinka mark the passage into adulthood with ritual circumcision for boys and genital mutilation for girls. Furthermore, this lower caste did not marry into any other higher or lower caste such as slaves though they did attach themselves to a free-born family. In this area the griots had a special place because of their unique relationship to the members of the ruling class and who represented the collective memory of the tribe and village as oral historians.

At the bottom of the social scale were the slaves. This was the case in Gambia as well as other west African regions. Even here there were two types. Household and agricultural slaves who were taken into the family setting and were treated better than the second kind of slave who was usually a prisoner of war or captured in raids on local villages.

The relationship between the domestic slave and certain families could carry through to many generations. The war slave was basically treated like merchandise and traded as soon as possible.

This social structure of the Mandinkas was also true for much of Gambia's other tribes though it has broken down to a certain extent but still quite strict regarding marriage to any of the artisan group. Today the 'slaves' exist in name only as their ancestors had once been from slave families however, till this day some still visit their former patron households. Power and Government: The system of governing under the Mandinka tradition is made up of three layers.