Sundiata Keita and the Rise of the Mali Empire

After Ghana's power collapsed, the Soso kingdom under Sumanguru Kanté subjugated the small Mandinka kingdoms of the upper Niger. Sundiata Keita, who died around 1255 and is regarded as the founder of the Mali Empire, is said to have suffered a physical disability in childhood that left him unable to walk for years; after the death of his father, King Naré Maghann Konaté, he was exiled together with his mother, Sogolon Kedjou. His story survives chiefly through oral tradition, passed down for generations by griots and compiled in the twentieth century by Djibril Tamsir Niane as "The Epic of Sundiata," a narrative that blends verifiable historical elements with the legendary and supernatural motifs typical of West African oral storytelling.