African Art

which he marched against his ephemeral suzerain. The two

princes met in 1235 at Kirina, not far from Koulikoro, near the

Niger, where Sumanguru was defeated and killed. Without losing

any time, Sundiata continued his victorious march, entered Soso

as master, pushed on as far as Ghana which he took and

destroyed (1240), chiefly with the aim of bringing upon himself the

renown that attached to that ancient capital of a glorious empire,

thus destroying the base of a powerful State. He was not content

to merely be a great warrior: tradition says that he gave all his

efforts to the development of agriculture, that he introduced into his

country the raising and weaving of cotton and that he caused the

most absolute security to reign from one end of his kingdom to the

other. This remarkable prince perished in his capital around 1255,

the victim of an accident during a public festival.

His successor, the mansa Oule, renewed the tradition inaugurated

by Baramendana and went to Mecca, at the same time carrying

the limits of the nascent empire farther west and incorporating into

it the Bambuk, the Boundu and the larger part of the valley of the

Gambia. From 1285 to 1300, a usurper reined, the only one

who is mentioned in the course of the long line of the Keïta. He

was a serf named Sakura but continued the work of his masters

and predecessors, pushing the Mandinka conquest towards the

northeast in the Massina and the province of Djenné, and towards

the northwest as far as the lower Senegal, disputing the Tekrur with

the kings of Diara and making vassals of them, engaging in direct

commercial relations with Tripolitania and Morocco and also

accomplishing the pilgrimage to Mecca, only to be assassinated

on his return, near Jibuti, by the Danakil who grudged him his

gold. His companions dried his body to conserve it and brought

it back by the Wadai as far as Kuka, in Bornu; the king of the latter

country sent out messengers to Manding to inform the court and

people of the news and an embassy was dispatched from

Kangaba to Kuka to bring back the remains of Sakura; he was

Karan Wembamask (Mossi).
Burkina Faso.
Wood, pigments, height: 106 cm.
Chambeaud Collection.

Pabre is the mythic princess who assisted in the foundation of the Yatenga
kingdom. She is represented symbolically with this mask.

Pair of statues (Mossi).

Wood, height of the tallest: 41.5 cm.

Private collection.

Generally, statues in African art hold static positons, making the dynamic posture

of these statues rare. Mossi figures are most often associated with fertility.