given the honour of royal burial of the Keïta. His people owed him
this testimony of their admiration and gratitude.
The Keïta once again occupied the throne. One of them, Gongo-
Mussa or Kankan-Mussa, who reigned from 1307 to 1332,
brought the power of the Mandinka Empire to its apogee. Towards
the end of his life, in 1324, he went to Mecca with a great
cortege, passing by the Tuat and Cairo and arousing interest and
curiosity everywhere along the route. In the Holy Land he met an
Arab of a Granada family, named Ibrahim-es-Saheli, whom he
persuaded to accompany him to Sudan. The return took place the
following year, by Ghadames, where El-Mamar, a descendant of
the founder of the dynasty of the Almohades, had gone to meet
the Negro sovereign; at the latter’s invitation, EI-Mamer joined the
imperial cortege and went with it as far as Manding.
Before Gonga-Mussa had time to arrive at the Niger, he learned
that, in his absence, his lieutenant Sagamandia had just captured
Gao (1325). Thus he decided to enter the city to receive the
homage of the Dia Assibai, who gave him his two sons as
hostages, one of whom was to return to Gao ten years later to
found the dynasty of the Sonni and shake off the tutelage of the
Manding. As EI-Mamer showed that he was shocked at the
mediocrity of the building – a simple straw-roofed hut – which
served as a mosque for the Muslims of Gao, the mansa invited
Es-Saheli, who combined the profession of architect with that of
poet, to build a house of prayer more worthy of the Most High.
So Es-Saheli constructed at Gao a brick mosque with a
crenelated flat roof and a pyramidal minaret which, according to
tradition, must have been the first Sudanese edifice of this type so
extensively found today.
Gongo-Mussa then went to Timbuktu, which he annexed to his
empire at the same time as Walata. At Timbuktu, Es-Saheli also
built a mosque with a flat roof and a minaret; he also constructed
a great square building, with a flat roof and a cupola, to serve as
an audience room for the sovereign of Manding for when he
should wish to sojourn in Timbuktu. This building was called the
madugu (ground of the master) and its site is still pointed out today.
It was the occasion of an important transformation in Sudanese
architecture: until then, according to EI-Mamer, who later narrated
his journey to his friend Ibn Kaldoun, the only constructions that
were known were cylindrical huts with conical roofs of straw, still
scattered about in our day in nearly all of Negro Africa. In Ghana
itself, according to Bekri, this was the only type of habitation that
had ever existed aside from the stone houses of the royal quarters;
in Timbuktu, Djenné, and Kangaba, it was the same. The madugu
and the mosques built by Es-Saheli were found to be remarkable.
There was an effort to imitate them in all Sudanese centres and this
type of construction, to which an Egyptian origin has been
erroneously attributed, soon became generalised and penetrated
even to the barbarous populations of the Valley of the Volta, where
it assumed the somewhat special aspect of a sort of fortified castle.It is told that Gongo-Mussa, very much satisfied with the work of
his architect, gave him in payment 12,000 mithkals of gold,
according to Ibn Kaldoun, or 40,000 mithkals according to Ibn
Batuta, that is to say, 54 kilos of the precious metal according to
the former or 180 kilos according to the latter. Es-Saheli followed
his generous master as far as Kangaba, constructing for him
another madugu en route at Niani, which was at this epoch the
second capital of the Empire and the site of which is shown, still
designated under the name of “Niani-Madugu”, between
Niamina and Koulikoro. After this the Arab architect returned to
Timbuktu where he died in 1346.Gongo-Mussa himself died in 1332. At this date the Mandinka
Empire occupied nearly the same area as the whole of the terri-
tories of French West Africa and the foreign colonies enclosed by
them, with the exception of the southern countries covered by the
dense forest and the regions situated at the centre of the Bend of
the Niger. The master of this immense Negro state was in friendly
and constant relations with the greatest Muslim potentates of
North Africa, notably with the Merinide sultan of Morocco.
Shortly before his death, Gongo-Mussa had sent an embassy to
Fez, to congratulate Abul Hassane on the victory that he had just
won over Tlemcen, and the sultan of Fez had, in return, dis-
patched one to Manding, where it arrived in 1336 under theFigure with mudfish head (Benin).
Nigeria.
Brass, height 38 cm.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin.Standing on massive, ill-formed feet with a frontal piercing, the skirt of this
figure extends at the left with two hanging tabs, which is common of Benin
fashion. A necklace and bandolier is formed by large beads and the figure is
holding the remnants of a snake with both hands. The whiskers on the head of
the mudfish are reminicent of the European hair so often represented in Benin
figures. Like Europeans, mudfish were viewed as messenegers of the god
Olokun who sent both wealth and children from across the sea. When the water
dries up, the mudfish retreats into the mud and vibrantly reappears upon the
first rain. This behaviour makes them suitable figures to be intermediaries
between the world of the living and the dead.