West Africa
Oral tradition, 16th century
Written accounts, 16th and 17th centuries
Summaries, 19th and 20th centuries
First linear publication: 1990
The Epic of Askia Mohammed
(Mamar Kassaye Deeda)
Nouhou Malio narrates The Epic of Askia Mohammed, Dec. 30, 1980, in Saga, Niger, accompanied by Soumana Abdou playing the three-stringed molo.
The Epic of Askia Mohammed was recorded by Thomas A. Hale in Saga, Niger, Dec. 30, 1980, and Jan. 26, 1981. It was published in 1990 in a bilingual Songhay/English format in Scribe, Griot, and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay Empire, followed by The Epic of Askia Mohammed Recounted by Nouhou Malio. A student edition appeared in English in 1996 under the title The Epic of Askia Mohammed.
The epic is about the general who founded the Songhay empire in West Africa in 1493 and who ruled until 1528. The capital was the city of Gao, on the Niger river in eastern Mali. Six times the size of Texas, Songhay was the largest of many empires and kingdoms that emerged from 1000 to 1900 in the West African Sahel region, a 3,500 swath from west to east, from Senegal to Niger, between the desert and the forest zones. The empire included parts of today’s Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Mauritania, Benin, and Burkina Faso.
Bards, known regionally as griots and among the Songhay as jeseré, have probably been narrating the epic since the 17th century. This version is the first to appear in print and in linear form.
The Epic of Askia Mohammed is distinctive because African scribes in the Timbuktu region, the intellectual center of the Songhay empire, narrated the same story in long chronicles composed in Arabic in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the late 19th century French colonial administrators and scholars published them in Paris: Tarîkh es Sudan (l898-1900) and Tarîkh el-Fettâsh (1911). The French translations amount to 902 pages. The Tarîkh es-Sudan has been translated into English.
The chronicles tell a story that is different from but also complementary to the epic. The scribes offer in prose names, dates, and eyewitness accounts, all framed in an Islamic perspective. Nouhou Malio recounts some of the same events in 1602 verses. He describes the pre-Islamic values of the Songhay while maintaining the Islamic themes.
The epic is about courtship, love, infanticide, assassination, sibling rivalry, social conflict, murder, war, religion, and magic. The hero survives a difficult childhood to kill his uncle, assume the leadership of the Songhay, and conquer neighboring peoples. His goal is not only to enlarge the empire but also to impose Islam on the region.
Women often play important roles in Sahelian epics, especially the mother of the hero. That is why the title of this one is “Mamar Kassaye,” or Mamar, a diminutive of Mohammed, son of Kassaye, his mother. Also, women sometimes sing songs as part of an epic performance. Today female singers are part of a rich verbal tradition that reveals the considerable power of women in Sahelian societies.
The Epic of Askia Mohammed is part of a larger epic tradition in the region. The center is the Mande world and the founding story is The Epic of Son-Jara or Sundiata. Some of the traits that John Johnson identified in his edition of Son-Jara also appear in The Epic of Askia Mohammed: heroic content, a variety of genres within the narration, a catalog of cultural elements, and diverse systems of belief.
One reason for the thematic and formal similarities is that the Islamic, patriarchal, and polygamous societies in the Sahel share many features: a long history, similar values, and epic traditions maintained by griots. For example, Ghana (10th to 12th century) was absorbed by Mali (13th to 15th century), which, in turn, was taken over by Songhay (15th to 16th century). To understand events, one has to discern complex values imbedded in family and clan relationships. Finally, across the region, griots play an extraordinary variety of roles. They are historians, genealogists, advisers, spokespersons, diplomats, poets, praise-singers, musicians, exhorters, warriors, and participants in a variety of ceremonies—naming, weddings, and installations of chiefs.
Thomas A. Hale (Emeritus)
Pennsylvania State University
Works Cited
Hale, Thomas A. Scribe, Griot, and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay Empire, followed by The Epic of Askia Mohammed Recounted by Nouhou Malio. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990.
______. The Epic of Askia Mohammed. Narrated by Nouhou Malio. Student edition edited and translated by Thomas A. Hale. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Resources
Editions:
Hale, Thomas A. Scribe, Griot, and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay Empire, followed by The Epic of Askia Mohammed Recounted by Nouhou Malio. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990.
______. The Epic of Askia Mohammed. Narrated by Nouhou Malio. Student edition edited and translated by Thomas A. Hale. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Further Reading:
es-Sa’di, Abderrahman ben Abdallah ben ‘Imran ben ‘Amir. Tarîkh es-Sudan. Trans. Octave Houdas. Paris: Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes, 1898-1900. 2nd ed, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1964, 3rd ed. 1981.
Hale, Thomas A. Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
_____, and Aissata G. Sidikou, eds. Women’s Songs from West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014.
Hunwick, John. Shari’a in Songhay: The Replies of al-Maghili to the Questions of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
_____. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sadi’s Tarikh al-Sudan down to 1613 and other contemporary documents,, Leiden: Brill, 1999, 2003.
Johnson, John William, and Fa-Digi Sisòkò, The Epic of Son-Jara: A West African Tradition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Student edition, The Epic of Son-Jara: A West African Tradition. Text by Fa-Digi Sisòkò, notes, translation, and new introduction by John William Johnson.
_____, Thomas A. Hale, and Stephen Belcher. Oral Epics from Africa: Vibrant Voices from a Vast Continent. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
Kâti, Mahmoud. Tarîkh el-Fettâch ou chronique du chercheur pour servir à l’histoire des villes, des armées et des principaux personnages du Tekrour. Trans. Octave Houdas and Maurice Delafosse. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1913. 2nd ed, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1964. 3d ed. 1981.
Sidikou, Aissata. Recreating Words, Reshaping Worlds: The Verbal Art of Women from Niger, Mali and Senegal. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2001.
_____, and Thomas A. Hale, eds. Women’s Voices from West Africa: An Anthology of Songs from the Sahel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012.
The above bibliography was compiled by Thomas A. Hale (Pennsylvania State University).
Sample of original recording, with transcription and translation.
The 12:45 minute excerpt provided above is from a two-session recording that I made of The Epic of Askia Mohammed in Saga, Niger, Dec. 30, 1980, and Jan. 26, 1981. The narrator is Nouhou Malio and the accompanist on the three-stringed molo is Soumana Abdou. It begins with banter by Nouhou Malio about arrangements for the event. The transcription and translation (below) are from my book Scribe Griot and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay World (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990, pp. 184-195).
The excerpt contains lines 1-194. Seers have told the ruler Si (the abbreviation for Sonni Ali Ber, ruler of the Songhay) that any child born of his sister Kassaye will kill him and take the throne. Si kills seven of Kassaye’s infants. A genie who lives in a city under the Niger river promises that if she has sex with him, she will produce a child who can kill her brother Si. She accepts, becomes pregnant, and gives birth to a male infant named Mamar (the diminutive of Mohammed). His family name is his mother’s, Kassaye, hence he is known as Mamar Kassaye. At the same time her servant, a Bargantché captive, gives birth to a girl. Kassaye switches babies with her. When Si hears the news of the births, he orders that the girl be killed. The boy, ostensibly the son of the captive, will become a servant for Si.
When Mamar becomes a young man, his father returns from under the river and gives him a white horse, two lances, a saber, and a shield. Mamar approaches his uncle Si who is about to pray with his followers at an outdoor prayer ground. They see an approaching rider on a white horse and ask Si to wait for the visitor who appears to be a prince. Si agrees and does not flinch when the rider demonstrates a traditional form of fealty by spurring his horse to gallop right up to the ruler before stopping abruptly at the edge of his prayer mat. He repeats the gesture. But the third time Mamar kills his uncle with a single thrust of a lance.
The followers of Si attempt to grab Mamar. His mother orders them to halt. She declares that Si has killed eight children, meaning seven of her own and the one of the captive.
There is one striking change in the narrative that brings the audience into the unfolding events. On lines 176-178, Nouhou Malio switches abruptly from the past tense to the present, and addresses the audience as if they were there when Mamar approaches his uncle. To heighten the drama, he turns to his listeners and exclaims, “Did you see him?”
I hope that the voice of the narrator and the sound of the three-stringed molo enable you to join the audience in 1980 as they listened to the performance of the epic.
Thomas A. Hale 
Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emeritus of African, French, and Comparative Literature (Pennsylvania State University)
