Sunjata

THIS WEEK’S PROMPT: Discuss the origin and purpose of the bride-carrying ceremony in “Sunjata” and the development of the bride-escorting song (lines 750-798).
 

     The epic tale Sunjata “knits together the mythic and the everyday, the ancestral and the contemporary, providing for its Mande listeners a recognizable, living history, and for everyone else rich insight into the culture of a once-glorious empire” (1517). The bride-carrying ceremony is part of the opening tale that reveals the mythic origins of Sunjata. The heroism and dalilu (magic) that define the events of Sunjata’s unusual entrance into this world also exalt Sunjata’s status as a supernatural hero. Sogolon Wulen Conde is Sunjata’s mother she is a wild sorceress unwilling to marry Sunjata’s father, Manko Farakonken. Sogolon is described as “very ugly, the duct in her eye is injured and the tears run down…Her head is bald. She has a humped back. Her feet are twisted. When she walks she limps this way and that” (1525). Despite this description Sogolon is defined as having a destined mythical purpose “Anyone who marries her, Something special will be at her breast” which alludes to the birth of the great hero, Sunjata (1525). The bride carrying ceremony originates from the marriage between Sogolon and Manko. Sogolon because of her “twisted feet” is unable to walk without “raising dust” her “co-wives” when  they see this begin to sing “Walk well, Bride of my brother, Walk well. Do not put us in the dust… They saw that her walk could not improve, That it was beyond her power. The sisters said let us carry her” (1536). The significance of the bride carrying ceremony defines the bride as a possession but the ceremony itself is also a means for community unification because “the bride is thought of as the collective possession of the family and the village into which she marries” (1536).  The connection of this epic tale to the Mande people is evident in the rich marital tradition of the bride carrying ceremony.

Works Cited

  “Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Vol. 1: Beginnings to 1650. Ed. Martin Puchner, et al. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. 1514 - 1576. Print.