Depiction of Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire in the 14th century, from a 1375 Catalan Atlas of the known world (mappa mundi), created by Abraham Cresques

Mansa (N'Ko: ߡߊ߲߬ߛߊ;[1] pl. mansaw) is a Maninka[2] and Mandinka[3] word for a hereditary[1][4] ruler, commonly translated as "king".[5][6][7] It is particularly known as the title of the rulers of the Mali Empire, such as Mansa Musa, and in this context is sometimes translated as "emperor".[8] It is also a title held by traditional village rulers, and in this context is translated as "chief".[1]

Mansa contrasts with another Manding word for ruler, faama. Faama emphasizes the military, coercive authority of a ruler,[9] and can be translated as "tyrant",[10] whereas mansa refers to a hereditary ruler whose authority is derived from tradition[1] and mystical power.[9] A ruler can be both a faama and a mansa, but a mansa was not necessarily a faama.[9]

The word mansa (Arabic: منسا, romanized: mansā) was recorded in Arabic during the 14th century by North African writers such as Ibn Battuta and Ibn Khaldun, who explained it as meaning "sultan".[11] Cognates of mansa exist in other Mandé languages, such as Soninke manga, Susu menge, and Bambara masa.[2] Vydrin also compared it to mensey, the Guanche word for their rulers.[1] According to Misiugin and Vydrin, the original meaning of the root word was probably "chief of hunters" or "chief of warriors".[2]

An alternate translation of mansa, which Jansen attributes to the followers of Marcel Griaule, is that mansa means "god", "the divine principle", or "priest-king". Jansen notes that they have not provided their reasoning for choosing this translation.[6]

List of Mansas

References

Works cited

  • Chappatte, André (2022-11-01). In Search of Tunga: Prosperity, Almighty God, and Lives in Motion in a Malian Provincial Town. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-22074-8.
  • Conrad, David C.; Condé, Djanka Tassey (2004). Sunjata: a West African epic of the Mande peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett. ISBN 0-87220-697-1.
  • Jansen, Jan (1996). "The representation of status in Mande: did the Mali Empire still exist in the Nineteenth Century?". History in Africa. 23: 87–109. doi:10.2307/3171935. hdl:1887/2775. ISSN 0361-5413. JSTOR 3171935. S2CID 53133772.
  • Jansen, Jan (1998). "Hot Issues: The 1997 Kamabolon Ceremony in Kangaba (Mali)". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 31 (2): 253–278. doi:10.2307/221083. hdl:1887/2774. ISSN 0361-7882. JSTOR 221083.
  • Levtzion, Nehemia; Hopkins, John F. P., eds. (2000) [1981]. Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa. New York, NY: Marcus Weiner Press. ISBN 1-55876-241-8.
  • Macbrair, R. Maxwell (1839). A grammar of the Mandingo language: with vocabularies. London.
  • Misiugin, Viacheslav M.; Vydrin, Valentin F. (1993). "Some archaic elements in the Manden epic tradition: the «Sunjata Epic» case". St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies. 2: 98–111. ISSN 1025-4544.
  • Schaffer, Matt (2005). "Bound to Africa: the Mandinka Legacy in the New World". History in Africa. 32: 321–369. doi:10.1353/hia.2005.0021. eISSN 1558-2744. ISSN 0361-5413. S2CID 52045769. Retrieved 2022-04-13.
  • Sutton, J. E. G. (1997). "The African Lords of the Intercontinental Gold Trade Before the Black Death: al-Hasan bin Sulaiman of Kilwa and Mansa Musa of Mali". The Antiquaries Journal. 77: 221–242. doi:10.1017/S000358150007520X. eISSN 1758-5309. ISSN 0003-5815. S2CID 129875132.
  • Vydrin, V. F. (2015). Manding-English Dictionary: (Maninka, Bamana). Volume 1, A, B, D-DAD. Lac-Beauport: MeaBooks Inc. ISBN 978-0-9939969-3-1.

23°25′48″N 72°40′12″E / 23.43000°N 72.67000°E / 23.43000; 72.67000

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