* In taking the approach of this paper I do not mean to imply that Bonduku's only commerce was gold. As with many west African towns prior to the colonial era, Bonduku traded a wide range of commodities, including kola nuts, salt, iron, cloth, and European goods.

1. The state of Gyaman was bound in the west by the Comoe river, which separated it from the Anno and the states of Kong. In the north it extended as far as the gold bearing regions of Loby, or the Black Volta mines, while its eastern frontier was the Volta river. In the south it fronted on the Asante country. Gyaman included within its realm Fugula, or Libgy country.

Bonduku was also known as Bottogo, Gottogo (Mande) and Bitugu (Hausa). Gyaman was also known as Gaman (Asante, Pakhalla or Senufu: Gur-speakers), Dyamman (Asante: Akanspeakers, and Pakhalla), Bottogo, Gottogo, and Bitugu. The local populations therefore referred to Bonduku and its Gyaman state by the same names. Following the Mande and Hausa usages, traders in the west and central Sudan also referred both to Bonduku and Gyaman as Gottogo, Bottogo, and Bitugu. Binger, Louis, Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée par le pays de Kong et la Mossi (1887-1889) (2 vols.: Paris, 1892), 2: 161, 174, 177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Binger mistakenly reported that Bonduku was founded before 1045, and that it was older than Jenne, ibid., 161, 162, 164. Meyerowitz has advanced a similar view. Meyerowitz, Eva, Akan Tradition of Origins (London, 1952), 45, 45n2.Google Scholar

3. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 2: 162.Google Scholar For a possible role of Jenne-jeno in the development of commercial centers on the Saharan contact zone of the Niger bend and the Black Volta towns see McIntosh, R.J., “The Inland Niger Delta Before the Empire of Mali: Evidence from Jenne-jeno,” JAH, 22 (1981), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McIntosh, S.K., “A Reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus, Island of Gold,” JAH, 22 (1981), 145–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Ta'rikh-as-Soudan (Paris, 1964), 22.Google Scholar There was, of course, salt production on the right bank of the Volta river in Ghana since the sixteenth century and at many other coastal sites. In the nineteenth century, much salt consumed in Asante and further north came from Accra, Ningo, and Songhor, and an increasing proportion went up the Volta river by canoe. Sutton, I.B., “The Volta River Salt Trade: The Survival of an Indigenous Industry,” JAH, 22 (1981), 43–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 2: 165, 167, 183.Google Scholar

6. The mithqal (approximately 4.72 grams of gold) was worth 8,000 cowries at Bonduku in ca. 1889; ibid., 165, 166. This exchange rate points to the nineteenth-century devaluation of the cowrie currency. Introduced into sub-Saharan economies some time in the fourteenth century, exchange rates fluctuated between 3,000 to 4,000 cowries per mithqal between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perinbam, B. Marie, “Social Relations in the Trans-Saharan and Western Sudanest Trade: An Overview,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15 (1973), 422n9, 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 2: 165, 179, 180.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 249.

9. Ibid., 66, 168, 174, 249.

10. Farias, P.F. de Moraes, “The Almoravids: Some Questions Concerning the Character of the Movement During Its Periods of Closest Contact With the Western Sudan,” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, 29 (1967), 794–917Google Scholar; idem., “Great States Revisited,” JAH, 15 (1974), 479-88. See also Lewicki, T., “Un état soudanais médiéval inconnu: le royaume de Zafū(ū),” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 11 (1971), 501–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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12. Conrad, David C. and Fisher, Humphrey J., “The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076: I. The External Arabic Sources,” HA, 9 (1982), 21–59Google Scholar; idem., “The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids: II. The Local Oral Sources,” HA, (1983), 53-78. See also Fisher, Humphrey, “Early Arabic Sources and the Almoravid Conquest of Ghana,” JAH, 23 (1982), 549–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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14. Henige, David, Oral Historiography (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition (Chicago, 1963).Google Scholar See also Miller, Joseph C., “The Dynamics of Oral Tradition in Africa” in Bernardi, Bernardo, et al, eds., Fonti orali. Antropologia et storia (Milan, 1978), 75–102Google Scholar; idem., “Listening for the African Past” in J.C. Miller, ed., The African Past Speaks (Folkestone, 1980), 1-50.

15. Bonduku was the main town in the state of Gyaman. Founded in the late seventeenth century by the Domaa (Dormaa or Wam: Akwamu or northern Akan-speakers of Suntresso) Gyaman's inhabitants were driven from their territory by Osei Tutu between ca. 1680 and 1690. In about 1722/23 Gyaman was occupied by the Asantehene Opuku Ware. The Asante called this new Domaa state Dyaman, which according to tradition means “the state of [the] people who…left their original home behind.” The Domaa name for Gyaman is not known. Boahen, A. Adu, “Asante and Fante, A.D. 1000 to 1800” in Ajayi, J.F.A. and Espie, Ian, eds., A Thousand Years of West African History (Ibadan, 1965), 176Google Scholar; Wilks, Ivor, “The Mossi and Akan States, 1500 to 1800” in Ajayi, J.F.A. and Crowder, Michael, eds., History of West Africa (2 vols.: New York, 1972), 1: 374–77Google Scholar; Tauxier, Louis, Le noir de Bondoukou (Paris, 1921), 90–9.Google Scholar

16. Archives nationales maliennes at Koulouba Bamako (hereafter ANMKB) I.D. 69, Captain Benquey, “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou: ses origines, son avenir” (Bondoudou, 30 Dec. 1902). See also Clozel, F.J., Dix ans à la Côte d'Ivoire (Paris, 1906).Google Scholar

17. Tauxier, Louis, “Le noir de Bondoukou: Un dernier chapitre de l'histoire de Bondoukou,” Review d'ethnographie et des traditions populaires, 8 (1927), 213–26.Google Scholar

18. Delafosse, Maurice, Vocabulaires comparatifs de plus de 60 langues ou dialects parles à la Côte d'Ivoire et dans les régions limitrophes (Paris, 1904).Google Scholar

19. Kitab Ghunja was written in Buipe (or Chofan, a tributary Asante kingdom) near the forest fringes by two Muslim scholars and recorded events in Gonja and its neighbors Asante, Dagomba, Mamprusi, Bonduku, Buna, and Kong. According to tradition and J.R. Goody, Gonja was founded by a Ligbyspeaking warrior, Suleiman Ndewura Jakpa, and Muhammad al-Abyad his Muslim advisor and imam in the sixteenth century. Their descendants are no longer Mande but Guang: Kwa-speakers. Goody, J.R., “The Mande and the Akan Hinterland” in Vansina, J., Mauny, R., Thomas, L.V., The Historian in Tropical Africa (London, 1969), 197–98Google Scholar; idem., The Ethnography of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast West of the White Volta, 10-12 as cited in Ivor Wilks, “The Northern Factor in Ashanti History: Begho and the Mande,” JAH, 2 (1961), 25-34.

Yves Person disagrees with Goody's findings, arguing that Gonja was founded by the Nafana (Senufu) migrating from the Kong region. Person, Yves, “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne” in The Historian in Tropical Africa, 329–30.Google Scholar

20. For example, see Wilks, I., “A Medieval Trade-Route From the Niger to the Gulf of Guinea,” JAH, 3 (1962), 337–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “A Note on the Chronology and Origins of the Gonja Kings,” Ghana Notes and Queries, no. 8 (Jan. 1966), 26-28; idem., “A Note on the Early Spread of Islam in Dagomba,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 8 (1965), 87-98; idem., “The Growth of Islamic Learning in Ghana,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 2 (Dec. 1963), 409-17; idem., “The Transmission of Islamic Learning in the Western Sudan” in J.R. Goody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968), 161-97; idem., The Northern Factor in Ashanti History (Legon, 1961); idem., “The Mande Loan Element in Twi,” Ghana Notes and Queries, no. 4 (Jan.-Dec. 1962), 26-28; idem., “The Mossi and Akan States, 1500-1800,” 344-86; idem., “The Northern Factor in Ashanti History,” 25-34.

21. Levtzion, Nehemia, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa: A Study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the Pre-Colonial Period (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar; idem., “Commerce et Islam chez les Dagomba du nord Ghana,” Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, 23 (1968), 723-42; idem., Ancient Ghana and Mali (London, 1973).

22. Meyerowitz, Akan Traditions of Origin.

23. Goody, The Ethnography of the Northern Territories; Boutilller, J.C., “Politique et commerce: l'insertion des communautés mande-dyula dans le royaume de Bouna à l'époque précolonial” in Dalby, David, ed., Conference on Manding Studies (London, 1972), 1–18Google Scholar; idem., “Notes préliminaires à l'étude de la ville de Bouna” in Les pétites villes de Côte d'Ivoire: essais monographiques (Paris, 1968), 89-119. See also Hiskett, Mervyn, The Development of Islam in West Africa (London, 1984), 120–37.Google Scholar

24. This date is derived from Person's reference to Bron traditions in Bonduku. See Person, , “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 333.Google Scholar Elsewhere Person dates the arrival of the Bron in the region to the end of the seventeenth century, which seems rather late; Person, , “The Dyula and the Manding World” in Conference on Manding Studies, 12.Google Scholar

According to Goody the Bron and the Dumpo (Guang: Kwa-speakers, known to the Nafana as Kugulo and to the Ligby as Kaala) provided the earth priests (assaase-wurra), usually an indication of autochthonous status. Of the two--the Bron and the Dumpo--Goody favors the latter. Goody, , “The Mande and the Akan Hinterland,” 193–94.Google Scholar

The Huela (Mande-speakers) also claim autochthonous status. ANMKB I.D. “Notice sur la ville de Bonduku.” The Huela may have been originally Dompo-speaking Guang (Kwa-northern-Akan) who lost their language to the Mande-speakers. Wilks, Ivor, “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” JAH, 23 (1982), 333–50, esp. 347Google Scholar; Person, , “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 329.Google Scholar

25. Bona was some 150 kilometers from Bonduku. See Wilks, “The Mossi and the Akan states,” 357n52Google Scholar, and Flight, Colin, “The Chronology of the Kings and Queen-mothers of Bono-Manso: a Revaluation of the Evidence,” JAH, 11 (1970), 259–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. According to Binger, the Pakhalla (Gur-speakers) were the autochthones who were rendered tributaries by the Mande, later migrants into the region. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 178.Google Scholar

Benquey offered a different arrangement for the autochthones of the region. Noting that hunter-arrivals were attracted to the wooded areas teeming with wildlife, he observed that the Loro (Pre-Kulango and Gur-speakers) claimed to be the first to settle at Bonduku. But the situation waa more complicated, because other informants told him that the G'Bin (Mande-speakers) were really the first arrivals. Other autochthones, according to Benquey, included the Guru, the Wandara (Nafana), the Kulango, the Pakhalla, the Domaa (Akan: Kwa-speakers), and the Bron. Before the arrival of the Bron, the Nafana seemd to have exercised political power, which they yeilded to the Bron, possibly sometime in the sixteenth century, ANMBK, I.D. 169, “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.”

According to Tauxier, the G'bin (Gbanya warriors of Mande origin who later adopted the Guang or Kwa (northern Akan) language, were the true autochthones, although he thinks that our of practical considerations, the Guru (Mande-speakers), the Loro-Kulango, and the Nafana (Gur-speakers) were also “Proprietors of the soil.” He thinks that the Loro were responsible for founding the settlement at Bonduku proper. Following these, Tauxier suggests that latter arrivals included the Huela, Ligby, and Numu (proto-Jula: Mande-speakers); the Jula (Mande-speakers); and finally the Bron (Akan: Kwa-speakers). Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 39–52, esp. 51–52.Google Scholar

According to Person, the Lorhon or pre-Kulango were the autochthones living between Gaoua (Burkina Fasso) and Bonduku (Ivory Coast) who began moving further south in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Those Lorhon who settled in the Bona (Buna, Bouna) Akan state came to be called Kulango. Person, , “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 332.Google Scholar See also Wilks, , “Mossi and the Akan states,” 372–73Google Scholar; Levtzion, N., “North-West Africa: From the Maghrib to the fringes of the forest,” in Gray, Richard, ed., Cambridge History of Africa, 4 (Cambridge, 1975), 187–88Google Scholar; Walter Rodney, “The Guinea Coast,” in ibid., 313-14.

27. McIntosh and McIntosh, “The Inland Niger Delta;” “A Reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus.”

28. Wilks, “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese.”

29. Perinbam, B. Marie, “Notes on Dyula Origins and Nomenclature,” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, 6 (1974), 676–90Google Scholar; idem., “The Julas in Western Sudanese History: Long-Distance Traders and Developers of Resources” in B.K. Swartz and R.E. Dumett, eds., West African Dynamics: Archeological and Historical Perspectives (Hague, 1980), 455-75. See also Wilks, , “The Early Dyula Towns,” 17et passimGoogle Scholar; ANMKB, I.D. 169, “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.”

30. Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 315–33.Google Scholar See also Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 212Google Scholar; Boahen, , “Asante and Fante A.D. 1000 to 1800,” 176Google Scholar; Wilks, , “A Medieval Trade-Route,” 338–40.Google Scholar According to one oral account, while the Duzo Wattara fled to the Bron site of Bona in the sixteenth century, the Kari-Jula went to Domaa (later Gyaman), about fifty kilometers south of Bighu. ANMKB, I.D. 169, “Notice sur la ville de Boudougou.”

31. Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 335–39, 342, and 342n50Google Scholar; idem., “Medieval Trade-Route,” 339.

J.D. Fage suggests that the Portuguese were attracted to the Elmina area in the first place because of the trading opportunities which already existed. Fage, J.D., “Some remarks on Beads and Trade in Lower Guinea in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” JAH, 3 (1962), 343–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Monod, Th., da Mota, A. Teixeira and Mauny, R., Description de la côte occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels, par Valentim Fernandes, 1506-1510 (Bissau, 1951), 46–47.Google Scholar

Person disagreed with this fifteenth-century date. While thinking it likely that a Jenne-Mossi Dagomba-Bona-Manso existed then, he believed that the route to the coast (Jenne, Bobo-Dioulasso, Bona, Bighu) did not develop until the seventeenth century. “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 332. Later, he gave a fifteenth-century date for the arrival of the Mande-Jula on the coast. Person, , “Nyani Mansa Mamudu et la fin de l'empire du Lami” in Conference on Manding Studies, 15.Google Scholar See also Bowdich, T.E., Mission From the Cape Coast to Ashantee (London, 1819), 181–85.Google Scholar

32. Person, , “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 333.Google Scholar

33. Wilks, , “The Northern Factor in Ashanti History,” 32.Google Scholar

34. ANMKB, I.D. 169, “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.” This northern route was still of major importance in the nineteenth century. Freeman, R.A., Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman (London, 1898), 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tordoff, William, “The Ashanti Confederacy,” JAH, 3 (1962), 401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also note 13 above.

35. Dubois, Félix, Timbuctoo the mysterious (London, 1897), 171–72Google Scholar; Ly Tall, Madina, L'empire du Mali (Dakar, 1977), 53.Google Scholar

36. S.K., and McIntosh, R.J., Prehistoric Investigations in the Region of Jenne and Mali (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar; McIntosh, and McIntosh, , “The Inland Delta,” 1–22Google Scholar; McIntosh, S.K., “A Reconstruction of Wangara,” 145–58.Google Scholar

37. Perinbam, , “The Julas in Western Sudanese History,” 445–75Google Scholar; idem., “Notes on Dyula Origins and Nomenclautre,” 676-90.

38. The archeological record shows that the Numa, or Mande-speaking artisans, were in the area (Bighu) from as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Wilks, , “Wangara Akan and Portuguese,” 346–47.Google Scholar According to Person, the Ligby transmitted their language to the Huela, whose traditions report another language prior to speaking this archaic Malinke Ligby. “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 329; Goody, , “The Mande and Akan hinterland,” 95–96.Google Scholar See also Wilks, , “A Medieval Trade-Route,” 338n2Google Scholar; Diabaté, Victor Tiégbe, “La région de Kong d'après les fouilles archéologiques: prospection, premiers sondages, directions de recherches,” (doctorat de troisième cycle, Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1979), 22.Google Scholar

39. Hiskett, , The Development of Islam, 120.Google Scholar

40. Perinbam, , “The Julas in Western Sudanese History,” 461Google Scholar; idem., “Notes on Dyula origins,” 687; Wilks, , “A Medieval Trade-Route,” 337–38.Google Scholar Person suggests the sixteenth century for the Mande-Jula settlement in Bobo-Dioulasso, , “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirenne,” 331.Google Scholar

41. Perinbam, , “The Julas in Western Sudanese History,” 461Google Scholar; idem., “Notes on Dyula origins,” 684; Wilks, , “A Medieval Trade-Route,” 337–38.Google Scholar Person dates the founding of Kong to the eighteenth century, “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 332.

42. Perinbam, , “Notes on Dyula Origins,” 682Google Scholar; idem., “The Julas in Western Sudanese History,” 460; Wilks, , “A Medieval Trade-Route,” 337–38.Google Scholar

43. The seventeenth century is Person's date: “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 324.

44. Rodney, , “The Guinea Coast,” 313–14.Google Scholar

45. The Asante Confederation had numerous tributary states including Gyaman.

46. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 22n3.

47. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 2: 161.Google Scholar

48. Ibid., 162.

49. Benquey was Commandant of the Bonduku district from 1898 to 1906. His work was later reported in Clozel, Dix ans à la Côte d'Ivoire. Part of his report appears in Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 66–74.Google Scholar See also ANMKB I.D. 169 “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.”

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 22, 30; Ta'rikh-al-Fettach (Paris, 1964), 68, 94.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., 65.

54. Ibid., 68n1.

55. Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 71, 439–40.Google Scholar

56. Wilks, , “The Northern Factor in Ashanti History,” 24–34.Google Scholar

57. Person in fact misread Tauxier, who finally accepted the view that Bighu was “probably also called Bito, Bitu, Bitudugu, Beto, Betodugu, etc.” Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 77n.Google Scholar Person used a linguistic analysis to refute the theory that Bighu, Bitu, and Bonduku had the same identity. For example, he rightly claimed that Bitu and Bitagu had nothing in common linguistically with Bighu, the name which appeared in local Arabic scripts. Likewise, he claimed that Bitu/Bitagu had no common linguistic identity with Bonduku. He did not seem to have taken into consideration, however, that these different terms were associated with different languages (Bitu/Bitagu: Hausa; Bonduku: Kulango and Bron, etc.) Person, , “En quête d'une chronologie ivoirienne,” 330.Google Scholar

58. See, for example, Wilks, , “The Mossi and Akan States,” 344–86Google Scholar; idem., “The Northern Factor in Ashanti History,” 25-34; “A Medieval Trade-Route,” 337-41.

59. Levtzion, , “The Early States of the Western Sudan to 1500” in Ajayi, and Crowder, , History of West Africa, 1: 139.Google ScholarHunwick, John, “The Fourteenth-Century Capital of Mali,” JAH, 14 (1973), 204–05.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Elsewhere Hunwick suggests that the Jula were in Bighu from “as early as the first part of the fifteenth century.” Hunwick, , “Islam in West Africa, A.D. 1000-1800” in Ajayi, and Espie, , Thousand years of West African History, 128.Google Scholar Finally, even Tauxier came to accept the possibility of an eleventh-century origin for Bighu. Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 71–75.Google Scholar

60. Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 344–49.Google Scholar

61. These early eleventh- and twelfth-century dates (1045^± and 1120^± 80) refer to the Numu (Mande) artisan sites, just north of Bighu. Ivor Wilks, “Field notes,” FN/7: interview with Hanihene Kofi Ampofo II, Kyeame Yaw Asare, et al, 12 Dec. 1963; Corssland, L.B., “Excavations at Nyarko and Dwinfuor Sites of Begho-1975,” Sankofa, 2 (1976), 86–87Google Scholar, as cited in Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 346nn66 and 68.Google Scholar Mande oral accounts coincide with these findings. According to these Bighu was settled about the eleventh century by a Muslim Mande-speaker whose followers, including the Numu, settled among autochthonous hunters. ANMKB I.D. 169, “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.” In 1952 Meyerowitz advanced a similar view; Meyerowitz, , Akan traditions, 45n2.Google Scholar J.D. Fage warns that this early settlement should not automatically be associated with trade. Fage, , “Upper arid Lower Guinea,” 491.Google Scholar

62. The fifteenth- to eighteenth-century dates (from 1430^± 100 to 1710^± 100; a total of ten dates) are from the central Bighu township near to the present village of Hani. Posnansky, M., “New Radiocarbon Dates From Ghana,” Sankofa, 2 (1976), 62Google Scholar, as cited in Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 346n67.Google Scholar

63. These other fifteenth- and seventeenth-century dates (1400^± 100, 1480^± 65 and 1650^± 95) come from a site near Dapaa, about six kilometers north of Hani. Posnansky, , “New Radiocarbon Dates,” 61–62Google Scholar, as cited in Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 346n70.Google Scholar See also Posnansky, M., “Archaeology, Technology and Akan Civilization,” JAH, 11 (1975), 28.Google Scholar

64. The site, six to eight kilometers north of the Bighu ruins, lies near the present town of Namasa, and is known as Gyogo. The eleventh-, twelfth-, and eighteenth-century dates are 1020^± 60, 1243^± 92, 1299^± 95 and 1700^± 150. Willet, F., “A Survey of Recent Results in the Radiocarbon Chronology of Western and Northern Africa,” JAH, 12 (1971), 364.Google Scholar

65. This complex, Old Bima, seemed to have had a similar structure to that of Bighu: the Buya ward of the autochthonous Dompo; the Firibango ward of the immigrant Mande-Jula; and the nearby Brohani, Numu, or blacksmith wards. Bravmann, R.A. and Mathewson, R.D., “A Note on the History and Archeology of Old Bima,” African Historical Studies, 3 (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. Benquey, Delafosse, and Tauxier had been informed by the Almamy Kunandi Timitay, a distinguished gentleman apparently, who read, spoke, and wrote Arabic. He seemed to have provided much the same kinds of accounts as Sitafa Wattara did for Binger. Of the three, Delafosse, to his loss, was the most sceptical of Kunandi Timitay; and after long agonizing, even Tauxier came to accept the Almamy's identity theory--with reservations.

67. ANMK I.D. 169 “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.”

68. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 1: 297n2.Google Scholar See also ANMKB I.D. 169, “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou;” Clozel, , Dix ans à la Côte d'Ivoire, 197, 201Google Scholar; Delafosse, , “Vocabulaire comparatifs de plus de 60 langues,” 172.Google Scholar

69. Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeraldo de situ orbis, trans. and ed. Kimble, George K.T. (London, 1937), 89.Google Scholar

70. Binger, , Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée, 1: 336; 2: 161, 164, 177.Google Scholar

71. Ibid., 2: 161.

72. ANMKB I.D. 169 “Notice sur la ville de Bondougou.”

73. Ibid.

74. Delafosse, Maurice, Haut-Sénégal-Niger (3 vols.: Paris, 1969), 1: 279, 280nGoogle Scholar; idem., “Mots soudanais du moyen-âge,” Mémoires de la Société de linguistique de Paris, 18 (1913), 281–88; idem., “Note sur les manuscrits arabes acquis en 1911 et 1912 par M. Bonnel de Mézieres dans la région de Tombouctou-Oualta,” Annuaire et Mémoire du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'A.O.F. (1916), 120-29; idem., Vocaulaires comparatifs de plus de 60 langues.

75. Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 39-52, 77–78.Google Scholar

76. Person, , “The Dyula and the Manding World,” 12.Google Scholar

77. For example, the Loro, Kulango, Nafana, Pakhalla, G'Banya Ligby, Huela, and the Numu.

78. For references to Bighu-Bitu in the two Ta'rikhs see Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 22, 29, 30, 37, and Ta'rikh-al-Fettach, 68n94.

79. Ta'rikh-al-Fettach, 68-69, 69n1. For another reference to the Mande in Bitu see ibid., 94. According to Wilks, Bitu figures in a similar way in the Fath al-Skakur of Muhammad Abdallah al-Bartiti of Walata (1799/1800) in which Takrur is defined as extending on the east to Adhghag, north of Burem on the Niger bend, in the west to the Senegal, in the south to Bit, [sic] and on the north to Adrar. Takrur was a province of Mali, and the author probably intended Mali. Wilks, , “Wangara, Akan and Portuguese,” 343.Google Scholar See also Hunwick, John, “A New Source for the Biography of Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti (1556-1627),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 27 (1964), 572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80. Ta'rikh-al-Fettach, 94; Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 22, 36-37.

81. At its apogee Jenne's territory extended on the right bank to the northern bend of the Black Volta river, about ten days from the town of Jenne. Its territory bordered that of Bighu-Bonduku. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 10-20, 20n7, 25n1.

82. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 19n7, 20. The names of the chiefs were references to their districts, koi was the chiefly title.

83. Ibid., 19n7. Levtzion refers to them as “provinces” of Mali. Ancient Ghana and Mali, 83, 85, 88, 90-92, 100-01. See also Monteil, Charles, Une cité soudanaise: Djenné metropole du delta central du Niger (Paris, 1932), chapter 1.Google Scholar

84. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 121.

85. Ibid., 33, 159, 160.

86. Ancient Ghana and Mali, 88, 90.

87. Person, , “Nyani Mansa Mamadu,” 15.Google Scholar See also Jones, D.H., “Jakpa and the Foundations of Gonja,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 6 (1962), 13Google Scholar; Wilks, , “A Note on the Chronology,” 26–28.Google Scholar

88. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 222.

89. Ibid., 22.

90. Ibid., 121.

91. Ibid., 222.

92. Ibid., 223.

93. Ibid., 249.

94. Ibid., 278. With this defeat Mali ceased to be a political force in the middle Niger, and there are no further references to it in the Arabic documents.

95. Launay, Robert, Traders Without Trade (Cambridge, 1982), 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Moreover, several religious personages moved from Bighu to settle in Jenne. Other religious scholars included the Soninke scholar Mur-Magha Kankoi and al-Qadi Muhammad Sanu (Saghanughu) al-Wangari. Ta'rikh-as-Sudan, 30; Saad, E.N., Social History of Timbuktu (Cambridge, 1983), 97, 274nl7.Google Scholar

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97. Ibid.

98. Ta'rikh al-Fettach, 68, Delafosse's and Houdas' note 1.

99. Wilks, , “A Medieval Trade Route,” 338.Google ScholarTall, , L'empire du Mali, 52.Google Scholar

100. E.g., Ta'rikh al-Fettaoh, 65.

101. Ta'rikh as-Sudan, 223, 249, 278.

102. Ibid., 305. See also Abitbol, Michel, Tombouctou et les Arma (Paris, 1979), 74, 89.Google Scholar

103. Ta'rikh as-Sudan, 19-20, 20n7, 25n1.

104. Ibid., 121, 222.

105. Ibid., 22.

106. Ibid., 19-20, 25, 155.

107. Tadhkirat al-Nisyan, 112-13.

108. Bernus, E., “Kong et sa region,” Etude eburéenennes, 8 (1960), 246–68.Google Scholar See also Griffeth, Robert R., “The Dyula Impact on the Peoples of the West Volta Region” in Hodge, Carlton T., ed., Papers on the Manding (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1971), 168–69.Google Scholar

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110. See footnote 20 and related text.

111. Delafosse, , Vocabulaires oomparatifs de plus de 60 langues, 227.Google Scholar See also Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 77–78.Google Scholar

112. Ta'rikh as-Sudan, 19-20, 121, 159, 222.

113. This is the expedition referred to above in 1542/43 against the Ta'ba-Koi one of the chiefs of Bindugu. Ibid., 33, 159.

114. The offender here was one Mansa-Magha-Ouli, father of Kin-i-Koi, one of the twelve chiefs of Bindugu who joined with other chiefs. Ibid., 223.

115. Ibid., 278.

116. The French translation of the Arabic is “agissement.” The Da'a-Koi, one of the Bindugu chiefs was in this case responsible for stirring up trouble, ibid., 179.

117. The reference here is again to the Da'a-Koi, a Bindugu chief and clearly one of the troublemakers. Ibid., 381.

118. The offenders in these cases were the Da'a-Farma and the Da'a-Koi, both public officials in Bindugu. Ibid., 232, 389. See also Abitbol, , Tombouctou, 69.Google Scholar

119. Park, Mungo, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London, 1977), 216–17Google Scholar; Wilks, , “The Mossi and the Akan,” 386.Google Scholar

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121. Ta'rikh al-Fettach, 65.

122. Niane, D.T., Sundiata: An Epic of Mali (London, 1965), 3.Google Scholar

123. Perinbam, , “The Julas in Western Sudanese History,” 458.Google Scholar See also Sanneh, Lamine, “The Origins of Clericalism in West African Islam,” JAH, 17 (1976), 49–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Curtin, Philip D., “Precolonial Trading Networks and Traders: the Diakhanke” in Meillassoux, Claude, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Quinn, Charlotte A., Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam and European Expansion (London, 1972), 53.Google Scholar

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126. Cuoq, Joseph M., Recueil des sources arabes concernant Afrique occidentale du VIII au XVI siècle (Paris, 1975), 2, 265, 286.Google Scholar

127. McIntosh/McIntosh, , “The Inland Niger Delta,” 1–22Google Scholar; McIntosh, S.K., “A Reconstruction of Wangara/Palolus,” 145–58Google Scholar; McIntosh/McIntosh, Prehistoric Investigations.

128. It is generally assumed that the Bambuhu (Bunboughou, Banboughou, Bambouk) mines in the Mande was one of the areas known to the Arabs as “Wangara.” Depending on the pronunciation of the “b” in the upper Niger region and the “d” in the Black Volta area, it is possible that Banboughou and Bondoughou are the same word. Evidence suggests that both mines were opened about the same time, around the fourteenth century, and possibly before.

129. Savonnet, G., “Habitations souterraines bobo ou anciens puits de mines en pays wile?” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, B (1974), 227–45.Google Scholar

130. Savonnet, , “Habitations, souterraines bobo,” 227–31.Google Scholar The copper jewelry suggest Asante and Senufu influences. Ibid., 244.

113. Ibid., 233-34, 237.

132. Tauxier, , Le noir de Bondoukou, 646Google Scholar; Goody, , “Mande and the Akan Hinterland,” 198.Google Scholar

133. Kiéthega, J.B., L'or de la Volta noire: archéologie et histoire de l'exploitation traditionnelle (Paris, 1984).Google Scholar Research for this paper was made possible by a grant from the University of Maryland (1982) and the Fulbright-Hays Program (1982-83).