Dô
Do Dugubani Dô | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capital | Dugubani | ||||||||
| Common languages | Mandinka | ||||||||
| Religion | African traditional religion | ||||||||
| Government | Kafu | ||||||||
| Historical era | 11th-18th century | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Mali | ||||||||
Dô, also spelled Daw, sometimes called Dodougou or Do Dugubani, was a kafu (a coalition of villages headed by a paramount chief) in the Niger river valley around the modern village of Tamani, west of Segou. It existed as early as the 11th century, and played a prominent role in the establishment of the Mali Empire: the founder Sundiata Keita's mother, Sogolon Condé, was from Dô.[1]
Andalusian writer Al-Bakri records two countries, "Daw" and "Malal", located near the Niger and close to gold-fields.[2] In al-Idrisi's account of 1154, he noted that the two towns of Daw and Malal were four days' travel apart, located in a river valley that joins the Nile (meaning the Niger River).[3]
Oral sources also mention two kingdoms, Do and Kiri (also called Mande or Malel). Do was inhabited by the Conde clan, and had twelve towns under its control. Malel brought unity and mention of Do ceases.[a][4]: 127-128
Some sources place the Do of the Sundiata story in the Sankaran region, west of Niani, rather than near Segou.[5]
Notes
[edit]- ^ Al Bakri reported that the king of Malel, Beremundana or Seremundana, converted to Islam before the supposed fall of Koumbi.
References
[edit]- ^ Gestrich, Nikolas & MacDonald, Kevin & Keita, Daouda & Camara, Seydou. (2018). The ‘Pays Dô’ and the Origins of the Empire of Mali. in Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past: Essays in Honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, Edited by Toby Green and Benedetta Rossi, 10.1163/9789004380189_005.
- ^ al-Bakri in Nehemiah Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds and trans, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1981, reprint ed. Princeton, NJ,: Marcus Wiener, 2000), p. 82-83.
- ^ al-Idrisi in Levtzion and Hopkins, eds. and transl, Corpus, p. 108.
- ^ Niane, Djibril (1984). "Mali and the second Mandingo expansion". General History of Africa: Volume 4 (PDF).
- ^ Bühnen, Stephan. “In Quest of Susu.” History in Africa 21 (1994): 1–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171880.