Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Sunjata)

As Sogolon’s pregnancy becomes visible, the king’s second wife Sassouma Bérété fears her own son Dankaran Touman will be disinherited by Naré Maghan. She decides to kill Sogolon’s son.

On the day of the birth, there is a great storm, but it ceases at the very moment Sundiata is born. The king’s griot sings an improvised hymn, calling Sundiata the child “whom the world awaited […] The lion child, the buffalo child” (14). People of all the neighboring villages bring gifts to the king. The griot announces the child’s name: Mari Djata, a contraction of his father’s name Maghan and Djata, the word for lion.

Mari Djata, also called Sogolon Djata (the lion of Sogolon) has “a slow and difficult childhood” (15). He is ugly, quiet, and physically disabled; at three years old he is still unable to walk. Sundiata’s never-smiling face suggests he is always thinking, and when other children come to play with him, he beats them with his unusually strong arms. Sassouma Bérété is pleased at the boy’s infirmity and often has Touman, now 11, display his own athleticism around Djata or Sogolon.

The king loses faith in the prophecy.