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MANDING-SPEAKING PEOPLES
Throughout the Manding-speaking world, commerce is an occupation held in
high regard. Markets thrive in many villages, and travelling merchants pass
regularly across the expanse of the Manding area and beyond, conducting an
interregional trade of significant proportions.
Language, heritage and basic social and economic forms are not all that
Manding speakers share. When Manding speakers travel or migrate, as they
have done over the centuries, they spread many of their noteworthy art forms.
Through the land where Manding-kan is spoken one hears Manding music and
oral literature, recited to the music of the kora (a harp-lute), blafon (a xylophone)
or distinctive drums. There are also common forms of weaving, carving, dyeing,
metal working and dancing. Thus, the large area between northern Ghana and
the Gambian Atlantic, and between northeastern Liberia and the central Niger,
is a region where Manding culture predominates. Speakers of the Manding
languages recognize their common culture, bearing evidence of this recognition
in their saying: "Manding is without end until the day of resurrection."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Atkins, Guy, ed. Manding: Focus on an African Civilisation. London: School of Oriental
and African Studies, University of London, 1972.
Bird, Charles. The Dialect of Mandekan. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.
, and Kendall, Martha B. "The MandeHero." In Explorations in African Systems
of Thought, edited by Ivan Karp and Charles S. Bird. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1980.
Bovill, E. W. The Golden Trade of the Moors. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press,
1968.
Bravmann, Rene. Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1974.
Dalby, David. "Distribution and Nomenclature of the Manding People and Their Language."
In Papers on the Manding, edited by Carlton T. Hodge. New York:
Humanities Press, 1971.
Goody, Jack. "The Mande and the Akan Hinterland." In The Historian in Tropical
Africa, edited by Jan Vansina, R. Mauny, and L. V. Thomas. London: International
African Institute, 1964.
Levtzion, Nehemia. Ancient Ghana and Mali. London: Methuen, 1973.
. Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
McCall, Daniel F. "The Cultural Map and Time-Profile of the Mande-speaking Peoples."
In Papers on the Manding, edited by Carleton T. Hodge. New York: Humanities
Press, 1971.
Niane, D. T. Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali. London: Longman, 1965.
Westemmann, D., and Bryan, M. A. The Languages of West Africa. 2nd ed. London:
Dawsons, 1970.
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