Sunjata

In Sunjata: a West African Epic of the Mandes People, a tale is told of tradition and heritage. The main character of the epic, Sunjata, leads a life of hardships to reach his prophesized glory. This story has been told for generations, assisting the “principle Mande clans frame their identities in terms of descent from the ancestors describes in epic tradition” (Norton 1514),

West Africans have taken heed of the story of Sunjata and have adopted wedding rituals from the epic as their own tradition. The bride-escorting song (lines 750-798) describes the rituals and their origin from the wedding day antics of Sunjata’s father Simbon, and his mother Sogolon Conde’. The carrying of the bride originated from the carrying of Sogolon by the co-wives to their home. “The women picked up the bride and run with her, That was done because of the condition of Sogolon Conde’s feet” (769-771). The act of the Mande bride popping her head in and out of her husband’s door three times symbolizes Sogolon’s three lashes from her soon to be husband to her head because due to her escapades. Her first act of defiance was trying to pierce her husband’s eye (802). The second was when she was lashed by her husband following her trying to burn his face with her “scalding breast milk”. In the third entrance, Sogolon tried to “spear Simbon in the chest” (831) with his ebony walking stick. After all of these attempts at injuring her husband were thwarted by him, she finally consented to marrying him to fulfill her destiny as the mother of Sunjata. She accepted the marital gift of the ten kola nuts and prepared a brew for Simbon to drink. She sat on his bed as the final gesture of acceptance. “That is why when a new bride is brought, If you do not see her sitting in a chair, If she does not sit on her husband’s bed she has something on her mind. She does not want to marry this man; She has another man’s name to confess” (870-874).

 

A tradition that exists in Indian Weddings today similar to Sogolon Conde’s preparation of the kola nuts for her husband to drink is the Var Mala ceremony. In this tradition, the Indian bride and groom put flower garlands around each other’s necks as their final act of acceptance of each other as life partners. Both the tradition of the kola nut brew and the Indian tradition of the garlands are similar in that they signal acceptance of the marriage however the origin of the garland is quite different. While Sogolon Conde was originally forced into her marriage and was broken down after the three attempts to harm her husband to be into complacency, the garland was a symbol of a bride’s proposal to her husband and his claiming of the garland was his acceptance of her.

 

Works Cited:

“Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mandes People”.  The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol 1. New York: Norton 2013. 1514-1578.