SOURCE: Conrad, David C. “Searching for History in the Sunjata Epic: The Case of Fakoli.” History in Africa 19 (1992): 147-200.

In the following essay, Conrad analyzes the treatment of the legendary hero Fakoli in the Sunjata.

That is why, regarding the time between the death of one great king and the rise of another king made famous by God,(1) If you ask whether in that intervening period there were other kings, Of course there were, But their names are not known.(2) 

I

Some scholars search for historical evidence in the ancient traditions preserved by bards of the Western Sudan, while other writers express doubts that these sources can contain any information of value to historians. A period markedly affected by this question is the early thirteenth century, because it was then that the Mali empire was established, and because most of the evidence for this is derived from the...