| Languages | |
|---|---|
| Marka language | |
| Religion | |
| Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Bambara people and Soninke people |
The Marka (also Marka Dafing, Meka, or Maraka) people are a Mande people of northwest Mali. They speak Marka, a Manding language. Some of the Maraka (Dafin people are found in Ghana.
The Marka originated from Soninke people from Wagadu Empire who migrated to the middle Niger between the 11th and 13th centuries. The term 'Maraka' means 'men who rule' in Bambara, which may have originated as a term for the colonists from Wagadu or merely as a term of respect. [1] : 171
Relatively geographically constrained compared to other trading communities such as the Jakhanke and Dyula people, they founded Nyamina and Sansanding during this early period, and Barouéli and Banamba in the 19th century. [1] : 171 All four were at various times prominent trading and religious centers.
Muslim merchant communities at the time of the Bambara Empire, the Maraka largely controlled the desert-side trade between the Sahel and nomadic Berbers and Moors of the Sahara. Their economy was based on slave plantation agriculture growing food and cotton to be traded. [1] : 173 The Bambara integrated Maraka communities into their state structure, and Maraka trading posts and plantations multiplied in the Segu based state and its Kaarta vassals in the 18th and early 19th centuries. When the pagan Bambara empire was defeated by the Maraka's fellow Muslim Umar Tall in the 1850s, the Maraka's unique trade and landholdings concessions suffered damage from which they never recovered.
Today there are only around 25,000 Marka speakers, and they are largely integrated amongst their Soninke and Bambara neighbors.
The Marka people are adherents of Islam. [2]
The Bambara are a Mandé ethnic group native to much of West Africa, primarily southern Mali, Ghana, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Senegal. They have been associated with the historic Bambara Empire. Today, they make up the largest Mandé ethnic group in Mali, with 80% of the population speaking the Bambara language, regardless of ethnicity.
The Dyula are a Mande ethnic group inhabiting several West African countries, including Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.
Ségou is a town and an urban commune in south-central Mali that lies 235 kilometres (146 mi) northeast of Bamako on the right bank of the River Niger. The town is the capital of the Ségou Cercle and the Ségou Region. With 130,690 inhabitants in 2009, it is the fifth-largest town in Mali.
Ségou Region is an administrative region in Mali, situated in the centre of the country with an area of 64,821 km2 (25,028 sq mi), around 5% of Mali. The region is bordered by Sikasso Region on the south, Tombouctou and Mopti on the east, Burkina Faso to the southeast and the Koulikoro Region to the west. In 2009 it had 2,336,255 inhabitants, making it the second most populous region of Mali. Its administrative capital is the town of Ségou.
The Mandé peoples are an ethnolinguistic grouping of native African ethnic groups who speak Mande languages. Various Mandé speaking ethnic groups are found particularly in the western regions of West Africa. The Mandé languages are divided into two primary groups: East Mandé and West Mandé.
The Bamana Empire was one of the largest states of West Africa in the 18th century. Along with Kaarta it was one of the most important successors of the Songhai Empire. Based on an earlier kingdom established in 1640, it grew into a powerful empire in the early 18th century under Bitòn Coulibaly. The empire existed as a centralized state from 1712 until the 1861 invasion by the Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj Umar Tall.
The Soninke people are a West African Mande-speaking ethnic group found in Mali, southern Mauritania, eastern Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea. They speak the Soninke language, also called the Serakhulle or Azer language, which is one of the Mande languages. Soninke people were the founders of the ancient empire of Ghana or Wagadou c. 200–1240 CE, Subgroups of Soninke include the Jakhanke, Maraka and Wangara. When the Ghana empire was destroyed, the resulting diaspora brought Soninkes to Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinée-Conakry, modern-day Republic of Ghana, Kano in Nigeria, and Guinea-Bissau where some of this trading diaspora was called Wangara.
Hadji Oumarûl Foutiyou Tall, born in Futa Tooro, present day Senegal, was a West African Tijani sufi Toucouleur Islamic scholar and military commander who founded the short-lived Toucouleur Empire, which encompassed much of what is now Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and Mali.
The Toucouleur Empire (1861–1890) was an Islamic state in the mid-nineteenth century founded by Elhadj Oumar Foutiyou Tall of the Toucouleur people of Senegal.
The Caliphate of Hamdullahi, commonly known as the Massina empire, was an early nineteenth-century Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa centered in the Inner Niger Delta of what is now the Mopti and Ségou Regions of Mali. It was founded by Seku Amadu in 1818 during the Fulani jihads after defeating the Bambara Empire and its allies at the Battle of Noukouma. By 1853, the empire had fallen into decline and was ultimately destroyed by Omar Saidou Tall of Toucouleur.
Amadu III of Masina, also known as Amadu Amadu was the third and last ruler of the theocratic Caliphate of Hamdullahi in the Inner Niger Delta, now the Mopti Region of Mali. He was elected as successor to his father, Amadu II of Masina, in 1853. Throughout most of his rule he was involved in conflict with the jihadist al-Hajj 'Umar Tall, who defeated and executed him on 16 May 1862.
Khasso or Xaaso is a region and former West African kingdom of the 17th to 19th centuries, occupying territory in what is today the Kayes Region of Mali. From the 17th to 19th centuries, its capital was at Medina until its fall.
The Islamization of the Sudan region (Sahel) encompasses a prolonged period of religious conversion, through military conquest and trade relations, spanning the 8th to 16th centuries.
The Wangara are a subgroup of the Soninke who later became assimilated merchant classes that specialized in both Trans Saharan and Secret Trade of Gold Dust. Their diaspora operated all throughout West Africa Sahel-Sudan. Fostering regionally organized trade networks and Architecture projects. But based in the many Sahelian and Niger-Volta-Sene-Gambia river city-states. Particularly Dia, Timbuktu, Agadez, Kano, Gao, Koumbi Saleh, Guidimaka, Salaga, Kong, Bussa, Bissa, Kankan, Jallon, Djenné as well as Bambouk, Bure, Lobi, and Bono State goldfields and Borgu. They also were practicing Muslims with a clerical social class (Karamogo), Timbuktu Alumni political advisors, Sufi Mystic healers and individual leaders (Marabout). Living by a philosophy of mercantile pacifism called the Suwarian Tradition. Teaching peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims, reserving Jihad for self-defence only and even serving as Soothsayers or a "priesthood" of literate messengers for non-Muslim Chiefdoms/Kingdoms. This gave them a degree of control and immense wealth in lands where they were the minority. Creating contacts with almost all West African religious denominations. A group of Mande traders, loosely associated with the Kingdoms of the Sahel region and other West African Empires. Such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Bono State, Kong, Borgu, Dendi, Macina, Hausa Kingdoms & the Pashalik of Timbuktu. Wangara also describes any land south of Timbuktu and Agadez. The Bilad-Al-Sudan or Bilad-Al-Tibr, "Land of Black" or "Gold."
Banamba is the capital of Banamba Cercle, one of the seven Cercles of the Koulikoro Region of Mali. Its estimated 2008 population is 7000. The town lies due north of the regional capital of Koulikoro, and is connected by a 40 km all-weather road via the town of Sirakorola, about halfway between the two. It is the location of the Lycée Franco-Arabe de Banamba.
The Ghana Empire, also known as simply Ghana, Ghanata, or Wagadou, was a West African classical to post-classical era western-Sahelian empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali. With the collapse of the Dhar Tichitt culture circa 400 B.C.E, The Ghana Empire's latency phase is hypothesized to have spanned from the 4th century B.C.E to approximately the 1st century C.E. with the eventual imperial state materializing between the 1st and 3rd centuries C.E. ultimate dissolving in the 1300s.
Nyamina is a small town and rural commune in the Cercle of Koulikoro in the Koulikoro Region of south-western Mali. The commune lies to the north of the Niger River and covers an area of 1,283 km2. It includes the town of Nyamina and 47 villages. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 35,548. The town lies on the left bank of the river, 80 km northeast of Koulikoro.
Sansanding, sometimes called Sinsani, is a small town and rural commune in the Cercle of Ségou in the Ségou Region of southern-central Mali. The commune includes the town and 17 of the surrounding villages in an area of 315 square kilometers. In the 2009 census it had a population of 23,109. The town sits on the left (north) bank of the River Niger about 50 km downstream from Ségou.
Dia (Jà) is a small town and seat of the commune of Diaka in the Cercle of Ténenkou in the Mopti Region of southern-central Mali. It is situated at the western edge of the Inland Delta floodplain, and is watered by the Diaka, one of the Niger River's major distributaries and the only permanent watercourse in the region.
The Jakhanke -- also spelled Jahanka, Jahanke, Jahanque, Jahonque, Diakkanke, Diakhanga, Diakhango, Dyakanke, Diakhanké, Diakanké, or Diakhankesare -- are a Manding-speaking ethnic group in the Senegambia region, often classified as a subgroup of the larger Soninke. The Jakhanke have historically constituted a specialized caste of professional Muslim clerics (ulema) and educators. They are centered on one larger group in Guinea, with smaller populations in the eastern region of The Gambia, Senegal, and in Mali near the Guinean border. Although generally considered a branch of the Soninke, their language is closer to Western Manding languages such as Mandinka.
