Family, Community, and the Mali Empire Theme Analysis

Sundiata is not only the story of Sundiata’s life—it is equally concerned with the Mali Empire and how Sundiata built, conquered, and unified that empire. It's a story about creating community and forming alliances, both on a small scale (through marriage and having children), and on the broad scale of creating a vast empire. In fact, Sundiata’s skill at forging personal relationships enables his success at empire building, which implies that the cultivation of family and community is central to successfully uniting broad groups of people.

Marriage (and then having children) is the primary way in which the epic's characters build their communities. These family units make up the building blocks of the greater society, and they are major animating forces in politics. Since Sundiata depicts a patriarchal society, men often use women and marriage as political tools. Men exchange the women in their families through marriage in order to build alliances and consolidate power. Thus, family and politics are shown to be inseparable and essential as Sundiata fulfills his destiny of uniting Mali. For example, Sundiata benefits politically from his father's marriage to Sogolon, as King Faony Diarra of Do, Sundiata's uncle, comes to his aid in the fight against Soumaoro. In a similar vein, Maghan Kon Fatta, Sundiata's father, agrees to marry Sogolon in the first place because of the prophecy that Sogolon's son (Sundiata) will be a great conqueror and unite Mali. The marriage comes about because of a desire to not simply form family ties, but to produce an heir who will expand his father's empire and serve generations to come.

Sundiata is able to build an army capable of taking on Soumaoro primarily because of his ability to form meaningful and lasting relationships with all sorts of people—young and old, kings and soldiers, strong and weak. The narrator, by devoting entire chapters to lists and descriptions of everyone who participated in Sundiata’s battles, makes it clear that these people and these relationships are extremely important. Further, after his victory, Sundiata makes sure to honor his friends and allies by developing deeper relationships and ties between the different kingdoms that he now rules. This shows that these ties are not simply important to conquering, but also to ruling successfully.

Similarly, the respect and loyalty Sundiata pays to his mother, Sogolon, stands in sharp contrast with his enemies' relationships with their own families. Sundiata does everything in his power to honor his parents and recognize his siblings, while Soumaoro commits incest and abducts Keleya, the wife of his nephew and chief general Fakoli Karoma. Soumaoro "defiles" families under his jurisdiction, robbing them of their daughters without marrying them and denying them the possibility of proper familial relationships. When Sundiata becomes Mansa of Mali, he does the exact opposite of Soumaoro. He rules with justice and fairness, which allows prosperity to grow from the ground up. This encourages the creation of families and the expansion of trade, and it lays a moral foundation that helps the Mali Empire to remain prosperous for many generations after Sundiata. Thus, Sundiata shows that, in order for a large organization of people like an empire to thrive, family and community must be sacred.