The
Battle of Kirina, also known as the
Battle of Krina (c. 1235), was a confrontation between the
SossoThe Sosso Empire was a twelfth-century Takrur kingdom of West Africa.-Medieval Sosso:The modern Sosso people trace their history to a twelfth and thirteenth-century Takrur kingdom known as the "Sosso." With the fall of the Ghana Empire, the Sosso expanded into a number of its former holdings,...
king Sumanguru Kanté and the
MandinkaThe Mandinka are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with an estimated population of eleven million. They are the descendants of the Empire of Mali, which rose to power under the rule of the great Mandinka king Sundiata Keita...
prince
Sundiata KeitaSundiata Keita or Sundjata Keyita or Mari Djata I or just Sundiata was the founder of the Mali Empire and celebrated as a hero of the Malinke people people of West Africa in the semi-historical Epic of Sundiata....
. Sundiata Keita's forces roundly defeated those of Sumanguru Kanté, guaranteeing the pre-eminence of Keita's new
Mali Empire|native_name = Manden Kurufa|conventional_long_name = Mali Empire|common_name = Mali Empire|continent = Africa|region = North-West Africa|country = [Mali]|status = Empire|government_type g = Constitutional monarchy||year_start = 1230s...
over
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries distributed over an area of approximately 5 million square km:*Benin...
.
By the late twelfth century, the formerly dominant
Ghana EmpireThe Ghana Empire or Wagadou Empire was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania, and Western Mali.This is believed to be the first of many empires that would rise in that part of Africa. It first began in the eighth century, when a dramatic shift in the economy of the Sahel area south of the...
had collapsed, following the repeated invasions of the Almoravids in the eleventh century.
The
Battle of Kirina, also known as the
Battle of Krina (c. 1235), was a confrontation between the
SossoThe Sosso Empire was a twelfth-century Takrur kingdom of West Africa.-Medieval Sosso:The modern Sosso people trace their history to a twelfth and thirteenth-century Takrur kingdom known as the "Sosso." With the fall of the Ghana Empire, the Sosso expanded into a number of its former holdings,...
king Sumanguru Kanté and the
MandinkaThe Mandinka are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with an estimated population of eleven million. They are the descendants of the Empire of Mali, which rose to power under the rule of the great Mandinka king Sundiata Keita...
prince
Sundiata KeitaSundiata Keita or Sundjata Keyita or Mari Djata I or just Sundiata was the founder of the Mali Empire and celebrated as a hero of the Malinke people people of West Africa in the semi-historical Epic of Sundiata....
. Sundiata Keita's forces roundly defeated those of Sumanguru Kanté, guaranteeing the pre-eminence of Keita's new
Mali Empire|native_name = Manden Kurufa|conventional_long_name = Mali Empire|common_name = Mali Empire|continent = Africa|region = North-West Africa|country = [Mali]|status = Empire|government_type g = Constitutional monarchy||year_start = 1230s...
over
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries distributed over an area of approximately 5 million square km:*Benin...
.
Prelude
By the late twelfth century, the formerly dominant
Ghana EmpireThe Ghana Empire or Wagadou Empire was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania, and Western Mali.This is believed to be the first of many empires that would rise in that part of Africa. It first began in the eighth century, when a dramatic shift in the economy of the Sahel area south of the...
had collapsed, following the repeated invasions of the Almoravids in the eleventh century. A number of smaller neighboring states rushed to fill the power void, including the
SossoThe Sosso Empire was a twelfth-century Takrur kingdom of West Africa.-Medieval Sosso:The modern Sosso people trace their history to a twelfth and thirteenth-century Takrur kingdom known as the "Sosso." With the fall of the Ghana Empire, the Sosso expanded into a number of its former holdings,...
people of the
TakrurTakrur, Tekrur, or Tekrour was an ancient state of West Africa, which flourished roughly parallel to the Ghana Empire.-Origin:...
region, and the
Mandinka peopleThe Mandinka are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with an estimated population of eleven million. They are the descendants of the Empire of Mali, which rose to power under the rule of the great Mandinka king Sundiata Keita...
of the Upper
NigerThe Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...
. Under the leadership of Sumanguru Kanté, the Sosso seized
Koumbi SalehKoumbi Saleh, sometimes Kumbi Saleh is a large settlement mound or tell in south east Mauritania that has been putatively identified as the site of the capital of the Ghana Empire....
, former capital of the Ghana Empire, and expanded outward, conquering the Mandinka among others.
The battle
However, the exiled Mandinka prince Sundiata Keita organized a coalition of smaller kingdoms to oppose the growing power of the Sosso. The opposing armies met in the
Koulikoro RegionKoulikoro is a region in Mali. It is the second administrative area of Mali and covers an area of 90,120 km². Its capital is the city of Koulikoro.- Geography :...
of what is now
MaliMali, officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked nation in Western Africa. Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, bordering Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west...
in about 1235. Sundiata Keita's forces were victorious, and marched on to raze Sosso. The date is often cited as the beginning of the Mali Empire, which would control most of West Africa for the next two centuries.
Aftermath
The story of the battle is retold in the Epic of Sundiata, widely considered Mali's
national epicA national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation-state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or autonomy...
. In it, Sumanguru Kanté is an evil sorcerer-king who oppresses the Mandinka people; however, when Sundiata discovers that his sacred animal is the
roosterA rooster, also called a cock or chanticleer, is a male chicken with the female being called a hen. Immature male chickens of less than a year's age are called cockerels. The oldest term is "cock," from Old English coc. It is sometimes replaced by the term "cockerel" in the United Kingdom, and...
, he is able to wound Soumaoro Kanté with an arrow tipped by a cock's spur. The Sosso king then flees the field, disappearing into the Koulikoro mountains.
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