Sundiata: A Slightly Irreverent Version of Mali's Last Conqueror

The truth is that Sundiata was never a twinkle in his father's eye. No, King Maghan Kon Fatta only married Sundiata's mother because a diviner had predicted it would happen. In fact, if he hadn't been prepared months in advance, he would have sent her away at first glance. Think about it -- what would a buffalo-turned-woman look like? Just what you'd expect: hunchbacked and ugly as a tree naked and dying in winter.

But the king had been promised that she would give him the son who would take his place and rule the kingdom. So he sucked it up and did his manly duty -- or tried to.

But Sundiata's mother had not been the famous Buffalo of Do for nothing, the famous white buffalo who killed those who hunted her. This is the sort of woman who isn't easy to subdue in bed, even after marriage and all of the other proper procedures have taken place. Every night for a week, the king reached for her, but as he touched her, her skin grew coarse hair like an animal's and she kicked him with legs so powerful, he knew they didn't belong to a woman. This was long before the days of electricity. The king had no recourse to light or he might have seen that she turned into a buffalo every night, which obviously kept her from getting pregnant.

The king was at his wit's end so he sat down and started doodling in some sand. Well, today we would call it doodling, because our eyes have been blinded by science and logic and the lack of magic. But around 1200 CE, which is when this story took place, they called it "reading sand," and it often gave them answers to unsolved mysteries, like "How do I get this buffalo woman pregnant?"

By doodling or magic, the king got an answer: "Frighten her so badly, she faints, and then you do your thing, you studly man, you."

Sundiata's mother woke up, saw him "reading sand," and asked him what he was doing. He strode over to the bed, growled menacingly at her, and said, "I just figured it out. I was so wrong about marrying you. That wasn't what the diviner meant at all, at all. No! I'm supposed to kill a young virgin, and guess what? You're the lucky virgin." He seized her by the hair and she fainted, congealed in her human form. When she woke up, she was already pregnant.

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4