Mandinka people

The people of the Mandinka (also Mandingo, Mandinko, Sose ) is an ethnic group in West Africa, whose members define themselves as genetic or cultural descendants of the prehistoric kingdom of Mali that controlled trans-Saharan trade from the Maghreb to West Africa. In the early 13th century it was Sundiata Keita led by. In the same century the Mandinka spread, starting from the region, Mali is today, in a large empire. A later state of the Mandinka was Kaabu.

The Mandinka live today mostly in Gambia (about 590,000 ) and Senegal (about 667,000 ). Important populations of the Mandinka also live in Guinea- Bissau ( about 174,000 ) and Ghana (about 110,000 ).

Also, in many countries in western Africa, as Mauritania ( approximately 9,300 ), Benin (about 7,000 ), Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone will find smaller groups of this ethnic group.

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A famous Mandinka is Alex Haley's ancestor Kunta Kinte alleged, the (German: roots) through the book Roots and the eponymous television series was known. The reconstructed by Haley family connection between him and Kunta Kinte is however disputed by historians.

Sinead O'Connor refers to in the song " Mandinka " on Haley's book.

Became known, the name of the people in the spelling Mandingo by the eponymous film directed by Richard Fleischer. Here he refers to fictional gladiator fights between slaves in the American South, a motif that Quentin Tarantino took up again in his film Django Unchained.