MANDINGA, a vigorous, well-proportioned, longheaded, big jowled, flat-nosed people with projecting cheekbones and regular features, inhabiting the western Sudan, originally from an area known as Mane, Mande, Mani, Mandi or Manding, in the Upper Niger. The Fulani call them Malinke. From 1235 to 168o they formed an empire but are no longer even a political unity. The following groups are distinguishable : (a) the Malinke (upper valleys of the Niger, Bafing and Gambia, and the district on the fringe of the dense forest) ; (b) the Bambara or Banmana (be tween the Niger and the Bani rivers, the Bamako district, and Sahel) ; and (c) the Jula (colonies east of the Bani). Their lan guage belongs to the Niger-Senegalese family, with dialects Ma linke, Bambara and Jula. Marriage by exchange is common, the women having no voice in the matter ; both dowry and dower are customary. Descent is matrilineal among the Malinke. The ex tended family group (Gwa or Gba), ordinarily comprising four generations, is the social unit with family property in common, ad ministered by the patriarch assisted by elders; there is also individ ual ownership of personal possessions. Inheritance passes to the brother of the deceased and then to the eldest son ; women never inherit but are themselves part of the heritable property. A
number of such family groups form the village (dugu) ; several villages and their townlands constitute the territorial group (kafo), and a number of such groups constitute the county (jamana) ruled by the Mansa or Massa with councillors and a chancellor of the exchequer. Clans, whose members have the same name and common taboos, still exist, but are unorganized. The village and the territorial group are the units of Mandinga organization; the politico-religious hierarchies depend on the secret societies (Ntomo, Nama, Komo), which group the people into age classes. Cultivators and cattle-raisers for the most part, some of the Mandinga (the Jula) are traders. In mediaeval times certain noble families became adherents of Islam but the people in general are still animists, and have agrarian festivals and seasonal rites.
See Monteil, Les Khassonke (1915) , Les Bambara de Segou et de Kaarta (1924) ; Moussa Travele, Proverbes et Contes Bambara accompagnes d'une traduction francaise et d'un abrege de droit coutumier (1923).