Women, Music, and the "Mystique" of Hunters in Mali 1

In his study of Maninka and Bamana hunters’ initiation societies (donsotonw), the Malian scholar Youssouf Tata Cisse quotes a significant line from one hunter’s song text: dunun nege be sogo faa bali la (Those who don’t hunt are crazy for hunters’ music!) (Cisse 1994:207.3 Despite the fact that, in Mali, game is now scarce and protected by legislation, the cultural traditions and moral values of hunters’ societies continue to be of deep symbolic importance for contemporary Malians. The mere sight of a hunter, dressed in the traditional hunter’s cap and tunic of mud-dye cloth, conjures images of Mali’s glorious past, going back to the master hunter (simbon) Sunjata Keita, the founder of the Mali (Mande) empire in 1235.