The Sunjata Epic begins in Farakoro, a Mande chiefdom near the gold fields of Buré. Maghan Konfara, the chief of Farakoro, was told by diviners that he would father a great hero, although the destined mother had not yet been found. She was eventually identified as Sogolon Condé, a sister of the mansa of Do ni Kiri, whose supernatural powers marked her as the woman foretold by the diviners.

The child born to Maghan Konfara and Sogolon was initially crippled and took years to learn to walk. He was called Sogolon’s Jara, meaning “lion,” a name shortened to Sunjata. After he eventually learned to walk, he became a great hunter. His childhood was overshadowed by rivalry within his father’s household, as another wife sought to make her own son chief and attempted to have Sunjata killed.

Sogolon took Sunjata and her other children into exile, and the family traveled northeastward through various chiefdoms before settling in Mema, the old Soninke kingdom beyond Timbuktu. During their absence, Sumaworo Kanté’s Soso army conquered the Mande chiefdoms. The people of Manden, suffering under Soso rule, remembered the earlier prophecy and sent a search party to find Sogolon’s children.

Sogolon had died in Mema, but her adult children returned to Manden with the search party. Sunjata organized the soldiers of the Mande chiefdoms into a powerful army and led them against Soso. After a series of battles, his forces defeated Sumaworo Kanté and created the unified political base from which the Mali Empire expanded.