The Sorko developed within a riverine world dominated by the Niger and the waterways of the Inland Delta. Their communities were associated with fishing, boatbuilding, and the movement of people and goods through creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes. They also hunted large animals living in or near the water, including elephants, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and manatees. Their expertise made them one of the most important specialist groups in Songhay society.

Sorko boatbuilding traditions included dugout canoes hollowed from tree trunks and larger kanta boats assembled from wooden planks. The planks were drilled, sewn together with strong twine or leather thongs, and sealed with caulking. Burgu, a plant growing along the Niger, was used for some caulking and also served as fodder, food, thatching material, soap ingredient, and dye source. These technologies linked river ecology to everyday subsistence and transport.

The Sorko’s strategic importance also placed them under the authority of the askiyas. In the period of the Songhay Empire, they were regarded as belonging to socially inferior or servile classes, and the rulers could command them to provide water transport during peace or war. Accounts attributed to seventeenth-century Timbuktu historians describe hundreds of kanta and other boats along the riverbank at Gao, demonstrating the scale of the river fleet connected to Songhay power.

Sorko identity also included a religious dimension. They were described as genie priests, with Mayé regarded as a genie of floods whose presence was associated with rising water. This combination of practical knowledge, hunting ability, ritual authority, and political subordination illustrates the complex position of specialist communities within the Songhay order.