Talk:Pre-imperial Mali

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Anthropology: Oral tradition

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Untitled

I am preparing to make major changes in this section. At present it represents a vision of Mali's past that is almost entirely based on oral tradition and customs of the Mandinka as practiced after the nineteenth century. While there is no doubt that oral tradition is important as a source, particularly for political history, it is less certain that it is so for customs and particularly for governmental organization. The constitution, allegedly given by Sunjata, for example, is probably a work of several centuries and an accretion of concepts and ideas. The attempt to reconstruct it in 1998, drawing on many different sources also probably increased the number of additions.

I will preserve some of this material, but will write in qualifications, reflecting the uncertainty that has to attend such efforts.Beepsie (talk) 12:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consolidate

I think we should consolidate this page into either History of Mali or the History of the Mali Empire. It's redundant to have a stand-alone page for pre-imperial Mali, especially since there's no page for post-imperial Mali. This page also requires maintenance (broken citations etc.) and looks like it was mostly copied from other pages. It'll be easier to keep everything clean and up to date with fewer pages. Catjacket (talk) 14:49, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]