Niagassola

Niagassola ߢߊ߰ߛߏ߬ߟߊ߫ (N’ko) Nyasola (romanized)
Sub-prefecture and town
Niagassola Location in Guinea
Coordinates: 12°19′N 9°07′W
Country	Guinea
Region	Kankan Region
Prefecture	Siguiri Prefecture
Founded	c. 1810
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)

Niagassola is a town and sub-prefecture in the Siguiri Prefecture in the Kankan Region of north-eastern Guinea.[1] It is located near the border with Mali. It has no electricity and three water pumps.[2]

History

Niagassola and its surroundings were, according to some oral traditions, the site of Dakadjalan, the capital of Naré Maghann Konaté and boyhood home of Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire.[3]

Niagassola was preceded by a city called Waranban, which was mentioned by Mungo Park after his visit to the area in the late 18th century.[4] It was located on a key slave-trading route linking Kangaba to the Atlantic coast, where they would be sold to European or American slavers.[5] Founded around 1810, Niagassola was one of the principal cities of the Manding region after the decline of the Mali Empire, sometimes allied with and other times fighting against Kangaba.[6][4][7] This rivalry continued in the early colonial period, with Niagassola given preferential treatment by the French.[8]

Culture

The town is the home of the world's oldest balafon and an important object for the Mandinka people, the 13th century Sosso-Bala, which has been labeled as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.[9]

References

1. "Subprefectures of Guinea". Statoids. Archived from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2009.
2. Rothblatt, Raul. "Preserving the Sosso Bala". JumbieRecords.com. Jumpie Records. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2007-09-06.
3. Gomez, Michael (2018). African dominion : a new history of empire in early and medieval West Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780691177427.
4. Jansen 2015, p. 33.
5. Jansen 2015, p. 4.
6. Bühnen, Stephen. “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires: On Jan Jansen’s ‘The Representation of Status in Mande.’” History in Africa, vol. 23, 1996, pp. 111–20. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3171936. Accessed 3 July 2024.
7. Jansen 2015, p. 20.
8. Jansen, Jan. “The Representation of Status in Mande: Did the Mali Empire Still Exist in the Nineteenth Century?” History in Africa, vol. 23, 1996, pp. 92. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3171935. Accessed 8 June 2024.
9. "The Cultural Space of 'Sosso-Bala' in Niagassola". UNESCO.org. UNESCO. Archived from the original on 2016-08-03. Retrieved 2007-09-06.

Sources

• Jansen, Jan (2015). "In Defense of Mali's Gold: The Political and Military Organization of the Northern Upper Niger, c. 1650–c. 1850". Journal of West African History. 1 (1): 1–36. doi:10.14321/jwestafrihist.1.1.0001. Retrieved 20 October 2024.

12°19′N 9°07′W