One of the most lucrative trade routes in Mali linked the salt mines of Taghaza and the gold mines of Wangara. Salt was an important and highly valued commodity in Mali. It was used to season food, preserve meat, prevent dehydration and was essential in caring for livestock. However, every year heavy rains washed the salt out of Mali’s soil and carried it to the sea. Since these rains prevented salt deposits from forming within its boundaries, Mali had to “import” salt from Taghaza.
Although the town of Taghaza was controlled by Mali, it was located far to the north of Mali proper in a flat, sandy portion of the Sahara Desert. Taghaza didn’t have any trees or plants, just sand, the small homes of the miners, and the salt mines which lay beneath the sand.
Salt that was whiter than the whitest marble was taken from the mines in heavy, naturally occurring, regularly shaped blocks. While almost all of the salt was carried south by traders, some of the blocks were used to build the walls of the miners’ homes. The roofs were made of stretched camel skins.
The traders would load their camels with salt and walk south for many weeks. Leading a long line of camels across the sand was hard, often scorchingly hot, dry, boring work. All day long the men had to keep walking. If they stopped to sit down for even a few minutes, their camels would also sit down and the salt would slide off their backs and onto the sand. At night, the weary men hobbled their camels and let them forage, but even when hobbled a camel would sometimes wander far away from camp. Each time this happened, it could cost the trader many hours of travel time just to find his camel and lead it back to camp.
When the traders finally reached the southern edge of the desert, they entered a “port” city. Just as in today’s seaports, where goods are unloaded from ships and onto trucks, in these port cities goods were unloaded from camels and onto donkeys. In Mali, camels were best for transporting goods in the desert, donkeys were better in the grasslands, and human porters were essential in the equatorial forests. Although both camels and horses were used in central Mali, the traders who traveled south all the way to the edge of the equatorial forest always used donkeys because they were seldom affected by the bite of the tsetse fly.*
When bitten by a host tsetse fly:
camels usually died;
cattle usually died;
people frequently contracted sleeping sickness and died;
but donkeys were seldom affected.
Mali’s port cities buzzed with activity. Some traders scoured the marketplace buying food and gear for their next trip while others rested and visited with each other. They all had to meet with one of the empire’s tax collectors while in the port city. Most importantly, this was where the traders met to trade with each other. Though most of them carried at least small quantities of other goods, salt and gold were the principal items exchanged along the Taghaza-Wangara trade route.
While the traders from Taghaza traded their salt for gold from Wangara, those from the south who had led long lines of donkeys loaded with gold clear across the vast grasslands of central Mali exchanged their gold for salt. The general rate of exchange was an ounce of gold for an ounce of salt, but quality, scarcity, demand and a trader’s bargaining skills could affect the terms of a trade. With each man’s profit and pride at stake, the bargaining between them often became intense.
When their business in the port city was complete, the traders from Taghaza loaded their camels with gold and returned to the desert. Those from the south loaded salt onto their donkeys and headed back across the vast grasslands of central Mali. While traders were free to vary their travels, most chose to retrace the same route over and over again. Their families often lived at one end of the route. Also, those with camels were generally desert people while those with donkeys lived in the grasslands.
When the traders with the salt reached the southern edge of Mali’s grasslands, they came to one of the southern port cities. To the south was the dark, dense, difficult, equatorial forest. The port cities of the south served much the same function as their northern counterparts. Here, too, one means of transporting goods was exchanged for another, taxes were paid, supplies replenished, and salt was traded for gold.
The next group of traders to buy the salt had long lines of human porters. Balancing heavy loads on their heads, these porters carried salt and other supplies to the gold miners of Wangara. Walking single file along the narrow trails that crisscrossed the dense forest, the porters traveled hundreds of miles to secret sites near the gold mines. At one of these secret places hidden deep in the forest, the traders exchanged their goods for the miners’ gold.
Thus, salt traveled south and gold moved north along the Taghaza-Wangara trail. This was just one of many such routes. Mali’s entire system of trade routes, taxation, and international commerce was as complex and highly organized as any system known before the mid-1900s.5
Chapter 6
9,000 MILES
TWELVE YEARS AFTER BECOMING MALI’S EMPEROR, the Mansa, like his uncle before him, decided to leave Mali and embark on a long journey. The empire was at peace. Trade was flourishing, people’s lives were good, the empire was considerably larger and stronger, and Mali’s government was becoming very wealthy indeed. In fact, Mali had entered its Golden Age. Unlike his uncle, however, the Mansa didn’t dream of sailing out to sea on a voyage of discovery, but instead wanted to ride across the world’s largest desert, around the Red Sea, and down the coast of the Arabian Peninsula to Mecca.
A devout Muslim, Mansa Musa wanted to go to Mecca so he could participate in the religious observances held there. The trip would be long and difficult, over 9,000 miles, but if at all possible every Muslim should make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca.
“I want you to make all the preparations that will be needed for my pilgrimage,” the Mansa told an assistant. “I am eager to begin my journey. So, starting tomorrow, you and your staff are to devote yourselves solely to making the necessary arrangements.”
Many months later, on a day believed to be good for beginning a long journey, the Mansa’s royal pilgrimage to Mecca began. On this momentous occasion, the Mansa wore an especially wide pair of pants. The wider a person’s pair of pants, the greater their status in Mali’s society, so Mansa Musa’s pants were the widest worn in all of Mali. Wide in the seat and narrow in the leg, they were made from a rich fabric only the emperor was allowed to wear. Splendidly dressed, the Mansa left his palace and mounted a powerful black stallion that had been lavishly adorned with gold trappings. When he rode out to greet the huge crowd that had gathered outside the palace walls, he looked magnificent!
The crowd was in a festive mood. A feeling of celebration, of shared adventure, and of awe engulfed them as they stood watching the tremendous caravan begin to assemble. They had come to see the Mansa off and to say goodbye to friends who would be leaving with him. When the Mansa emerged from behind the palace wall, a loud wave of excited, cheering voices burst from the crowd.
After stopping to acknowledge the crowd, the Mansa, filled with excitement and a deep sense of pleasure, swung his horse around and headed north. Sixty thousand people left with him. Sixty thousand! Most of them would walk all the way to Mecca and then all the way back. Others, like the Mansa, had horses to ride. Some were guests, but a great many were servants. Eight thousand were soldiers who had been selected from Mali’s army of 100,000. Several of the guests were governors or other leaders who might try to take over the government while the Mansa was away, and so they had been invited to come along. Some were members of the royal family. Others were simply Muslims from Mali who wanted to make their own pilgrimage and needed the protection the Mansa’s large caravan provided. An essential few were guides.
Many of the travelers were lavishly dressed in bold cottons or imported fabrics set off by gold or silver jewelry. Many had delicate strands of gold woven into their hair, their clothing, and even into their horses’ manes. The Mansa’s personal servants, 12,000 in all, wore colorful brocades or silks from Persia. Five hund
red of them, each of whom carried an ornamental staff made of gold, walked as a unit just in front of where he rode.
Hundreds of horses and long, long lines of camels formed the backbone of the caravan. Excited by all the activity, the horses were eager to get started. The camels were not. (Camels do not like to work. While being loaded, they often spit at, bite, or even kick the person tying on their packs. When the packs are secure, they grunt and groan loudly while getting to their feet, but once they are up and moving they will usually walk patiently for many hours.) All the food, water, tents, tools, clothing, cooking utensils, and gold the caravan would need was loaded on the camels’ backs.
24,000 pounds
Eighty of the camels carried nothing but gold—three hundred pounds each! All of this gold, some of which had been made into fine jewelry or beautiful goblets, constituted the Mansa’s “traveling” bank account. He would use it to buy additional supplies and to give away as gifts to a great many of the people he’d meet while on his pilgrimage.
By late afternoon, Niani was behind them. The broad grasslands of central Mali lay ahead. Once the caravan was moving, it became a long, slender line of life, color, and glittering gold that stretched for miles across the landscape. All along its route, people stopped what they were doing to stare.
Chapter 7
A DELIGHT
FOR THE MANSA, TRAVELING ACROSS the grasslands of central Mali was a delight. Herds of elephants, giraffes, and gazelles roamed the vast open spaces. Fields of grain, cotton, peanuts, and other crops grew wherever there was enough water. The wide, wandering Niger River shimmered in the bright sunlight, and almost daily he saw sunrises and sunsets that were rich with color. Best of all, he could gallop off on short side trips and then easily and safely rejoin the caravan which couldn’t travel faster than three to four miles per hour—the speed at which people walk.
the learners the lookout
Once, while riding quietly with a few friends, he saw a huge bull elephant with its ears spread wide. From the tip of one ear to the tip of the other was ten feet. The huge ears of such an elephant, if killed for meat, were saved and used to make the skins for Mali’s royal drums.
Another time, the Mansa laughed aloud as he sat watching some young giraffes struggle to learn the trick to getting a drink of water. With such a long neck, it seems like it would be easy for a giraffe to just reach down and get a drink, but a giraffe’s legs are even longer than its neck! So, each young giraffe must learn how to stand in that funny, spraddle-legged position all giraffes use when getting a drink. Early one morning, the Mansa stopped to watch some lion cubs at play. Later that day, he rode hard beside a swiftly running herd of antelope. These side trips were fun. On them, he saw much of Mali’s countryside and met many of its people.
One day, with a small group of men, he rode east for several hours to meet with a local official. When they entered the man’s house, they saw that his children were chained up. “I’m having them memorize the Koran (the holy book of Islam), but lately they’ve been progressing much too slowly! I’ll let them loose as soon as they’ve got it memorized,” the official remarked as he seated his guests.
This man’s method of “encouragement” was occasionally used by Muslim parents. Since books were scarce and very valuable, some parents believed it was essential that their children learn the Koran by heart so that its guidance and comfort would always be with them. The Koran is only a little shorter than the Christian New Testament, yet thousands of Muslim children memorized the whole book.
Another time, after a long hard ride, the Mansa and some friends stopped to cool off under a wild baobab tree. This ancient tree was so big that dozens of mounted riders could cool off in its shade. In addition to enjoying the shade of baobab trees, Mali’s people made bread, red dye, and a medicine that helped them survive in the tropics from these grand old trees. On this day, however, the Mansa was not interested in any of these things. What he was really hoping to find was some clear, cool water.
Baobab trees can live to be a thousand years old. The trunks of very old trees can reach 30 feet in diameter. As the years pass, the central portion of these huge tree-trunks often rot away. Each year, when the rains come, the rotten portion of the trunk fills with water and rots a little more. Year after year the rotting continues until some of these old trees can hold many gallons of water.
In this particular tree, instead of water the Mansa found a young man hard at work. One side of the tree’s trunk had been damaged, and the gnarly-edged opening in its side had widened enough to let the water flow out and the young man come in. The clever fellow had set up a loom in the tree’s cool, small-bedroom-sized hollow and was busily weaving his cotton into cloth. Just as the weaver enjoyed his shady workplace, the Mansa enjoyed telling the story of the young man he’d found in a tree.
Chapter 8
A PERILOUS EXPANSE
WHEN THE CARAVAN REACHED THE SOUTHERN EDGE of the Sahara Desert, traveling became more difficult and more dangerous. The Mansa’s casual side trips ended. Enormous stretches of sand and dunes lay ahead. Further on they would have to cross mile after mile after mile of barren, rocky ground. Every day the glare and heat from the sun baked the land. In the summer, the temperature could soar above 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and the rock-covered ground could reach 170 degrees. At night, the air temperature dropped rapidly—often falling close to 100 degrees below its daytime high. Only during one of the Sahara’s rare rainstorms or, much more frequently, during a sandstorm that filled the air with wind-driven sand that slashed at everything and everyone, was the sun hidden.
In 1964, Theodore Monod and his Bedouin guide came upon an “irregular elevation” in the sand. Digging down, they uncovered the remains of a camel caravan loaded with 2' long copper rods that had been buried by a sandstorm in the 11th or 12th century.
This vast, dry, hot, barren land is punctuated by widely scattered oases where water bubbles to the surface and creates an island of green. Except at these oases, and a smattering of water holes, there isn’t any water; without water, death comes quickly in the Sahara. Therefore, whenever possible, the caravan stopped to replenish its supply of water and to let each of its members, both the animals and the people, drink their fill. A thirsty camel can drink about 25 gallons of water in just ten minutes, and after a good drink it can live for days or weeks—even for months depending upon the weather—without another drink. A thirsty person, on the other hand, can only drink a few cups of water at a time, and will need another drink within a few hours. Every adult in the caravan needed at least a gallon of water a day. Because it could take days and sometimes even weeks for the caravan to travel from one oasis to the next, the Mansa’s servants loaded hundreds of thousands of gallons of water onto the camels at each oasis.
The dimensions of this camel were taken from a photo of a camel that had just finished drinking his fill. He’s not pregnant.
Between oases, there were no roads or visible trails. Day after day, the travelers were surrounded by rocky landscapes that looked about the same in one place as in another or by vast stretches of sand dunes that changed each time the wind blew. Most of the time, there were no landmarks to guide a person who became separated from the caravan, so such a separation usually meant death. Yet, the highly skilled guides who led the caravan were able to keep it on course by studying the positions of the stars (much as sailors used to do), the sun’s path across the sky, and the patterns the wind left in the sand.
When the caravan reached the central portion of the Sahara, it passed close to the hottest place on Earth. In this tremendously hot region, there is a vast, rugged, arid plateau, the Tassili n’ Ajjer Plateau, that is covered with severely eroded, often eerie-looking rock formations, caves, and steep-sided gullies. Tassili n’ Ajjer is a silent, largely lifeless place, yet hundreds of beautiful rock paintings have been discovered there. They were painted 2,000 to 8,000 years ago by artists who lived in the Sahara when it was lush and green. Then, ever so g
radually, this vast land of rushing rivers and fertile valleys dried up and became the hot, desolate desert the Mansa and his caravan were crossing.
How would you feel if you were out exploring one of the hottest, driest, most desolate places on earth and you suddenly came upon thousands of paintings of elephants and giraffes and rabbits and cows and people on the rocks and in the caves all around you? This is what Dr. happened Henri Lhote, to a explorer-French ethnologist, in 1956.6
Following his discovery of the Tassili n’ Ajjer rock paintings, Henri Lhote and a team of artists spent 16 months reproducing 800 of the paintings. After sponging off a scene with water carried in by camel, the scene was traced and then painted. Great care was taken to match the rich colors used by the ancient artists.
a dancer
The diverse populations portrayed in the paintings migrated to other lands as their homeland dried up.
an injured or exhausted warrior falls
The rock paintings are remarkably beautiful. Their lines are simple and elegant, the colors rich and earthy. (All I can show you here are a few small drawings.) Among the actual rock paintings are images of rhinoceroses 25' long and elephants 15' tall.
Mansa Musa and the Empire of Mali Page 2