Death
Mansa Sundiata Keita died in c. 1255. This is generally the accepted year of death. There is however very little information regarding his cause of death. Not only are there different versions, mainly modern, but Mandinka tradition forbids disclosing the burial ground of their great kings. According to some, he died of drowning whilst trying to cross the Sankarani River, near Niani. If one is to believe Delafosse, he was "accidentally killed by an arrow during a ceremony." Others have maintained that, he was assassinated at a public demonstration. At present, the generally accepted cause of death is drowning in the Sankarani River, where a shrine that bears his name still remains today (Sundiata-dun meaning Sundiata's deap water). His three sons (Mansa Wali Keita, Mansa Ouati Keita and Mansa Khalifa Keita) went on to succeed him as Mansas of the Empire. The famous West African and ostentatious ruler Mansa Musa is his grandnephew.
Read more about this topic: Sundiata Keita
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him meerly seise me, and onely declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwrack, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotencie might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“and so this tree—
Oh, that such our death may be!—
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved guitar;”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and mocking at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)