Most Mandinka continue to practise a mix of Islam and traditional animist practices. The Mandinka are a very large ethnic group indigenous to West Africa, where they have lived for many centuries. Both authority figures and individuals outside the authority structure compete for control by employing methods to gain this occult power. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, Mandinka and Jola came to share a religion and the same community . Subsistence. July, Robert W. (1998). The traditional hierarchy still exists in Mandinka society, but the royalty no longer has power beyond the surrounding villages. New York, NY: Routledge. Although this term refers to people who have the same name, those people are all believed to be descended from the same ancestor. 4Emergence of a new national Muslim leadership. The Arabic script is used in the semi-formal Islamic schools often run by marabouts. NEXT I Agree to F2FA terms Political power in the Mandinka kingdoms originated in the villages. Mandinka culture is rich in tradition, music, and spiritual ritual. Religion Today, over 99% of Mandinka are Muslim. This slave trade volume excludes the slave trade by Swahili-Arabs in East Africa and North African ethnic groups to the Middle East and elsewhere. They had to share the taxes they collected with the village leaders. This art form is passed down in Mandinka tradition through the male lineage. Mandinka is both a linguistic term and the name of the people who speak that language. They controlled the land, collected the taxes, and followed the old animist religion. (To understand this, it has to be noted that the Mandinka were also a source people in the trans-Saharan slave trade, which both pre-dated and overlapped the transatlantic slavery period.) Men clear the undergrowth and prepare the land for the farming season and plant and manage particular crops. Men and women had different work responsibilities. In the Mandinka kingdoms, individuals could not buy, sell, or "own" plots of land. The shipment of slaves by the Portuguese, primarily from the Jolof people, along with some Mandinka, started in the 15th century, states Green, but the earliest evidence of a trade involving Mandinka slaves is from and after 1497 CE. This involves the belief in the existence of spirits in natural objects like sacred trees. The Mandinka have a long established practice of oral history and literature. A Mandinka woman supplementing her income by selling sandwiches. POPULATION: 18 million Among the Mandinka, status in society is determined through one's father's family. Women married early, sometimes as young as 13. According to Boubacar Barry, a professor of History and African Studies, chronic violence between ethnic groups such as Mandinka people and their neighbours, combined with weapons sold by slave traders and lucrative income from slave ships to the slave sellers, fed the practice of captives, raiding, manhunts, and slaves. //