Affinity Bloc: Sub-Saharan African

Overview: The Malinke, also called Maninka, Mandinko, or Mandingo, are a Manding-speaking people residing today in southern Ghana, northwestern Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, northern Liberia, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, and the region of Manden on the border of Mali and Guinea-Bissau. They are primarily farmers who trace their origins to the thirteenth-century Mali Empire. Most Malinke are Sunni Muslims, although there are sizable Christian and animist minorities.

  -- James S. Olson, The Peoples of Africa. London: Greenwood Press (1996), pp. 366-367.

Peoples within this cluster: Banka, Bankagooma; Ble; Bolon; Gambian, English-Speaking; Gbeeka; Jahanka; Jotoni; Kagoro; Kagoro; Kakabe; Khasonke; Kunante; Kuranko; Lele; Malinke, Ivorian; Mandinka; Maninka, Eastern; Maninka, Kita; Maninka, Konyanka; Maninka, Western; Manya; Marka; Mau; Sankaran; Sininkere; Yalunka

Countries where they are found: Benin; Burkina Faso; Canada; Cote d’Ivoire; France; Gambia; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Liberia; Mali; Nigeria; Senegal; Sierra Leone; United States