So I've recently been indulging in some reading about Samori Touré -- a Manding-speaking West African that at one point controlled a sizable portion of West Africa near the end of the 19th century. Without getting into the details of his mixed legacy as both a colonial resistant and brutal conqueror, I want to focus on some Manding excerpts in Khalil Fofana's 1998 book "L'Almami Samori Touré: Empereur".