Sirakélé

Sirakélé
Village
Sirakélé

Location in Mali

Coordinates: 12°30′50″N 5°28′40″W / 12.51389°N 5.47778°W / 12.51389; -5.47778Coordinates: 12°30′50″N 5°28′40″W / 12.51389°N 5.47778°W / 12.51389; -5.47778
Country  Mali
Region Sikasso Region
Cercle Koutiala Cercle
Commune Songoua
Elevation 335 m (1,099 ft)
Time zone GMT (UTC+0)

Sirakélé is a village and seat of the commune of Songoua in the Cercle of Koutiala in the Sikasso Region of southern Mali.[1] The village is 15 km north of Koutiala.

The French explorer René Caillié stopped at Sirakélé on 17 February 1828 on his journey to Timbuktu. He was travelling with a caravan transporting kola nuts to Djenné. In his book Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo published in 1830, he refers to the village as Saraclé.[2] Caillié wrote:

At eleven o'clock we stopped at Saraclé, a little walled village, having a very well supplied market. At the entrance of the village I observed a well: the soil in which it was dug, consisted of greyish earth, mixed with sand and gravel. The well was from fifteen to eighteen feet in depth, and the water it contained clear and pleasant to the taste. It had no enclosure, and near to it was a great hole, into which the negresses throw the water in which they wash their clothes. Although this water was very dirty, both men and women washed their faces in it every morning; and many persons belonging to our company followed their example.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Communes de la Région de Sikasso (PDF) (in French), Ministère de l’administration territoriale et des collectivités locales, République du Mali, archived from the original on 19 September 2012.
  2. ↑ Viguier 2008, p. 59.
  3. ↑ Caillié 1830, pp. 423-424.

Sources


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