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                              Clearly, Lange (concerned chiefly with issues of ethnicity and political developments) and Hunwick (keeping linguistic groupings and economics in view) differ on virtually every major point, from the location of the several proposed Gaos, to the identity of the ruling dynasties, to the fundamental chronology of Songhay history itself. However, the resulting controversy about the origins of Songhay should not lead us to despair of ever reconstructing the early history of this state satisfactorily. Rather, it is a vivid example of an exciting stage in the evolution of medieval African historiography, and a challenge to consider even more carefully and imaginatively the evidence at hand.Songhay, the major empire of the Western Sudan by the mid-fifteenth century A.D., presents a fascinating story of complex relationships between trade, Islam, and political ideologies. Originally a satellite state of Mali, this region of fisher folk on the eastern Niger would take advantage of Malian decline to establish an independent state under the leadership of powerful askiyas. Songhai government reached a high point in the sixteenth century, and possessed an elaborate and effective administrative system. The end of Songhai, however, came quickly, as a result of outside forces and development in world history far beyond the control of any single state.The particulars of these developments are not only difficult to trace, but have also become the focal point for a lively scholarly debate. Two sides of the argument have been advanced most recently by John Hunwick and Dierk Lange. A review of their often conflicting models of early Songhay history vividly illustrates the many uncertainties which still hinder a fuller understanding of medieval Africa a thousand years ago.

                    Dierk Lange, relying not only on the Tarikhs (the Tarikh as-Sudan and the Tarikh al-Fattash), kinglists, and Arabic source narratives, but also on oral traditions and etymologies of western Sudanic terms and titles, argues that the Niger bend was ethnically and culturally under the sway of the powerful state of Mali until the fifteenth century A.D., when Sorko or Songhay warriors arrived to conquer Gao.1 In this scenario, the original Dia or Za (also known as Kanta or Qanda) line of rulers in Gao were ethnically Mande, hence Malian in origin, but for a time politically independent of the expanding state of Mali to the west. A thousand years ago, the Za ruled in Old Gao, the administrative and ceremonial center of their court on the left or north bank of the Niger River. Then, around 1080, Almoravid Berber traders seized power in Old Gao from their trading base in nearby Gao-Sané. Known as the Zaghe, this Berber dynasty (whose members Lange identifies as ancestors of the Sunni who would later rise to power in Songhay) took over with little violence, and intermarried extensively with the Mande Zas who had previously ruled Old Gao. This process of ethnic assimilation was so complete that by the mid-thirteenth century the Zaghe adopted the title of Za; some tensions would remain between the two royal lines, however. Mali's outright conquest of the region by 1300 further reinforced the continuity of Mande influence by strengthening the position of the old (Mande) Za line. This Malian domination of the eastern Niger bend would be challenged seriously for the first time only with the coming of large numbers of Sorko (Songhay) warriors in the early 1400s. The invaders came from Kebbi to the southeast, which was the original home of the Songhay. According to Lange, they may even have been called in by the Zaghe (Sunni) clan to assist in the Zaghe's struggle against the Za. In any case, this Songhay invasion caused to "a major ethnic disruption" which led to Mali's loss of Gao and to the subsequent Sunni rise to power, culminating in the reign of the Songhay ruler Sunni Ali.
                                	John Hunwick rejects both Lange's etymological methodology and premises of ethnicity. Reading the Tarikhs and other Arabic written sources closely, and assuming that language groupings are inherently more sound than categorizations based on ethnicity, Hunwick proposes a model of early Songhay development along the following lines.2 Gao began well over a thousand years ago (possibly in the 700s A.D.) on the right or southern bank of the Niger as a trading camp used by Sorko fishermen and hippopotamus hunters. The Sorko, who can be identified by language as Songhay, had strong ties to the core Songhay region of Dendi to the south, as well as to the important early Songhay town of Kukiya on the Niger, downstream from Gao. Although the Sorko camp, on the opposite side of the river from routes leading into and out of the Sahara, was thus protected from raids by desert nomads, its presence tempted these same nomads to establish more peaceful trading contacts. Berber merchants brought salt from the Sahara to this early Gao, in return from grain, textiles, slaves, and other items. Such economic activity also benefited Kukiya, whose increasingly powerful Songhay-speaking Za rulers began to subject surrounding regions to the control of their Kukiya court. And the Berber merchants (now Islamized) for their part set up a permanent base on the left or northern bank of the Niger at what would become Gao-Sané, in order to trade even more efficiently with right-bank Gao. Probably by the ninth century, the Songhay rulers of Kukiya themselves moved to right-bank Gao, in order to benefit even more directly--and to oversee more closely--commerce in Gao, which by this time was becoming both the center of a rising Za-Songhay state and an important link in the wider trans-Saharan trading network. With the coming of Islam to the Gao court sometime around the turn of the millennium, still closer ties were forged between the newly converted Za rulers and the Muslim Berbers on the other (left or northern) side of the river; Arabic sources indicate that the two groups even shared a common place of prayer. Late in the eleventh century, Almoravid Berber newcomers seized power in Gao-Sané, but soon disappeared, either absorbed into the existing Berber community or departing for Saharan regions to the east. By the 1100s, the right-bank Za moved permanently to the left bank, filling the power vacuum created by the Almoravid departure and establishing a royal court at what would later be known as Old Gao (though Gao-Sané continued to exist as a trading post nearby). The Za fell from power by 1300, when Mali gained control of Gao; what was left of the Za dynasty retreated to old Songhay base of Kukiya further down the Niger. With Mali's decline in the fifteenth century, the Sunni rulers in Kukiya, possibly descended from the Za, reclaimed Gao as the center of a reborn Songhay state.