"The term Mande (spelled Manding in British writing) can refer to a large language family, an ancestral homeland, and to the Maninka (also called Malinke) people who come from that homeland. The Mande homeland is located along the stretch of the Niger river roughly between Kankan in upper Guinea and Bamako in southwestern Mali (Map of Mande peoples--not yet available). In a broad sense Mande can also refer to closely related peoples such as the Mandinka (in The Gambia and Senegal), Soninke and Xasonke (both in northwestern Mali), and Susu (a Guinean people with Malian roots)."

From "The Grand Mande Guitar Tradition of the Western Sahel and Savannah" by Eric Charry, World of Music, 1994 (forthcoming any day now), volume 36, number 2.