Sanké Mon is a festive ritual held in the Ségou Region of Mali every second Thursday of the seventh lunar month, to celebrate the founding of the city more than six centuries ago. The rite begins with the sacrifice of roosters and goats and vows made by the villagers to the water spirits of the Sanké pond in hopes of asking for blessing while catching fish.
After that, a group fishing takes place over a period of fifteen hours, using large and small fishing nets, then immediately followed by a masked dance in the public square, which includes Buwa dancers from the town of San and neighboring villages, wearing traditional costumes and hats decorated with shells and feathers, and performing specific dances to the rhythms of a variety from the drums. The Sanké Mon expresses the local culture through arts and crafts, knowledge and know-how in the fields of fisheries and water resources, and it promotes the values of social cohesion, solidarity and peace among local communities.
In recent years the ritual has lost popularity due to ignorance of the event's history and significance, as well as the declining level of the Sanké pond due to lack of rainfall and the effects of urban development.

---

Sanké Mon, Collective Fishing Rite of the Sanké was inscribed in 2009 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Mali.