Hello and a warm welcome to another edition of your thrilling history corner, Know your towns and villages.  We do hope that you enjoyed all our previous editions.

In today's edition, we bring to the limelight a community that is little known in history compared to most major settlements in the country. This community is no other than Kerewan; a settlement that is situated right behind the famous town called Lamin, yet independent of Lamin. Kerewan is located within the Kombo North political district, administered from the Brikama Local Government Authority.

Read on to find out the historical rite of passage of this community, who the founders are and the present state of the community. We do hope that you will enjoy the reading.

The foundation
During our chat with the current custodian of the land of Kerewan, Dawda Jarju, we could not ascertain the meaning and origin of the name Kerewan and why the name is being used to refer to the community. However, we have found out that the settlement of Kerewan is a product  of a settlement known as Babylon, a community that today lies on the southern part of Kerewan. The settlement is relatively new because during its founding, all the other communities that surround it today were already in existance.

According to our sources, the transformation of a part of the forest that would later be referred to as the community of Kerewan owes its credit to one Secka Badjie. This Secka Badjie was said to be a farmer and a marabout and hailed from the village of Babylon.  During those days in history, this unfamous community of Babylon enjoyed the blessing of peace and tranquility and the inhabitants were living in harmony.

However, these cheerful moments of the people of Babylon suddently came to a hault after a natural calamity stroked the community resulting to the multiplication of graves in the community; the people of Babylon who have enjoyed peace and tranquility for long were left with no option but to migrate to other parts of the land. It was on this sad migration route that Secka Badjie led his family to seek the treasures of life at another portion of the land that later came to be known as Kerewan.

Our sources further revealed that when Secka Badjie founded the settlement of Kerewan, he settled on the land briefly and then moved further inland to readjust to the demands of life at Bafuloto; a village on the outskirt of Brikama "Sateeba". The ghost of the settlement he has founded however, continued to haunt him and it did not take long for Secka's mind to be completely made up to return to Kerewan to take charge of his new settlement.

This period of Secka's return was said to have coincided with the beginning of the Second Warld War. Since then up to the period of his demise, he was in sole chare of his settlement and any other development that unfolded in the settlement was under his control and command.

Aborigines and expansion
As we earlier revealed, the community of Kerewan was founded by one Secka Badjie who migrated from the village of  Babylon after a natural disaster hit that community. However, being a community that came in the wake of all the other communities that today surround it, it was self-evident that the settlement was a melting pot as different people from all walks of life migrated in the quest to enter into firm grip with the opportunities of life.

Secka Badjie's founding of the settlement of Kerewan was like an open invition for migrants; the community from foundation, attracted an army of migrants; thus justifying its present multi-ethnic composition. The first people who first kept the founder who himself was a Jola in good company were the Fulas, then came the Jolinkas (susu) who proberbly must have migrated from the interio of Western Africa, settled differently in small communities and waited for any possible chance to have a settlement of their own. Today, the community of Kerewan is hosting many  more families and the community is still expanding.

The alkaloship
Just like any other traditional African settlement, the community of Kerewan follows the old good traditional linage of authority where succession to authority is   from the older to the younger generation in the same kinship group. However, due to certain circumstances, the alkaloship of this community went through some interesting historical drama. When the founder of the settlement decided to leave the settlement and resettled at Bafuloto, the seat of alkaloship moved from the house of the founder to the Fulas.

One Dawda Ceesay took over the custodianship of the land, and after his death, the village was again given to another Fula called Cherno Samadu. It was during the reign of this Cherno Samadu that the founder of the settlement returned and took over the ownership of his village again.  When he died, the village went into the hands of one Cherno Bandi, a stranger of the founder, who ruled until the cool hands of death snatched him away from the villagers.

This Cherno was said to have assumed the title of alkaloship on the condition that the current alkalo who is an uncle to the founder, was young at the time to manage the affairs of the village and when Cherno Bandi died, the current alkalo, Dawda Jarju, automatically became alkalo of the village under the directives of the then chief of the region, Fansu Bojang.

African tradition
Owing to the fact that the community was a multi-ethnic community from start, features of collective African traditional practices and philosophies were absent in this community as each ethnic group restricted itself to its own believes and practices. However, collective communal works, importance attached to age and age groupings were prevalent in the community.