Senegambian ethnic groups: Common origins and cultural affinities  - Factors and forces of national unity, peace and stability
 
Introduction     
The main ethnic groups of Senegambia are Wollof, Hal Pularr (Toucouloor Peul, Fula terms that will be used interchangeably in this text), Jola, Mandinka, Serere, Sarahule/Soninke. 
 
Other important groups include Aku,   Manjago, Bainounka, Bassari, Konyaji, Balanta, Mankanj. According to late Prof. Cheikh Anta Diop, eminent Senegalese scholar and head of IFAN for several years, the ancestors of the major  groups once lived in the fertile Nile valley but might have been forced by political and economic circumstances to migrate westwards across the Sahara Desert until they reached the western confines of the Sengambian valley, a land's end bordering  the Atlantic Ocean. With its two major rivers, The Gambia and Senegal, the new arrivals had found the right environment, not very different from the Nile valley of antiquity, to settle down.  The numerous tributaries and bolons stretching in different directions facilitated the dispersal of the newly arrived strangers throughout the Senegambian basin and a more dynamic process of integration of the diverse groups of our ancestors.
 
According to a number of eminent scholars, the process of integration of the diverse groups might have commenced its germination and active gestation in the Sahara of antiquity then a green and well-watered area.  That continuous emigration  was accompanied by extensive inter-ethnic integration, a process which  gained momentum during the epic  era of the Mali and Ghana Empires (9-13 centuries) and the successive states in  the Senegambian area -  Kaabou, Jollof, Wuli, Saloum, Fulladu, Cajoor, Fouta, Sine, Foni,  Fulladu and Kombo  to name some.  
 
Evidence of this very early existence of the present Senegambian people along the banks of the River Gambia has been attested to by various well-known foreign historians, travellers and mariners who visited the River Gambia area of whom the most prominent include: El Bekri, the   Carthaginians (Hanno) before the 10th century, Cada Mosto (1455), George Thompson (1618), Richard Jobson (1620) and Mungo Park (1795 1797).
 
Genesis of common origins and cultural affinities
Almost all major ethnic groups are represented in most areas of Senegambia; meaning that indigenous languages, religious beliefs, social values, patterns of living, traditional, social and political organisations are approximately identical or similar.   Wollof, Peul, Serere, Mandinka, Jola and Sarahuli are spoken and understood in all parts of The Gambia and Senegal; indeed there is no region or area in either The Gambia or Senegal exclusively inhabited by one ethnic group as is often the case in many other countries in our continent and elsewhere with all the too familiar negative implications.  And although group identity and allegiances are not unimportant, their impact is minimized by the existence of dynamic socio-cultural relationships, intermarriage and religion for example, that cut across diverse ethnic groups in a manner (frequency, scale and spontaneity) rarely found in other parts of the world or even in other African countries. 
 
These relations are continuously re-enacted within well defined historical, social and cultural paradigms that have survived the test of time and are generally understood and respected by Senegambians whatever their ethnic origin. That is why it is almost impossible to write the history or about the culture and traditions of any one Senegambian ethnic group to the exclusion of others as readers will discover from the facts in this discourse. 
 
Jola and Serere 
The common origin and parentage of the Sereres and the Jolas is a well known part of Senegambian oral History that is told and recalled almost on a daily basis.  According to traditional sources two sisters, Eujeuny and Jambogne were in a canoe which capsized somewhere at sea around Sangamar at the entrance of the Saloum River (Gov. Saliou Sambou of Senegal).  When the boat disintegrated each of them held on to a separate plank to stay safely afloat and  the fast and whirling current sent them in different directions, one northwards the other to the south. The sister who landed in the North would become the ancestor of the Sereres and the other who landed in the South would be the progenitor of the Jolas. 
 
With due deference to the Governor and in recognition of his scholarly writings on this and related subjects, I believe that from a geographical perspective and logic this incident could only have taken place around the mouth of the River Gambia because of the following reasons:
 
Firstly and most importantly, the River Gambia is the natural divide between the Jolas and the Sereres in the Senegambia area, the former located in the south west bank of the River Gambia and the latter in the north west of the estuary of the River. 

Secondly, there is no indigenous Jola town, village or settlement north of the mouth of the big River just as there is not a single indigenous Serere settlement south of the River Gambia.

Thirdly, if the canoe had capsized around the Saloum delta near Sangomar, as postulated by the erudite Governor Sambou, both sisters would have landed north of the River Gambia, if even on different locations,  with the consequence that  Sereres and Jolas would have been living today in the area lying between the north of the mouth of the River Gambia and the Sine-Saloum delta; or more likely there would have been only one ethnic group, Serere or Jola, since it must be assumed that the two legendary sisters, (Eujeuny and Jambogne), could only have had common biological parents. 
 
Fourthly, the distance between Sangomar and Casamance is too far and the Atlantic Ocean too rough for a young girl or woman without a lot of sea experience to cross to safety on a makeshift raft.  It is more likely that the calmer waters of the wide estuary of the River Gambia around Banjul Island could have been the parting of ways of the two sisters with Eujeuny landing somewhere on the coast of Niumi, the indigenous homes of Sereres of The Gambia - Koung/Barra, Mbollet, Jinak etc while the other sister Jambogne could have landed around the creeks between Perang and Bintang in the south an area, we know, is predominantly Jola.      
 
Other versions of the origins of Serere and Jola exist but the need for economy of space inhibits its exhaustive elaboration in this presentation. Suffice it to recall that not surprisingly Jolas and Sereres share a number of family names like Sanyang, Badjan, Manga, Sonko, Jammeh and Senghor to name some, with some of the most famous of the past being President Senghor, a Sine Sine Serere and the late Abbe Diamacoun Senghor emblematic leader of the  MFDC (Casamance).  Musa Jammeh and Manga II were great  Serere champion  wrestlers.  
 
Serere, Hal Pularr and Wollof  
Cheikh Anta Diop had defended the hypothesis that the Wollofs were not originally a group apart but the result of a process of metissage so to speak of different ethnic groups: Serere, Lebou, Toucoulor, Mandinka and Sarahuli who, in their evolution ie; the Wollofs, transformed themselves into an autonomous "tribe" with a strong capacity to assimilate, absorb or integrate with all other ethnic groups.  Being trans-ethnic par excellence their language has become a Senegambian lingua-franca spoken and understood by most other groups.  Dr. David Gamble shares this view asserting, as Joire also did in 1951, that "the present-day Wollofs are Sereres more or less mixed with foreign elements, Fulbe, Sarahuli and Bambara/Sosseh". 
 
In fact, continues Gamble, "Wollof culture has very little that is not shared in some degree by neighbouring peoples". Dr. David Gamble whose scholarly work on the Wollofs of Senegambia was published in 1957 by the prestigious London International African Institute visited The Gambia several times in the 1950s and spent long periods in the country researching on the Wollofs whose language he spoke fluently. As a schoolboy I vividly remember him when I spent my holidays in Kaur, near Balanghar in Lower Saloum where Dr. Gamble spent a lot of time working. This was the period, I believe,  when Master Teacher, Historian, Linguist, Journalist etc, Ba Tarawally, was Headmaster at Ballanghar School.
 
This extensive inter-ethnic assimilation has not spared any group.   For example it is said that the Toucouloors are partly of Wollof origin while some traditional sources claim that Njajaan Njie, the legendary ancestor of the Wollofs, was the son of a Haal Pulaar woman.Yet another version attributes the source of the name Njajaan Njie to the Sereres according to the following legend: A mysterious being looking like a man used to surface from the waters of a lake in Walo (Northern Senegal), which was his abode, to pacify villagers living around the lake any time they were on the verge of waging a bloody battle. 
 
The details surrounding that incident, which space does not allow me to go into here, were so mysterious and awesome that when Bur Sine, ruler of the Sereres heard the story he was so astonished that he exclaimed  "Njajaan Njaaye"  which people around believed to be name of the strange being from the lake and the name Njajaan Njaay stuck.  Induced to abandon the lake and marry a princess, the strange being became fully human and was made ruler of the riparian communities around which he founded the Jollof Empire to which the Serere Kingdom of Sine readily became a vassal state with the neighbouring States of Baol, Cajorr, Saloum and Walo following suit. The sources that subscribe to this  version can also be found in Dr. David Gamble's scholarly work on the Wollof of Senegambia already mentioned above.
 
In a Paper, Parente culturelle entre les formations ethniques des Rivieres du Sud et du Nord du Senegal, Muhamadou Billy Gueye, Socio-economic Research Assistant recalls that at Mbasabu village near Ndofan on the Trans-Gambia Highway not far from Farafenni, (Baddibou, Gambia), it used to be the tradition that newly born babies of Serere parents were brest-fed first by Peul women before the children's own mothers. 
 
Similarly Sereres in the same area must avoid causing the outflow of a Peul's blood. It is in respect of these sacred tradition and unwritten societal rules that the famous Toucouloor saint and mujahideen of  the 19th century, Sheikh Omar Foutiyou, advised his talibe (disciple) Ma Ba Jahou Bah, Almami of Badibou/Rip not to attack Buur Sine and his people, the Serere. The events and problems that followed are well-known and chronicled by authoritative traditional oral historians and in colonial history and need not be repeated here. Ma Ba was the father of Sait Maty buried at Cape Point (Sunbeach Hotel) and great-grandfather of late Imam Muhamadou Lamin Bah, one of the greatest Imam Ratib of Banjul (l953- 1983). 
 
In the same vein the Toucouloors are, according to some anthropologists, the  result of several processes of human integration and assimilation between Peul, Serere, Wollof, Lebou and Sarahuli making them also  another truly trans-ethnic group biologically related to all the other groups in the Senegambian valley. Small wonder Wollof, Peul, Serere and Soninke languages have many words in common such as gari nyam (Serere) and arr nyam (Peul) meaning come and eat in both languages. 
 
The word peace is jamma in Wollof, Serere, Peul and Sarahuli while  Maneh, nennah (Wollof), naanneh, nenneh (Jola), mbimi (Fula), nkoh (Mandinka), nti (Sarahuli) from the verb to say sound phonetically so close that they seem to come from a common linguistic root.  As a matter of fact the late Prof. Cheikh Anta Diop had indicated in one of his numerous authoritative works that there is an evident linguistic and grammatical relationship between Wollof and Jola word formations; e.g. "fofu, koku, yoyu" etc with their suffix variants existing in both languages. 
 
More specifically, some serious research by ethnolinguists of the Cheikh Anta Diop school has demonstrated that there is a close organic relationship between most of the Senegambian languages. For example Peul and Serere are said to have in common 37% of their fundamental verbal roots, while the percentage for Wollof and Serere is estimated to be around 24%. Not surprisingly many Gambians understand and speak at least two or more of our main languages in addition to their mother tongue. Such evidence cannot, in my view, be a series of mere verbal coincidence that can be simply dismissed off-hand without further in-depth enquiry - a challenge to Senegambian social scientists, linguists and scholars in general. 
 
In this respect the use of the suffix in our languages is a relevant indicator. Among the Mandinka it can determine an important fact like origins of people; e.g. nka can mean  from, those or people of, or speakers of as in: Baddibunka (Baddibu), Niuminka (Niumi), Tilibonka (Tilibo/Mali ), Jarranka (Jarra), Mandinka and Malinke (Manding/Mali), Kaabounka (Kaabou), Woyenka (Woye), Kassinka (Sine Sine ie Serere) to mention a few. This is very much like the Wollof prefix waa meaning the people of as in waa Banjul, waa Senegal, waa Basse, waa Brikama ,waa Sereyoung, waa Kaur etc. NB. "Mandinka"  occurring often in this text is a plural noun
To be continued