Hello and a warm welcome to yet another edition of your  educative ?Know your towns and villages?.

Today we bring to the limelight the community that is the foundation stone of the land of Kombo. This settlement is none other than Kafuta alias ?Jaar Suu?. Kafuta in modern times is in the Kombo East Electoral District of the Western Region of the country and the town is administered by the Brikama Area council.

The foundation
During our encounter with the current custodian of the land of Kafuta and some community elders, we discovered that the community of Kafuta is the first settlement of Kombo and its name is a Mandinka phrase which means ?to come together?. Legend has it that the community got this name because it was the land where the founders first converged after migrating from the land of Manding. Another verson of the story has it that the community is referred to as Jaar Suu which is also a Mandinka pharase meaning ?A home where they dried clothes?. The community is said to have this name because the migrants dried their clothes there after washing them at Bullock.

According to our sources, it  began with the migration of people from the land of Manding in search of the treasures of life. The first people to pioneer this process later came to be known as Kaabunkas because they moved to a land that later came to be known as Kaabu. When they migrated to this new land, they met the people called ?keenara Jolas in what is today called Kaabu. When these people settled in Kaabu, the people they met there, the Keenara Jolas, later noticed that Kaabunkas are more superior than them. So they left the whole region with the Kanbunkas.

The migrants then settled in Kaabu were they later formed a kingdom.  Our sources went on to note that after the migration of the first batch of people, the Bojangs who are believed to be descendants of Sankara Madiba-Conteh?s also followed suit. When the Bojangs moved out of Manding, they first found temporary shelter in the Kingdom of Kaabu; this was three years before the last emperor of the kingdom, Mama Janke Wally Sanneh ascended to the throne.

After the three years elapsed, the Bojang?s told the king of Kaabu that they want to proceed towards the Far East in search of suitable habitat. But before they began this journey, they consulted the marabouts in Kaabu as to the prospects and challenges of their adventure. The marabouts then made their finding and  told them, that their new home is situated at a place where a tiger killed an antelope and hanged it on a West African copal tree locally known as ?Santengo?. At this point, the Bojangs lead by Sainey and Sanna Jaari left the Kingdom of Kaabu and headed east in search of their prophesied home. This search first took them to settle in Mauris now in the Republic of Guinea Bissau before making their way into The Gambia to settle in Bullock now in the Foni Berefet District.

After a brief stop in Bullock, the leader of the delegation Sainey Jaari took it upon himself to go into the bush to continue the search for the dead antelope hanged on a ?Santango? tree. The search brought him to uncover an uninhabited land that later came to be known as Kafuta. When Sainey returned to Bulock, he  told his wife to soak all her clothes in water, so that when the delegation is ready to go, he can tell them that his wife has already soaked her clothes in water and as such they can be permanently settled on the land (this marks the beginning of the founding of the community of Kafuta and Kombo in general).

But the other brother Sanna Jaari insisted that they must go and together with others proceeded on their journey through ?Narang? now in the Kombo East District, and Kaabajoo and Foni Jaabang Kunda now in Cassamance. Sanna Jaari who lead the other delegation through ?Narang? after washing their clothes in Bullock later proceeded to Kafuta where they later dried their clothes before moving on their journey through Narang to Foni Jaabang. This was precisely why the land of Kafuta was referred to as Jaari suu.

Upon arrival from Foni Jambang in Cassamance, the king of the area thought that with the number of the followers and the force, their settling in his area would lead to the end of his rule and therefore wanted them to proceed firther inland but  the Bojangs told the kind of Foni Jaabang that they are not in his area to stay permanently, but on a brief stop as they search for the place the marabouts told them to stay. The Bojangs then moved further into the forest to a place that today is referred to as Brikama. It was in Brikama that a hunter of the Bojangs who on a daily basis do go out for his usual hunting discovered the dead antelope hanged on the ?Santango? on top of a sand dump. He then reported back to his people where they all visited and came to a consensus that it was the very place where the marabout told them.

But before they visited the place, they asked the hunter who discovered the dead antelope and a ?Santengo? on a sand dune, where actually he came across this dead antelope. He responded in a mandinka parlance Bring-Kaa Maa To? meaning in the deep forest. This was how the community of Brikama got its name. It is imperative here that we stated that the community of Kaafuta and Brikama were founded by two brothers (Sainey and Sanna Jaari) with the first founding Kafuta; oral history has it that, no matter how small the village of Kafuta is, the people of Brikama before do not undertake anything without informing the people of Kafuta.

Aborigines and expansion
As we earlier stated, the Bojangs who are descendants of Sankaranka Madiba Conte from the Kingdom of Manding founded the community of Kafuta. As the migrants transformed the virgin forest into an enviroment condusive for human habitation, people began migrating from left, right and centre to come and join the founders in enjoying the treasures of a new home and today the community of Kaafuta consists of hundreds of families and the community is one of the biggest in the Kombo East Political District.

The alkaloship
Until today, the community of Kafuta is still in firm grip with the old good traditional authority. Being the founders, the seat of the alkalo unquestionably remain in the house of the Bojangs. From generation to generation, the Bojangs transferred authority to each other based on age.

African tradition
Just like any other indigenous community, the settlement of Kafuta did not do without the practice of indigenous culture and tradition. According to our sources, the community operationalised the African philosophy that puts emphases on age; elders were given due respect by the youngsters and this gesture was reciprocated. Other traditional practices such as wrestling and circumcision were also observed. A place called ?Berendingto? stands out to be a ritual centre for women