Sérères - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

Sérères constitute one of the oldest populations of the country. They left the areas of the valley of the the Nile, then passed by the Gabou (area mythical) and stopped on the level of the valley of the river Senegal, area which was going to become the Tekrour, then the Fouta-Toro. Sérères form initially part of Fouta-Toro at the time of the Empire of Ghana, where they fled Islamization, but especially the dryness, to arrive definitively in the areas of the Sine-Saloum where they created the two kingdoms sérères, the Sine and the Saloum. It is nobility guelward born from union between Sérères and Mandingues already installed on the spot with their arrival, which reigned on these two kingdoms which has both summer vassal of the empire Djolof, of which they became independent at the end of the 16th century, before being annexed at the end of the 19th century by French colonization.

In the company sérère, the hierarchy is marked than at other ethnos groups sénégalaises like Wolofs or Toucouleurs, but it resembles much the system of castes of the majority of the ethnos groups of West Africa.

At the top is the nobility guelward in the beginnings sérères and mandingues.
Then comes the caste from the craftsmen, subdivided by wood, trade association those which work iron, (the Laobés of origin poular), leather, the tisserands. With a lower row, one finds the Griot S attached to the big families of which they know the genealogy, the history of the soil, they are poets and musicians. Large Masters of the word, they hold the oral tradition, very important in the African companies,
With low of the hierarchy the slaves of box and those of the royalty which enjoy a particular status, because, as at Wolofs, it is on their premises that one recruited the famous Tiédos.

Habitat

The ethnos group sérère is typically sénégalaise, because one finds it only in Senegal, in the old areas of the Baol and Sine-saloum, and in Gambia.

The difference between the sérères groups appears by their spoken dialects, the inhabited areas and the practiced trades; indeed, the majority of Sérères are farmers since unmemorable times, while they entrust their herds to the shepherds peulh with whom they always cohabited. However one finds of Sérères Niominka which practices fishing in the delta of Saloum. These Séréres often carry patronyms Mandingue S, like the guelward.

Language

Religions

Part of Sérères - Animists in the beginning - is christianized, while much is Moslem. In spite of Islam and Christianity, one finds at Sérères, as at much of people of Africa, a tradition animist very anchored in the life of the every day.

Personalities sérères

Blaise Diagne, politician, of father sérère
Léopold Sedar Senghor, poet and politician sérère

See too

List of the ethnicities of Africa
Ethnicities of Senegal
Nuns (ethnicity)

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