Ancient Founders of Senegambia

According to Senegambia oral history, the Jola ethnic group is among the ethnic groups who have been longest resident in the Senegambia region. The Jolas for centuries continued to hold their ancestral African beliefs about the sacredness of the earth and the divine energy found in certain rocks and trees. They express their religion and beliefs in song and dance as well as in shrines, which is called "Bakin". The Jolas developed a high concept of one god, which they called Ata Amit A Luuke (Meaning God the Supreme Being).

It is sad to note that many people do not still know how long the Jola culture existed in the Senegambia region. Though the origin of the Jolas is still unknown, it is now confirmed by both oral and written history that they are the people who have been longest resident in the Gambia and among the indigenous people of the Senegambia region. The Jolas have developed a culture of acceptance of other cultures but not acceptance to change their own culture; they are one of few ethnic groups that have managed to keep its culture intact.

The Jolas are called Bachuki by the Manjago ethnic group, another ethnic group that also was among the first settlers. Bachuki in Manjago means first. To the Manjago it means the Jolas were the first settlers they know in the region. Of all the sub groups of the Jola people today, it is the Jola Cassas that still maintain 99 percent of all the old Jola traditional ways of doing things, still reject Islam and Christianity, and only a few of them go to church.

Most of the Jola Cassa who go to church to day do so because if they don’t, their children would find it hard to secure a place in the Christian schools. African governments have no funds to build schools all over their countries. Most of the schools in remote places of Africa are built by the catholic mission. There is no place in the Casamance where you will find Jola holy places of worship (Bakin) more than where the Jola Cassa lives. In fact, the most famous Jola holy shrines are in Samatit (called Kalemaku), and in Hasuka and in Mlomp (called Husana) and the people who run them are all Jola Cassas.

The Jolas are found in great numbers on the Atlantic coast between the southern banks of the Gambia River, the Casamance region of Senegal (Southern Senegal), and the northern part of Guinea-Bissau. Unlike most of the ethnic groups of the Senegambia region, the Jola ethnic group is not hierarchal. That is it has no class system in its social institutions, like griots, slaves, nobles, leather workers, etc.

Their communities way of settlement is based on the extended family settlement that is normally large enough to be given independence and their own names. Names like Jola Karon, Jola Mlomp, Jola Elinnkin, Jola Caginol, Jola Huluf, Jola Jamat, Jola Bayot, Jola Kabrouse, and Jola Foni etc

Although Jolas have a lot of traditional economic activities like fishing, farming groundnuts, taping palm wine, processing palm oil, just to name a few, their most intensive economic activity is rice cultivation. They had this knowledge long before the first European (the Portuguese) came to their region. This work activity (rice cultivation) is tied up closely to their religion and their social organisations. They have a good knowledge of animal husbandry and do raise a lot of different animals like cows, pigs, goats, chickens, sheep and ducks.

In the area of craftsmanship, the Jolas have a great variety of craft knowledge like weaving baskets, pottery, and house building. Jolas are also palm oil manufacturers and great palm wine tapers in the Senegambia region. The Jolas are able herbal medicine practitioners. Their high adaptation to the nature and environment made them to be able to create musical centred civilisation, natural medicine centred civilisation, and most important of all rice cultivation centred civilisation which they do effectively by using a locally made farming tool called the Kajandu.

Unlike most of the rest of the ethnic groups of the Senegambia, the Jolas were highly resistant to change or to influence of other cultures or religions. The Jolas are among the sizable population in Senegambia virtually untouched by Islam and Christianity. Many of them still hold to the tradition of worship. Even though some Jolas accepted Islam in the end (Soninke-Marabout war), they still honour their traditional way of using palm wine when performing their important rituals.

The Jolas have a concept of one God that they associated with the natural phenomena like sky and rain. They call this one god Amit (God) or Ata Amit (the Almighty God). (See article J. David Sapir) However, like any other religion, the Jolas have charms or sacred forests and sacred lands which they honour and worship as supernatural spirits that can protect their families, their villages, their rice fields, and even protect them from conversion to Islam and Christianity. These supernatural spirits are called Bakin (Mandinka Jalang).

Unfortunately people who don't understand how Jolas pray and relate to their God think that the Jolas have no God but spirits, because they offer sacrifices to the Bakin. But the Jola knows the difference between his/her God (Ata Amit) and the Bakin.

Jolas believed strongly in living a good humanistic life in this world. They believe that if one lives a bad life in this world when the person dies the soul of the dead person is punished to become an exile spirit and with no bed to lie on (In Jola Cassa this exile spirit is called A Holowa). This exile spirit becomes a roaming spirit with no respect from the other spirits.

All Jolas, before the influence of Islam and Christianity in their ways of beliefs, placed great respect in the proper observation of funeral ceremony, and still today some do, for they are of the belief that it enables the dead person’s soul to go to its final destination, (his or her ancestors). It was and still is strongly accepted by those Jolas who still practise their ancestral religion that without performing these funeral sacred rites, the soul is prevented from entering the presence of the creator (Ata Amit), and the ancestors.

Like most of the indigenous ethnic groups of the Senegambia region, the Pepel, the Manjago, the Balanta, the Konyagi etc, the Jola ethnic group did not develop a political scale that expanded beyond village level compared to ethnic groups that migrated to the region like the Sonikes and the Mandingos. But this does not mean they did not develop a sophisticated political system.

The egalitarian nature of their societies, structured around the limited village environment gave them the possibilities to develop a political system based on collective consciousness, which they worked through their initiation rites. In a sense the Jolas political achievement in the village was representative socialism based on leadership among equals. It was totally tied to their religious belief (Bakin). This political achievement to any one who knows politics is not easy to reach if the society that runs it does not have well defined rules of administration and penalties.

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Gambia Sweden Fashion

Fashion styles differ from country to country and you can usually tell by a person’s clothes as to which part of the world they come from. However, a lot of people cross these cultural borders and choose to wear the style they like the best. Ritva Lundberg, from Sweden, is a non-conformist when it comes to Swedish fashion, since she usually dresses in West African clothes.

She loves tie-dye fabrics and knows a lot about the way they are produced. During the hippie-era in the 1970’s, when batik clothes were trendy in Sweden and other parts of the western world, Ritva made her own batik fabrics, however, today she usually buys her fabrics from Gambia.

The first time I met Ritva Lundberg was in Bakau in Gambia in 2002. I was there as a tourist and Ritva, who had been living there periodically for three years, became my guide to the country and introduced me to her friends. It was the interest in West African music that drew Ritva and her husband to Gambia in 1999 and they immediately fell in love with the culture.

They spend a few months in Gambia every year, bringing its culture and way of life back to Sweden when they return, for example, Ritva often dresses in African fabrics in Sweden but in clothes made with western designs. It is still quite unusual in Sweden to wear this kind of fabric and it is easy to spot Ritva in a crowd. It is always exciting to see her choice of clothing, as she is literally wearing a piece of beautiful art.

“I always receive compliments on my style of clothing and my colleagues say that it is fun, as I add a splash of colour to the workplace, since the Swedish people usually dress so colourless”. The clothes in Gambia, on the other hand, are known for being very colourful and they are often made through tie-dye.

“Cuub” is the word for tie-dyed clothes in Wolof, one of the main tribe languages in Gambia. Ritva tells me that cuub is the traditional way to decorate clothes and when you walk the streets of Gambia you see a lot of people wearing those patterns. Originally the Gambian people used plant colours to create the batik and the patterns were usually quite small. Nowadays, the colours are synthetic and patterns, colours and techniques are numerous, but the old patterns are still used and popular, beside the new ones.

Ritva Lundberg loves the colourfulness and the diversity in the Gambian fabrics and explains that there are thousands of colour combinations and patterns. When I visited a market in Banjul with her, it was the colours of clothing that made the greatest impression on me. Ritva usually buys her printed cotton fabrics at the big markets in Banjul or in the markets of Serrekunda since they have the largest assortment.

However, the batik clothes she prefers to buy are from a batik maker named Fatou Sanneh.”I happened to get a good price from her once at the market in Serrekunda, where I gradually became her regular customer and started to visit her home to do my shopping”. Fatou also makes batik on order so you can get exactly the colours and patterns you want. “However, her prices for the special ordered batik patterns are not as low, but on the other hand, her fabrics are of extremely high quality”.

I have learnt that the pattern of the fabric is very important and Ritva says that there are new imaginative patterns invented all the time. There is also a trend in patterns and every year there is a pattern that is the “it” thing. “Every fabric manufacturer produces the pattern and all fashion conscious women wear it. If they don’t they are not ‘in’. You can not go to a party wearing last year’s batik pattern.

That is unthinkable.” Ritva Lundberg says that trends are very important in Gambia and that the Gambian women love vanity and new clothes. “It should always be the latest trends, sewed by the favourite tailor”. At the moment however, the batik patterned clothes are starting to be pushed out by a new “in” thing. “Today the latest fashion is sparkling synthetic fabrics, often with lace and inventive embroiders.”

Another interesting thing about the clothing in Gambia is that the women usually dress in the same patterns for big family feasts. “The women wear something called ‘asobi’, a kind of uniform, where the clothes are made out of the same patterned fabric, however, the design can vary. Sometimes even the men get an asobi in the same pattern, but this is not that common”. It is custom that the family who hosts the party buys all the fabric for the guests’ clothes. The choice of the fabric indicate the level of wealth of the family.

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