What the Oral Traditions Say Djibril Tamsir Niane To answer the question "Who are the Baga?" we let the Baga speak for themselves, through their oral traditions. From 1968 to 1972, the Department ofSocial Sciences at the Polytechnic Institute, University of Conakry, collected these stories, working from the Rio Nunez to the Kalum Peninsula. All the Baga subgroups, from the Baga Sitemu in the north to the Baga Kalum in the south, passing through the Pukur, the Bulutiits, and the Baga Kakissa, affirm the Fouta Djallon as their place of origin. Most of their traditions say that they departed en masse from the Fouta after the Fulbe victory at the battle of Talansan, in 1730. Some traditions give the itinerary and the steps ofthe migration; thus certain Sitemu, for example, believe they departed from Labe, while the Pukur of Binari[Era]say their ancestors departed from Binani (Pita), under the leadership of the Patriarch Yangali Atche. All affirm that the Baga brought their masks with them to the coast, with the exception of the Supreme Spirit, Kakilambe (or a-Mantshotio-Pon, the name Frederick Lamp has noted, also called Tamkulum among the Pukur), who stayed in the Fouta Djallon.
ate it? To be definitive we would need more He would come to the coast, however, information. It probably took place at the according to a well-established cycle, to preside at ceremonies of initiation. Then he beginning ofthe Christian era, when the Malinke were establishing themselves on would also resolve conflicts between clans and families, and would dictate the laws the Upper Niger; but without archaeological excavations in the Fouta and on the governing social relations, before returning coast, it is difficult to say more. At this to the Fouta, his country of origin. stage we might note the general acceptance The traditions generally emphasize the order of the clans' arrival, granting the first ofthe idea that the coastal peoples of Guinea and Sierra Leone have always to arrive the inalienable privileges of maintained a relationship with the interior founders. This right is often contested, for the clans often followed each other only by mountains and savanna. They certainly participated in the great Sudanese commonths or even weeks. merce of the Middle Ages, trafficking in Archaeology ought to offer a contribukola nuts and other products, such as salt. tion to our knowledge of the Baga. Before The Peul infiltration of the Fouta intenthe area now called the Fouta Djallon sified in the fifteenth century, ending in the received that name, with the arrival of the sixteenth century with the conquest of Peul Rulbel or Foutanke, it was called Djallonkadougou (the future Fouta Djallonkadougou (place of the Djallonke), after the Djallonke, a people of Mande ori- Djallon) by the animist Peul, called the Pouli. They were led by the famous Koli gin. Roland Porteres believes that the Tangella, who established his capital at Djallonke came to the Fouta Djallon from the inland Niger Delta, in present-day Mali, Gueme Sangan (Telimele), where a high stone wall remains. This first Peul invasion and introduced agriculture to the region; probably accelerated the departure of the the Baga would have learned agriculture from them. The impetus for the first move- Sapi(Baga, Nalu, Temne) toward the coast (Niane 1960, 1970; Suret-Canale 1970). ments in the emigration of the Baga and disThe eighteenth century saw the jihad of the other Sapi toward the coast, and in the Muslim Peul, the battle of Talansan, and placement of the Coniagui and Bassari the great, final departure of the Baga toward the northwest, was probably this toward the coast. arrival of the Djallonke—but when to situ-
The Baga Sitemu migration traditions bear some attention, for they relate closely to the structure of ritual and art described later in this chapter and the next. The Sitemu generally trace their origin to Timbo, or Timbi-Touni (near Pita). From there they passed through Labe, in the central Fouta, then Gaoual (a name they claim derives from their word ka-wal,"a clearing along a wooded path"), and then Boke, where they left their brothers the Landuma. With them they brought their to-lom, their sacred masked dance, identified variously by different consultants as that of a-Tshol, of a-Mantsho-ria-Tshol and his variants, of Tumbu (a crocodile mask similar to Banda), and of a-Mantsho-no-Pon, the highest male spirit(who,once he had shown the route, returned to the Fouta). Even today, they claim, one can see along the route the piles of rocks that their ancestors assembled in order to mark their way from the Fouta to the coast, and to show succeeding Saga groups the way. The first Sitemu group to leave were the a-Tako ("Those [who said]'Let's depart'"), who declined to confront the arriving Fulbe. They were led by three brothers; Sama,the youngest, left first, but his elder brothers, Tshotsho and Torio, beat him to the coast. The a-Samantor (descendants of Sama) accordingly split off from the a-Tako, founding the villages of Bukor, K'fen, and Kalaktshe. The main branch of the a-Tako founded the villages of Katako, Mareri, and Kaklentsh, with a later splinter founding the villages of Kamsar and Tshalbonto. Next came the Sitemu groups of a-Tfrin and a-Bunu, who had delayed leaving in an attempt to deter the Fulbe encroachment. The a-Tfan founded the village of Katongoro, which was at the site of present-day Tolkotsh, but were driven from it to their present site with the arrival of the a-Bunu. Later, a splinter group of a-Tfan left to found the village of Kawass. 52 CHAPTER III • ETHNOHISTORY
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