Fouta Djallon (Fula : Fuuta Jaloo, ࢻُوتَ جَلࣾو, 𞤊𞤵𞥅𞤼𞤢 𞤔𞤢𞤤𞤮𞥅; Arabic : فوتا جالون) is a highland region in the center of Guinea, roughly corresponding with Middle Guinea, in West Africa.
Fouta Djallon (Fula : Fuuta Jaloo, ࢻُوتَ جَلࣾو, 𞤊𞤵𞥅𞤼𞤢 𞤔𞤢𞤤𞤮𞥅; Arabic : فوتا جالون) is a highland region in the center of Guinea, roughly corresponding with Middle Guinea, in West Africa.
The Fulani people call the region Fuuta-Jaloo ( ࢻُوتَ جَلࣾو) in the Pular language. 'Futa' is a Fula word for any region inhabited by the Fulɓe . 'Djallon' means 'mountain' in old Jallonke. [1] [2] [3]
The name in Pular, and in the Fula (macro)language of which it is a part, is also sometimes spelled Fuuta-Jalon. French is the official language of Guinea, and Fouta-Djallon or sometimes Foûta Djallon is the French spelling. Common English spellings include Futa Jallon and Futa Jalon.
The Jallonke people were the earliest inhabitants of the Futa Djallon. [2] [3] The region was a province of both the Sosso Empire and Mali Empire under the name 'Dialonkadugu', meaning 'home of the mountain people'. [1]
Since the 17th century, the Fouta Djallon region has been a stronghold of Islam. Early revolutionaries led by Karamokho Alfa and Ibrahim Sori set up a federation divided into nine provinces. Several succession crises weakened the central power located in Timbo until 1896, when the last Almamy, Bubakar Biro, was defeated by the French army in the Battle of Porédaka. [4]
The Fulɓe of Fouta Djallonke spearheaded the expansion of Islam in the region. [5] Fulɓe Muslim scholars developed indigenous literature using the Arabic alphabet. [6] Known as Ajamiyya, this literary achievement is represented by such great poet-theologians as Tierno Muhammadu Samba Mombeya , Tierno Saadu Dalen, Tierno Aliou Boubha Ndyan, Tierno Jaawo Pellel etc. [7] In its heyday, it was said that Fuuta-Jaloo was a magnet of learning, attracting students from Kankan to the Gambia, and featuring Jakhanke clerics at Tuba as well as Fulɓe teachers. It acted as the nerve centre for trading caravans heading in every direction. The more enterprising commercial lineages, of whatever ethnic origin, established colonies in the Futanke hills and along the principal routes. It served their interests to send their sons to Futanke schools, to support the graduates who came out to teach, and in general to extend the vast pattern of influence that radiated from Futa Jalon. [7]
Amadou Hampâté Bâ has called Fuuta-Jaloo "the Tibet of West Africa" in homage to the spiritual and mystic (Sufi) tradition of its clerics.
Fouta-Djallon consists mainly of rolling grasslands, at an average elevation of about 900 m (3,000 ft). The highest point, Mount Loura, rises to 1,515 m (4,970 ft). The plateau consists of thick sandstone formations that overlie granitic basement rock. Erosion by rain and rivers has carved deep jungle canyons and valleys into the sandstone.
It receives a great deal of rainfall, and is the headwaters of four major rivers and other medium ones:
It is, thus, sometimes called the watertower (chateau d'eau in French literature) of West Africa. Some authors also refer to Fouta Jallon as the "Switzerland of West Africa." This is a common expression whose origin may be unknown. [8]
The population consists predominantly of Fulɓe [sing. Pullo], also known as Fula or Fulani. In Fouta Djallon, their language is called Pular or Pulaar. The broader language area bears the name Fula/Fulfulde, and it is spoken in numerous countries in West and Central Africa. The Fulani (French: Peul) population represents between 32.1% and 40% of the population in Guinea. [9]
The largest town in the region is Labé. Mainly rural the economy covers animal husbandry (cattle, sheep, goats), agriculture, gathering, trading, and marginal tourism.
The Fulbe practice a form of natural farming that can be recognized today as biointensive agriculture. The region's main cash crops are bananas and other fruits. The main field crop is fonio, although rice is grown in richer soils. Most soils degrade quickly and are highly acidic with aluminum toxicity, which limits the range of crops that can be grown without significant soil management.
Sometime in the late 18th century, the Fulɓe in Fouta Djallonke developed a type of biointensive agriculture, probably out of necessity, since the conquered indigenous women were taken into the households of their Islamic overlords whose livestock became their responsibility. Combining animal husbandry and sedentary agriculture into an efficient system of agropastoralism required a new way of organizing daily life. Livestock, which included horses and cattle, ate more and produced more waste than what the indigenous farmers were accustomed. Since the livestock had to be protected from wildlife at night, they were brought into the family compound, referred to by the French as a tapade, and locally as cuntuuje (sing. suntuure) in the Pular language. [5]
Today, livestock graze in open areas during the day but are sheltered in corrals during the night, except for goats, which are permitted to manage on their own within limits. A similar pattern must have developed by the latter part of the 18th into the 19th century. Nonetheless, the disposal of livestock waste, which became woman's work, required a systematic way of disposing of it. And, over time, the women worked out a method for doing so. In organic gardening, their solution is called sheet composting or mulching. Over time, the women mixed a variety of other organic matter with the manure (kitchen scraps, harvest residues, and vegetative materials from a living fence or hedgerow) and piled it each day on their garden beds and trees to decompose and become nutritious humus. In the 20th century, livestock among the Fulɓe shifted from large animals to smaller types. Horses, perhaps due to the tsetse fly, decreased, while goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry increased, and n'dama cattle remain an integral asset.
The tapade gardens of Fouta Djallon have been highly researched by international scholars from various disciplines. This research has revealed that the cuntuuje system has a higher soil nutrient level than any other soil in the region. Almost all labor, except for the initial preparation, is performed and managed by women and children, in the past and now, within each family group. The gardens are important for both food and cash crops for their families. PLEC, a project of the United Nations University, measured yields on 6.5 ha from tapade fields at Misiide Heyre, Fouta Djallon and found that maize yielded up to 7 t/ha, cassava 21 t/ha, sweet potatoes 19 t/ha, and groundnuts (peanuts) about 8 t/ha. [10]
Each suntuure is about 1-hectare (2.5 acres) on average, so referring to them as gardens is not accurate, neither for their size nor complexity. The cuntuuje represents a systems approach to food production, and is distinguished by their agrodiversity, as well as the way the people intensively use and maximize a limited amount of land. Today, the cuntuuje gardens continue to produce a significant quantity and variety of agricultural products. [11]
The living fences that surround each suntuure are not just a barrier to keep out people, wild animals, and domestic livestock. In the permaculture vocabulary, the fence is a vegetative berm, and is instrumental in the process of nutrient cycling and nutrient retention within the suntuure. In other words, the cuntuuje represent a sustainable biointensive polyculture farm system and landscape architecture, housing one or more microclimate ecosystems and are examples of what we know today to be a permaculture design. The graphic in this section is a mind map of the internal zones and sectors found typically in a suntuure environment.
The interior of the suntuure, Zones 1-3 (internal gate, entryway, privacy screen, and residence) are reserved primarily for family members. It is in Zones 4 and 5 (the hoggo[ check spelling ] and suntuure living fence) where most activities of daily life occur. Here, visitors are greeted at a secondary shelter or pavilion, work on gardens (hoggos) is organized, children spend the day in play and work if of age, and afternoon prayers, naps, conversations, and meals occur until dark. Zone 6 is the outside world.
In 2003, the cuntuuje of Fuuta-Jalon were recognized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) as one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems. [12]
The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people are an ethnic group in Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown, due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity. Various estimates put the figure between 25 and 40 million people worldwide.
Pulaar is a Fula language spoken primarily as a first language by the Fula and Toucouleur peoples in the Senegal River valley area traditionally known as Futa Tooro and further south and east. Pulaar speakers, known as Haalpulaar'en live in Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia, and western Mali. The two main speakers of Pulaar are the Toucouleur people and the Fulɓe. Pulaar is the second most spoken local language in Senegal, being a first language for around 22% of the population. This correlates with 23.7% of the country in which Pulaar is the population's ethnicity. Pulaar is one of the national languages of Senegal alongside 13 others. It was admitted as an official language of Senegal by Presidential decree in 1971. There are around 28 known dialects of Pulaar, most of which are mutually intelligible with each other. The Pulaar dialects, as well as other West African languages, are usually referenced under the umbrella term ‘Fula’. Pulaar as a language, however, is not usually referenced as ‘Fula’.
Futa Toro, often simply the Futa, is a semidesert region around the middle run of the Senegal River. This region, along the border of Senegal and Mauritania, is historically significant as the center of several Fulani states, and a source of jihad armies and migrants to the Fouta Djallon.
Kouroussa or Kurussa is a town located in northeastern Guinea, and is the capital of Kouroussa Prefecture. As of 2014 it had a population of 39,611 people. A trade center and river port from at least the time of the Mali Empire, Kouroussa has long relied upon its position near the upstream limit of navigation of the Niger River to make it an important crossroads for people and goods moving between the Guinea coast and the states of the western Soudan and Niger River valley. The town and surrounding area is a center of Malinke culture, and is known for its Djembe drumming tradition.
Middle Guinea refers to a region in central Guinea, corresponding roughly with the plateau region known as Futa Jalon.
Pular (𞤆𞤵𞤤𞤢𞤪) is a Fula language spoken primarily by the Fula people of Fouta Djallon, Guinea. It is also spoken in parts of Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. There are a small number of speakers in Mali. Pular is spoken by 4.3 million Guineans, about 55% of the national population. This makes Pular the most widely spoken indigenous language in the country. Substantial numbers of Pular speakers have migrated to other countries in West Africa, notably Senegal.
The Imamate of Futa Toro was a West African theocratic monarchy of the Fula-speaking people in the middle valley of the Senegal River, in the region known as Futa Toro. Following the trend of jihads in the late 17th century and early 18th century, the religious leader Sulayman Bal led a jihad in 1776. His successor, the expansionist Abdul Kader defeated the emirates of Trarza and Brakna and by his death in 1806, power became decentralized between a few elite families of Torodbes. Threatened by both the expansion of the Toucouleur Empire and the French in the mid-19th century, Futa Toro was eventually annexed in 1859. By the 1860s, the power of the Almamy became nominal and the state was further weakened when a cholera epidemic killed a quarter of its population in 1868.
The Imamate of Futa Jallon or Jalon, sometimes referred to as the Emirate of Timbo, was a West African Islamic State based in the Fouta Djallon highlands of modern Guinea. The state was founded in 1725 by a Fulani jihad and became part of French West Africa in 1896.
Ahmadou, was one of the last Almamis of the Fula Imamate of Futa Jallon, in the Futa Jallon region of today's Guinea.
The Fula language is written primarily in the Latin script, but in some areas is still written in an older Arabic script called the Ajami script or in the recently invented Adlam script.
Guinean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans of Guinean descent. According to estimates by 2000 US Census, there were 3,016 people who identified Guinean as one of their two top ancestry identities. However, in November 2010 the New York Times estimated that as many 10,000 Guineans and Guinean Americans reside in New York City alone.
Karamokho Alfa was a Fula religious leader who led a jihad that created the Imamate of Futa Jallon in what is now Guinea. This was one of the first of the Fulbe jihads that established Muslim states in West Africa.
Talansan was the location of a battle in Futa Jallon, in what is now Guinea, in which Muslim forces were victorious. The battle was a key event in the jihad in which the Imamate of Futa Jallon was created.
Bokar Biro Barry was the last independent ruler of the Imamate of Futa Jallon in what is now Guinea. He died in the Battle of Porédaka, when his forces were destroyed by French artillery.
Aimé Olivier de Sanderval, comte de Sanderval, was a French adventurer, explorer of West Africa, entrepreneur and author.
Koli Tenguella was a Fulani warrior and leader who was pivotal in establishing the Empire of Great Fulo.
Thierno Abdourahmane Bah was Guinean writer, poet, Muslim theologian and Fula political personality of Fouta Djallon. He is regarded as one of the most important representatives of Islamic science and Fula culture of Fouta Djallon.
Fuladu or Fuladugu is a historic region and former Fula kingdom in the Upper Casamance, in the south of Senegal, and including certain areas in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. It was the last independent pre-colonial state in the area, ceasing to exist in 1903.
Koumanthio Zeinab Diallo is a Guinean poet, novelist and playwright who writes in both French and Fulani.
Tenguella was a Fula silatigi or chief who founded a short-lived state in the upper Senegal river valley, a precursor of the Empire of Great Fulo. He was referred to as the Great Fulo or Great king of the Fulos in Portuguese documents of the time.
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