SENUFO FIGHT BACK

GNAPON'S SON NAMBOLOSSE
LEADS THEIR RESISTANCE

It is he who is killed in 1878,
when "too old to fight."

-- Dakar archives, 1878

• He is the Senufo hero:
"He made the traders respect us. 

He forced them to speak our tongue.

He pillaged caravans and said,

'If I renounce crime, how will I eat?'

 -- Serisio Coulibali, farmer

Internet

° Who are the riders? 

They can't be Muslims, 
for the facial cuts are animist
(At least those on Internet)

Do they represent Nambolosse? 

Are villagers horsemen?  

Or do the statues represent Sonnangui, slave-owning Senufo who become producers for market (as the next chapter explains).

Internet

Horsewoman

° What about women riders?  

The sister of the terrifying warlord Samory was a raider. 

Was she alone, or did other women raid as well?

What about the facial cuts? 

One would have to see a representative exhibit or perhaps people on the spot still know.

They are questions I thought of only later.  

• After Nambolosse's death the Senufo 
continue their attacks.

They distinguish between
local and long-distance traders,

assaulting only caravans with donkeys,

which are raised in the north.

-- Dakar archives, 1891, confirmed by interlocutors.
Donkeys would not be raised so near the forest, 
with its deadly tsetse flies. 

° The petty traders are left alone,

for they have become part of Senufo society

They are Dyula, like the marabout whose prayers helped found Bokhala. Their Islam is so "lax" that their elders were often drunk in public.

Translation: they will not use Islam to defy the traditional order.

-- Drunk in public:
Journal de Braulot, Dakar archives, 1893

° "We let the little Dyula alone, 

but the Soninke were like fish. 

We did not know where they came from 

or where they were going,

and we caught them like fish."  

-- Bafétigui Coulibali, imam of Dabakalakoro

° "We:" the imam identifies with the animists 

against other Muslims: please read on.

Senufo resistance is effective. 
For over 15 years,
raiders devastate territories to the east and west,
but spare Djimini.

*     *     *

Next,
Different violence, similar goal