Ethnic group found in Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau
Not to be confused with Dyula people.
Jola
Ajamat
Jola girls dancing
Total population
900,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau
Senegal
687,852 (4%)[2]
Gambia
182,807 (10.5%)[3]
Guinea-Bissau
6,000 (0.4%)[4]
Languages
Jola, French, Kriol, English, Portuguese
Religion
Majority: Islam[5]
Significant minority: African traditional religion (Jola religion), Christianity[5]
Related ethnic groups
Serer people and Wolof people
The Jola or Diola (endonym: Ajamat) are an ethnic group found in Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. Most Jola live in small villages scattered throughout Senegal, especially in the Lower Casamance region.[6] The main dialect of the Jola language, Fogni, is one of the six national languages of Senegal.[7]
Their economy has been based on wet rice cultivation for at least one thousand years.[8] This system has been characterized "one of the most significant examples of 'agrarian civilizations' in West Africa".[9] However, the Jola probably reached the Lower Casamance region in the 14th century, assimilating the previous Bainuk people and their rice tradition.[10][11] In colonial times, the Jola began to cultivate peanuts as a cash crop in the drier forests.[6] Other activities include palm wine tapping, honey collecting, livestock rearing and the production of other crops such as sweet potatoes, yams and watermelon.[12]
The traditional religion of the Jola is animism, which is practised through fetishistic rituals and ceremonies. However, the Jola populations living in well-connected areas have become Islamized due to the influence of the nearby Mandinka people. As a result, many Jola no longer speak their own language and more than half are now Muslims.[6] Unlike the dominant cultures of West Africa, most Jola communities lack any social or political stratification, being organized into families or neighborhoods. However, some communities have a central authority, a king, whose role resembles more that of a priest than of a traditional secular leader.[10] The most prominent Jola kingdom is in Oussouye.[10] Among the Muslim Jola, there is also the marabout, a religious leader and teacher. Traditional animist rituals are overseen by elders, who have an important role in Jola society. For Jola boys to attain manhood, they must take part in the initiation festival known as futamp, which takes place every 15 to 20 years in every Jola village.
^Klein, Martin A. "Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31.2 (Autumn 2000): 315. Accessed through Gale (Cengage), 6 Aug. 2009
^"Senegal Population 2021 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs)". worldpopulationreview.com. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
^"Distribution of the Gambian population by ethnicity 1973,1983,1993,2003 and 2013 Censuses - GBoS". www.gbosdata.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-19. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
^"Guinea-Bissau | World Directory of Minorities & Indigenous Peoples". Minority Rights Group. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
^ ab"Understanding the Personalistic Aspects of Jola Ethnomedicine". Retrieved 2021-06-17.
^ abcOlson, James Stuart; Meur, Charles (1996). The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 255–256. ISBN 978-0-313-27918-8.
^Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World A-Z. ABC-CLIO. p. 397. ISBN 978-0-313-07696-1.
^Davidson, Joanna (2009). ""We Work Hard": Customary Imperatives of the Diola Work Regime in the Context of Environmental and Economic Change". African Studies Review. 52 (2): 119–141. doi:10.1353/arw.0.0179. ISSN 0002-0206. JSTOR 20638911. S2CID 144115501.
^Sané, Tidiane; Mering, Catherine; Cormier-Salem, Marie-Christine; Diédhiou, Ibrahima; Ba, Boubacar Demba; Diaw, Amadou Tahirou; Tine, Alfred Kouly (2018). "Permanences et mutations dans les terroirs rizicoles de Basse-Casamance (Sénégal)" (PDF). Espace Géographique. 47 (3): 201. doi:10.3917/eg.473.0201.
^ abcPeacock, James L.; Thornton, Patricia M.; Inman, Patrick B. (2007). Identity Matters: Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict. Berghahn Books. p. 165. ISBN 978-1-84545-308-4.
^Knörr, Jacqueline; Kohl, Christoph (2016). The Upper Guinea Coast in Global Perspective. Berghahn Books. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-78533-070-4.
^Stride, G. T.; Ifeka, Caroline , "Peoples and empires of West Africa: West Africa in history, 1000-1800", Africana Pub. Corp., 1971, p. 6.
Jolas may refer to: Members of the Jolapeople of West Africa Betsy Jolas (born 1926), Franco–American composer Eugene Jolas (1894–1952), American translator...
Look up Jola in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Jola may refer to: Jolapeople, an ethnic group of West Africa Jola languages, a dialect continuum spoken...
of Fulani and Serer" The Serers also maintain the same bond with the Jolapeople with whom they have an ancient relationship. In the Serer ethnic group...
The Wolof people (UK: /ˈwoʊlɒf/) are a West African ethnic group found in northwestern Senegal, the Gambia, and southwestern coastal Mauritania. In Senegal...
melody. The banjo is a direct descendant of the Akonting created by the Jolapeople, found in Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. Hence, the...
([ə'kɔntiŋ], or ekonting in French transliteration) is the folk lute of the Jolapeople, found in Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. It is a...
figures (along with Samay, and the Niasse) in the mythology of the Diola people in the Casamance (Senegal) and in Gambia. Multiple times in the course of...
Bernardo Vieira until he was overthrown in 1999. It relies mainly on the Jolapeople. Its armed wing was formed in 1985 and is called Atika (Diola for "the...
unusual downward-pointing star as symbolizing the Holy Spirit descending on people. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and others perpetuated the popularity of the...
Fula, Wolof, Jola/Karoninka, Serahule / Jahanka, Serers, Manjago, Bambara, Aku Marabou, Bainunka and others, such as Tukulor. The Krio people, locally known...
sacred to followers of Awasena (a traditional African religion) among the Jolapeople, and is a heritage variety in the United States. Crossbreeding between...
Possible candidates are the ancestors of the Jolapeople or the Wolof but some believe that the Serer people are the builders. This hypothesis comes from...
a dialect of Middle English, historically of County Wexford, Ireland Jolapeople, of Africa Yola (album), a 2001 album by Eleanor McEvoy YOLA, Youth Orchestra...
1996. Jammeh was born in Kanilai, in the Gambia, and is a Muslim of the Jola ethnic group. He attended Gambia High School in Banjul from 1978 to 1983...
highest at over 96%, followed by FGM among the women of the Jolapeople's at 91% and Fula people at 88%. Among the Mandinka women of some other countries...
for trade in West Africa. The Dioula language and people are distinct from the Diola (Jola) people of Guinea-Bissau and Casamance. Alpha Blondy Amadou...
some of his ancestors were Jolapeople from Guinea-Bissau, Krio people and Limba people from Sierra Leone, and Yoruba people from Nigeria. Boseman graduated...
Guatemalan singer Samay (mythology), figure in the mythology of the Jolapeople in Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau Samay language, Bantu language...
flag with a white flag. In response, the Senegalese government targeted Jolapeople. The MFDC began to organise demonstrations, and tensions eventually escalated...
trees figure prominently in the Serer creation narrative. Among the Jolapeople, some religious festivals include the Samay, Kumpo and the Niasse. Religion...
(notably Macky Sall), and the old pleasant cousinship between the Serer and Jolapeople by liaising with the King of Oussouye (Maan Sibiloumbaye Diédhiou) to...
that is also played in the Gambia. It is associated with Wolof and Serer people. The drum is generally played with one hand and one stick. Among its most...
Global Information
Senegal
Gambia
Guinea-Bissau