23 Facts About Wolof people

Wolof people are a West African ethnic group found in northwestern Senegal, the Gambia, and southwestern coastal Mauritania.

The earliest documented mention of the Wolof people is found in the records of 15th-century, Portuguese-financed Italian traveller Alvise Cadamosto, who mentioned well-established Islamic Wolof people chiefs advised by Muslim counselors.

The Wolof people belonged to the medieval-era Wolof people Empire of the Senegambia region.

Details of the pre-Islamic religious traditions of the Wolof people are unknown, and their oral traditions state them to have been adherents of Islam since the founding king of Jolof.

The Wolof people were close to the French colonial rulers, became integrated into the colonial administration, and have dominated the culture and economy of Senegal since the country's independence.

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Term Wolof people refers to the Wolof people language and to their states, cultures, and traditions.

Origins of the Wolof people are obscure, states David Gamble, a professor of anthropology and African studies specializing in Senegambia.

Wolof people was called Ndyadyane Ndyaye, and his descendants were called Ndiayes or Njie, and these led to ruling families of Wolof, Mali according to this mythical legend.

Jolof or Wolof people Empire was a medieval West African state that ruled parts of Senegal and the Gambia from approximately 1350 to 1890.

Transatlantic slave trade led to the Wolof people acquiring European firearms, which were commonly bartered for slaves at the West African coast.

Wolof people are the largest ethnic group in Senegal, particularly concentrated in its northwestern region near the Senegal River and the Gambia River.

Pre-Islamic religious traditions of Wolof people are unknown, and neither written nor oral traditions about their traditional religion are available.

The oral traditions of the Wolof people have legends that state them to have been adherents of Islam since the founding of their Kingdom of Jolof.

Wolof people dialects vary geographically and between rural and urban areas.

Wolof people have had a rigid, patriarchal, endogamous social stratified society at least since the 15th-century.

Caste status has been hereditary, and endogamy among the men and women of a particular caste status has been an enduring feature among the Wolof people, according to Leonardo Villalon, a professor of Political Science and African Studies.

The Wolof people's caste status, states Villalon, is a greater barrier to inter-marriage than is either ethnicity or religion in Senegal.

Wolof people's places the development and spread of castes in these societies to about the 10th century, because slave capture, slave trade, and slave holding by elite families across the Sahel, West Africa, and North Africa was an established institution by then, and slavery created a template for servile relationships and social stratification.

Wolof people society is patrilineal, and agricultural land is inherited by the landowning caste.

Wolof people farmers raise chickens and goats, and dried or smoked fish purchased, both a part of their diet.

Rural Wolof people eat beef rarely, typically as a part of a ceremonial feast.

Those Wolof people who are of artisan castes work on metal, weave and dye textiles, produce leather goods, make pottery and baskets, tailor clothes, produce thatch and perform such economic activity.

Wolof people smiths produce tools for agriculture, while another group works on gold jewelry.