Project 3 essay

How People and Culture of the Gambia Is Changing Through Diffusion 

Introduction

The Gambia is a country in West Africa that is almost entirely surrounded by Senegal with the exception of its western coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the smallest country within mainland Africa. The Gambia is situated on both sides of the lower reaches of the Gambia River, the nation's namesake, which flows through the center of The Gambia and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It has an area of 10,689 square kilometers (4,127 sq mi) with a population of 2.101 million as of the April 2017 census. “The Gambia shares historical roots with.” many other West African nations in the slave trade, which was the key factor in the placing and keeping of a colony on the Gambia River, first by the Portuguese, during which era it was known as A Gâmbia. Later, on 25 May 1765, The Gambia was made a part of the British Empire when the government formally assumed control, establishing the Province of Senegambia. In 19/65, The  “Economics and Politics in the Gambia” (Sallah 1990).Gambia gained independence under the leadership of Dawda Jawara, who ruled until Yahya Jammeh seized power in a bloodless 1994 coup. Adama Barrow became The Gambia's third president in January 2017, after defeating Jammeh in the December 2016 elections. Jammeh initially accepted the results, then later refused to step down, which triggered a constitutional crisis and military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States, resulting in his exile. Gambia's economy is dominated by farming, fishing and, tourism.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate what Gambian culture is like, and how the concept of Gambia people and culture is changing over time.

This essay will be divided into four sections. In the first section, I will talk about the background information of Gambian culture. In the second section, I will be introducing the history of Gambian people and culture. In the third section, I will be talking about the changes in Gambian people and culture. the fourth section, I will be the conclusion.

Background Information

The Gambia is a multiparty republic. Under the constitution that was ratified 1996 and went into effect in 1997, the president, who is the head of state and government, is elected by universal suffrage to a five-year term(Ford,Harry). Despite its small size, the Gambia “has a rich history, and just as dynamic a people and culture”(Saine 2012). is a diverse multicultural society with many ethnic groups and where most people are as a result multi-lingual. Indeed it is not uncommon to find people being able to speak 3 to 4 local languages (Daun). Its size and the tempering influence of Islam in the Gambia context may indeed explain why it has a reputation for being a peaceful country as compared to that of other countries in Africa there is a minimum of inter-tribal and racial frictions.

Though Gambians themselves talk about belonging to this or that tribe the reality is that with the arrival of the Mandingo, Wollof, Fula (Fulbe), and other migrants into the river valley (circa 1200-1800) a lot of intermarriage and adoption of other cultures and practices has taken place between these different ethnic groups. This has had the effect of blurring what differentiates one group of society from another. Traditionally children will take on the tribal identity of their father. 

History Of Gambia People And Culture

The RDD started life as the Cultural Archives and ultimately begot what is now known as the NCAC and its various departments. The cultural archives were established in 1971 as a branch of the Public Records Office under the Office of the President of the Gambia with Bakary Sidibeh as its first Research Officer with the special responsibility of collecting both oral traditions and material items of culture for the beginning of a Gambia National Museum (sanneh).

This was a time when there was growing recognition of the values of oral literature and music by scholars abroad. Gambians realized almost too late that our traditional culture was rapidly changing. For example, the art of the Griot was seriously threatened. Griots Began to lose interest in reciting history and turned more and more to entertainment. According to Momodou Camara “culture constitute the way of life of people”

 

 

 Changes In Gambian People And Culture

Village elders and storytellers were finding fewer young people interested and having time to listen to them. Old people are not like books that can be stored for generations without too much harm, waiting until someone can get round to read them. Traditional ceremonies, songs, cultural games, and dances were being abandoned. The growing trend of democracy was weakening class lines and the caste system, undermining the traditional role of craftsmen such as weavers, smiths, leatherworkers, etc. just as was the competition for machine manufactured goods. Most of the masters of music, traditions, and handicrafts were aged, between 50-70, and few young men  were around to take their places. Since most of our knowledge is transmitted verbally and by demonstration, when these masters were no longer around, their knowledge would die with them.

This awareness led to a desire among some Gambians, to preserve for posterity at least some record of what that generation of masters and elders had to offer. At the time there was no financial provision or expertise to start a systematic collection. The only ones who seemed to have enough interest and money to work with oral traditions were foreign scholars. Through a Public Records Act that was promulgated in 1969 imposing the deposit of copies of taped material by researchers, there was no one to enforce this law until the appointment of Mr. Sidibeh who was also charged with the supervision of foreign scholars. By this time several universities have taught their students that it is a gesture of scholarly courtesy to deposit such works with one’s host country.

Between 1971-1972 Ms. Winifred Galloway, a Ph.D. scholar from Indiana University worked with Mr. Sidibeh on a series of interviews on the political history of pre-colonial Gambia. This research essentially became a pilot study for the kind of work prepared for the cultural archives. In 1974, the Cultural Archives became the Oral History and Antiquities Division (OHAD) and was detached from the Records Office and moved to the site of the present National Museum. In 1975 Dr. Galloway returned to OHAD under the auspices of the Peace Corps and between 1997 and 1980 other Peace Corps volunteers contributed to editing and organizing publications.

By 1981 the staff was further augmented with the appointment of a Gambian Research Officer and an Antiquities Officer (Carter) . The Research Officer was assigned the study of Jola traditions and the collection of their material culture for the museum, while the Antiquities Officer took on the job of management and preservation of monuments and heritage sites.This, in brief, is the genesis of the oral archives and partially the history of the National Centre for Arts and Culture which is responsible for the archive, as well as museums and heritage sites, and the development of the creative and performing arts in (“The Gambia”).

 Today the Research and Documentation Division has a collection of over 5000 audio-visual recordings that are fundamental to understanding the history of the Gambia in particular, and the greater Senegambia in general. The material relates to inter-alia, the empire of Kaabu, a powerful federated kingdom that governed the regions of Gambia, southern Senegal (Casamance) and northern Guinea-Bissau from the late 13th to the mid 19th centuries:

The areas covered include relations with neighboring Fuuta Jalon in present-day Guinea-Conakry (18th-19th centuries); the origins of Kaabu in the 13th century, and the federation’s subsequent social structure; the relationship between various ethnic groups in the region dating back at least to the 18th and 19thcenturies. The recordings were made between the 1960s and 1980s, but as history in Africa is an oral genre, they relate strongly to pre-industrial societies in this part of Africa. These recordings covering Gambian, Senegalese and Bissau-Guinean history mean that the collection is one of the most extensive in the West African sub-region. According to (Sylla) the collection could serve as a research center for the University of The Gambia. If better preserved and publicized, it would certainly attract a greater number of scholars to do research in The Gambia and could help in revitalizing interest in pre-colonial Western African states in the global academy.(barry)

Conclusion

The importance of the collection is accentuated by its breadth. The fact that the material relates to the whole sub-region and not just The Gambia alone make the holdings of great historical value. Moreover, the importance of this region in early Atlantic history means that this importance transcends even the sub-region and relates to the whole global historical process of the last several centuries. Adding to the importance of the collection is the sad loss of the oral history archive in Guinea-Bissau during the civil war there in 1998.

Works Cited

Barry, Bubacarr. “Kaabu.” Wikipedia, 12 Feb. 2020, 03:54, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaabu.

Camara, Momodou. “History and Ethnic Relation.” Gambian Culture, 3 Apr. 2017, doi: https://www.everyculture.com/Cr-Ga/Gambia.html .

Carter, Tracey L. The Historical Role of Griots in Gambian Politics, University of California, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, 2009. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/304851559?accountid=12598.

Daun, H. Change: Conflict Potential and Politics: Two Gambian Case-Studies. , 01/01/1974,

Ford, Enid R.A., and Harry Gailey A. Gailey. Republic of the Gambia. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc, 2019, Encyclopædia Britannica, www.britannica.com/place/The-Gambia.

Saine, Abdoulaye. “Culture and Custom of Gambia.” Culture and Custom of Africa, Greenwood, 2012, pp. x-xi.

               Sallah, Tijan M. “Economics and Politics in the Gambia.” Journal of Modern African Studies, 19 Jan. 2020, pp. 621–648., doi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawda_Jawara .

 Sanneh, Alieu B. “Culture, Religion, & Democracy in The Gambia: Perspectives from Before and After the 2016 Gambian Presidential Election.” Juniata Voices; Huntingdon, vol. 17, 2017, pp. 124–136., doi: http://ezproxy.msu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/docview/2235640778?accountid=12598 .

Sylla, M., and Stein. "Spatial Variability of Soil Actual and Potential Acidity in the Mangrove Agroecosystem of West Africa." Soil Science Society of America Journal, vol. 60, no. 1, 02/01/1996, pp. 219,

“The Gambia.” The Culture of the Gambia, 3 Feb. 2020, doi:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambia.