The Serer people (Serer proper: Seereer or Sereer) are a West African ethnoreligious group"Charisma and Ethnicity in Political Context: A Case Study in the Establishment of a Senegalese Religious Clientele", Leonardo A. Villalón, Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 63, No. 1 (1993), p. 95, Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteVillalón, Leonardo A., Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick, p. 62, Cambridge University Press (2006), and nation,Bulletin de la Société de géographie, Volume 26. Société de Géographie (1855), pp. 35 – 36. (retrieved 7 March 2025). Quote:
"La nation sérère, aujourd'hui dispersée en plusieurs petits États sur la côte ou refoulée dans les bois de l'intérieur, doit être une des plus anciennes de la Sénégambie."Maury, Alfred, Rapports à la Soc. de géogr, Volume 1. (1855). p. 25 (retrieved 7 March 2025)Marty, Paul, L'Islám en Mauritanie et au Sénégal. E. Leroux (1916), p. 49 "today scattered in several small states on the coast or pushed back into the woods of the interior, must be one of the oldest in Senegambia."Gadzekpo, Seth Kordzo. "History of African Civilisations." Rabbi Books (2002), p. 137. They are the third-largest ethnic group in Senegal, making up 16% of the Senegalese population.Senegal, CIA Factsheet (retrieved 7 March 2025) They also reside in northern Gambia and southern Mauritania. Ethnologue.comGambia, CIA Factsheet (retrieved 7 March 2025)
The Serer people originated in the Senegal River Valley, at the border of present-day Senegal and Mauritania, and moved south in the 11th and 12th century and migrated again in the 15th and 16th centuries., Quote: "Serer oral tradition recounts the group's origins in the Senegal River valley, where it was part of, or closely related to, the same group as the ancestors of today's Tukulor." They have had a sedentary settled culture and have been known for their farming expertise and transhumant stock-raising.Natural Resources Research, UNESCO, Natural resources research, Volume 16, Unesco (1979), p. 265
The Serer people have been historically noted as an ethnic group practicing endogamy, and elements of both matrilineality and patrilineality.Kalis, Simone, Médecine traditionnelle religion et divination chez les Seereer Sine du Senegal, La connaissance de la nuit, L'Harmattan (1997), p. 299, Lamoise, LE P., Grammaire de la langue Serer (1873)Becker, Charles: Vestiges historiques, trémoins matériels du passé clans les pays sereer, Dakar (1993), CNRS-ORSTOM Gastellu, Jean-Marc, Petit traité de matrilinarité. L'accumulation dans deux sociétés rurales d'Afrique de l'Ouest, Cahiers ORSTOM, série Sciences Humaines 4 (1985) [in] Gastellu, Jean-Marc, Matrilineages, Economic Groups and Differentiation in West Africa: A Note, O.R.S.T.O.M. Fonds Documentaire (1988), pp 1, 2–4 (pp 272–4), 7 (p 277) Dupire, Marguerite, Sagesse sereer: Essais sur la pensée sereer ndut, KARTHALA Editions (1994). For tim and den yaay (see p. 116). The book also deals in depth about the Serer matriclans and means of succession through the matrilineal line. See pp. 38, 95–99, 104, 119–20, 123, 160, 172–74, They fought against jihads in the 19th century, and subsequently opposed French colonial rule - resulting in Serer victory at the famous Battle of Djilass (13 May 1859), and the French Empire taking revenge against them at the equally famous Battle of Logandème that same year.Sagne, Mohamadou, VILLAGE DE DJILASS: L’EXPLOITATION DE village-de-djilass-lexploitation-de, Le soleil (15 Nov 2021), [in] Seneplus. (retrieved 3 Mar 2025)OG, Des cadres du Sine veulent faire construire un mausolée pyramidal dédié au roi Sann Moon Faye, Sud Quotidien (19 Aug 2023). (retrieved 3 March 2025)
In the 20th century, most of the Serer converted to Islam (Sufism), but some are Christians or follow their traditional religion.Thiam, Iba Der, "Maba Diakhou Ba Almamy du Rip." (Sénégal), Paris, ABC, Dakar-Abidjan, NEA, 1977, p. 44
The Serer society, like other ethnic groups in Senegal, has had social stratification featuring endogamous castes and slaves. Other historians, such as Thiaw, Richard and others, believe that the Serer did not maintain a slave culture, or at least not to the same extent as other ethnic groups in the Senegambia region. Serer religion and culture also forbids slavery.
Other spelling
The Serer people are also referred to as: Serer proper: Seereer or Sereer French: Sérère Other spelling: Sarer, Kegueme (possible corruption of Serer-Dyegueme), Serrere, Serere, Ceereer/Cereer (from Ceereer ne ("the Seereer people" in Serer, found in early European spelling/maps), and sometimes wrongly Serre
Demographics and distribution
The Serer people are primarily found in contemporary Senegal, particularly in the west-central part of the country, running from the southern edge of Dakar to the border of The Gambia. The Serer include the various Serer peoples of which the Seex people (pronounced Seh) are the most numerous.
The Serer-Noon occupy the ancient area of Thiès in modern-day Senegal. The Serer-Ndut are found in southern Cayor and north west of ancient Thiès. The Serer-Njeghen occupy old Baol; the Serer-Palor occupy the west central, west southwest of Thiès and the Serer-Laalaa occupy west central, north of Thiès and the Tambacounda area.Patience Sonko-Godwin. Ethnic Groups of The Senegambia Region. A Brief History. p32. Sunrise Publishers Ltd. Third Edition, 2003. Ethnologue.com. Languages of Senegal. 2007 figures
The Serer people are diverse. Although they lived throughout the Senegambia region, they are more numerous in places such as old Baol, Sine, Saloum and in The Gambia, which was a colony of the Kingdom of Saloum. There they occupy parts of old Nuimi and Baddibu as well as the Gambian Kombo.
Senegal: 2,941,545.6 million (2023 estimates) (16% of total population) The Gambia: 88,316.45 (2019-2020 estimates, 3.5% of total population according to Gambia)<ref name="2013Census"></ref> Mauritania: 5,0003500 estimated in 2000 from 1988 census. See: African Census Analysis Project (ACAP). University of Pennsylvania. Ethnic Diversity and Assimilation in Senegal: Evidence from the 1988 Census by Pierre Ngom, Aliou Gaye and Ibrahima Sarr. 2000
The Seex (also called Sine-Sine, Serer, Seh, Seeh, or Serer-Sine) occupy the Sine and Saloum areas, now part of modern-day independent Senegal. The Serer people include the Seex, Serer-Noon (or Serer-None, Serer-Non, or Noon), Serer-Ndut (or N’doute), Serer-Jegem/Serer-Njeghen (or Serer-Dyegueme, Serer-Gyegem, or Serer-N'Diéghem), Serer-Safene, Serer-Niominka, Serer-Palor (or Falor, Palar, Siili, Siili-Mantine, Siili-Siili, Waro, or Serer), and the Serer-Laalaa (or Laa, La, Lâ, or Serer). Each group speaks Serer or a Cangin language. "Serer" is the standard spelling in English speaking Gambia. "Seereer" or "Sereer" reflects the Serer pronunciation of the name and are spellings used mostly by Senegalese Serer historians, linguists or scholars. "Sérère" is the standard spelling in French speaking Senegal and Mauritania.
Ethnonym
The meaning of the word "Serer" is uncertain. Professor Issa Laye Thiaw view it as ancient and sacred, and pre-Islamic, and thus rejects the following four modern definitions rooted in their historical rejection of Islam:"La Religiosité des Sereer, avant et pendant leur Islamisation". Éthiopiques, No: 54, Revue Semestrielle de Culture Négro-Africaine. Nouvelle Série, Volume 7, 2e Semestre 1991. By Issa Laye Thiaw
From the Serer Wolof word reer meaning 'misplaced', i.e. doubting the truth of Islam. From the Serer Wolof expression seer reer meaning "to find something hidden or lost." From "the Arabic word seereer meaning sahir magician or one who practices magic (an allusion to the traditional religion)" From a Pulaar word meaning separation, divorce, or break, again referring to rejecting Islam.
Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, citing the work of 19th-century French archeologist and Egyptologist, Paul Pierret, states that the word Serer means "he who traces the temple."Pierret, Paul, "Dictionnaire d'archéologie égyptienne", Imprimerie nationale 1875, p. 198-199 [in] Diop, Cheikh Anta, Precolonial Black Africa, (trans: Harold Salemson), Chicago Review Press, 1988, p. 65 Diop continued: "That would be consistent with their present religious position: they are one of the rare Senegalese populations who still reject Islam. Their route is marked by the upright stones found at about the same latitude from Ethiopia all the way to the Sine-Salum, their present habitat."
R. G. Schuh have refuted Diop's thesises in general.Russell G. Schuh, "The Use and Misuse of Language in the Study of African History", Ufahamu, 1997, 25(1), p. 36-81 Professor Molefi Kete Asante et al. agrees pretty much with Professor Diop, and posits that, "they are an ancient people whose history reaches deep into the past..." and that would be consistent with their "strong connection to their ancient religious past".Asante, Molefi Kete; Mazama, Ama; Encyclopedia of African Religion, SAGE Publications (2008), p. 606-7, (retrieved 2 March 2025)
History
Professor Dennis Galvan writes that "The oral historical record, written accounts by early Arab and European explorers, and physical anthropological evidence suggest that the various Serer peoples migrated south from the Fuuta Tooro region (Senegal River valley) beginning around the eleventh century when Islam first came across the Sahara."Galvan, Dennis Charles, The State Must Be Our Master of Fire: How Peasants Craft Culturally Sustainable Development in Senegal, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 p. 51 Over generations these people, possibly Pulaar-speaking herders originally, migrated through Wolof areas and entered the Siin and Saluum river valleys. This lengthy period of Wolof-Serer contact has clouded the origins of shared "terminology, institutions, political structures, and practices."
If one is to believe the economist and demographer Étienne Van de WalleÉtienne Van de Walle was not a historian or a professor of history. He had a degree in economics and was a demographer/researcher but was not an academic historian. See: Leridon, Henri. “Etienne van de Walle 1932-2006.” Population (English Edition, 2002-), vol. 61, no. 1/2, 2006, pp. 11–13. JSTOR, . Accessed 5 Aug. 2024. who gave a slightly later date for their ethnogenesis, writing that "The formation of the Sereer ethnicity goes back to the thirteenth century, when a group came from the Senegal River valley in the north fleeing Islam, and near Niakhar met another group of Mandinka origin, called the Gelwar, who came from the southeast (Gravrand 1983). The actual Sereer ethnic group is a mixture of the two groups, and this may explain their complex bilinear kinship system".
Their own oral traditions recite legends that relate their being "part of, or closely related to, the same group as the ancestors of today's Tukulor" (Toucouleur people) in the Senegal River valley area. Serer people resisted Islamization (and later Wolofization) from as early as the 11th century during the Almoravid movement. By around 1030 - 1035, during the reign of the Muslim leader, War Jabi, the Serers refused War Jabi's forced conversion and Sharia law, resulting in Serer ultimate defeat, and eventually, the initial Serer exodus from Tekrur. They migrated south where they intermixed with the Diola people (whom they have an ancient relationship with).See Godfrey Mwakikagile in Martin A. Klein. Islam and Imperialism in Senegal Sine-Saloum, 1847–1914, Edinburgh at the University Press (1968)