Bambara

By Teferi Abate Adem

Bamana, Banmana, Bamanan (pl. Bamananw)

The term "Bambara" has been widely used by European writers, Arabs and some Africans alike to refer to a large group of Mande speaking and ethnically undifferentiated non-Muslim people inhabiting a vast expanse of land along both sides of the Niger River in West Africa (Monteil, 1924). According to one French scholar, however, the Bambara themselves have a rather clear idea of their early history and ethnic identity. They call themselves "Bamanan" (pl. Bamananw) which translates as "rejection of a master" (Dieterlen, 1951:12). The Bambara use this designation to reinforce shared traditions which recount how their ancestors escaped enslavement by Malinke conquerors in the 13th century by leaving their original homeland Toron (in the present Côte d'Ivoire) for settlement along the middle valley of Niger in Mali. As a vernacular identity, Bambara doesn't include other Mande speaking ethnic groups which continued to be subjects of the old Malinke empire. Historically, the Bambara have been the largest and most dominant ethnic group in Mali. There are also a small group of Bambara people living in the neighboring Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mauritania.

As of 1995, the Bambara were estimated to be 2,786,385, out of which 2,700,000 lived in Mali, while the remaining 117, 000 were found in the neighboring Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania and Guinea (Gordon, 2005). Population density in Bambara villages, like in other parts of the West African Savannah-Sahel, varies across agro-ecological zones. It ranges from 30 persons per square kilometer in communities with high rainfall level to 10 in drought prone lowlands (Toulmin, 1992:34).

The Bambara speak Bamana (also called Bamanakan) which is one of the Manding languages. Bamana is also Mali's national language. It is widely spoken throughout the country by as much as 80% of the population (Gordon, 2005).

According to a widely documented local tradition, the Bambara are not native to their present homeland. Instead, their ancestors originally lived in a region called Toron which is situated in Côte d'Ivoire along the upper catchments of the Niger River. From Toron, the Bambara moved in a northeasterly direction and then spread out towards the middle valley of the Niger where they developed a powerful empire based in Ségou during the 1700s (Monteil, 1924: 15-16). This empire started to expand under the leadership of Kaladian Coulibaly who successfully subdued several rival chiefs until his death in 1680. The empire expanded under Kaladian Coulibaly's grandson Mamary Coulibaly who established a strong personal army largely recruited from a traditional youth organization called tón. Mamary Coulibaly died in 1755 after leading successful assaults against neighboring Fulani, Soninke and Mossi peoples. He was survived by two sons Dinkoro Coulibaly and Ali Coulibaly but they were unable to hold the empire together. In 1766, a former slave called Ngolo Diarra came to power through a coup and established control over the empire. His descendants successively ruled and expanded the empire until it was finally conquered by the Tukolor-based Jihadist army of El Hadji Umar Tall on March 10, 1861 (Paques, 1954). The Tukolor rule in its turn came to an end in 1890 when the French occupied Mali. Following Mali's independence in 1960, the Bambara have been administered mostly through their own village chiefs who function as local agents of the state.

The Bambara live in nucleated villages which are often located near a watercourse where wells could be dug. Each village is divided into several wards consisting of several households. Most villagers belong to one lineage or extended family. Some villages may include new Bambara settlers and Fulani herders who came to live there for the time being with the permission of the village chief. Each village has a sacred woodlot or a dwelling place for protective spirits where religious ceremonies and initiation rites take place. The center of the village is marked by a cleared space where elders hold their councils. Before the French conquest, Bambara villages were fortified by a triple enclosure of clay blocks (Monteil, 1924). The first wall enclosed the entire village and surrounding gardens, while the second circled the interior of the village. The third circled the chief's house for protection and as a status marker. Most of the houses are round huts with thatched roof and woven bamboo walls. There are also some rectangular or square huts made of dried bricks (Toulmin, 1992).

The Bambara are agriculturalists who cultivate a variety of crops including millet, sorghum, peanuts, cassava, tobacco, and Bambara groundnuts (an indigenous variety named after them). They also raise cattle, horses, goats, sheep and chickens. Bambara farmers are especially known for the bond friendship they long maintained with the neighboring Fulani herders. In this arrangement, Fulani herders are trusted to herd the Bambara livestock. In recompense for the service, each Fulani receives a herding fee (often in the form of millet or cash) and a variety of favors from the herd owning Bambara. Many Bambara farmers also augment their income by participating in a variety of non-agricultural activities including trade, wage labor, small-scale craft production, charcoal making, hunting and collection of wild resources (Toulmin, 1992). Seasonal migration and market gardening (i.e., growing vegetables and fruits for sell) are especially recognized by many Bambara as important income generating strategies (Wooten, 2003).

A small group of occupational castes practice specialized trades, while the majority of the Bambara earn their living through a combination of cereal farming, cattle herding and seasonal wage labor. The men of the blacksmith caste (numu), for example, produce a wide variety of farm tools and cultural objects by fashioning metal. Women of this caste specialize in pottery. Likewise, the caste of shoemakers (garanke) works with leather.

In addition to meeting consumption needs, Bambara farmers seek to generate additional income by designating a significant part of their land and labor to cultivating products "for cash money" (Wooten, 2003: 6). These products include fruits, vegetables and food grains. Villagers sell most of their food grain locally (often to visiting grain traders, food deficit households, etc), while fruits and vegetables are transported to nearby markets and towns. Villagers get most of the manufactured goods they need from local shopkeepers and traveling merchants (diaola). Some farmers also travel to market towns especially when they have to make special purchases relating to weddings and other ceremonials (Toulmin, 1992).

Both men and women take part in farming, but very clear division of labor by gender persists (Wooten, 2003:5). Men work collectively to produce food crops such as millet, sorghum and cowpeas. Married women work individually in small fields to produce sauce crops (mainly okra and peanuts) that complete the daily meals they cook. Unmarried girls devote most of their time to household chorus such as fetching water, child care, and house cleaning, while young boys look after livestock.

The village chief owns all the land on behalf of individuals belonging to the same patrilineal lineage (fa). The chief allocates the land in two ways which recognize the need to balance between group and individual rights. Each household head (dutigi) receives "big field" to be operated as a common property (foroba) by all household members. Junior men, who live under the authority of a particular household head as his younger brothers, sons, nephews, grandsons, grandnephews, etc, receive "personal fields" (jonforow). Likewise, women who are wives in the household receive "women's fields" (musoforow). Women and junior men cultivate their personal plots, usually for growing commercial vegetables and fruits or just as pulse fields, on their own time after work on the household farm. Through time, however, married women retire from the household farm and fully concentrate on cultivating their personal fields (Becker, 1996:6-7). Land is generally abundant and both men and women receive as much fields as they can work (Toulmin, 1992).

Bambara society is divided into several patrilineal lineages and sub-lineages, but without a clear distinction between these levels. Every legitimate Bambara person belongs to a patrilineal lineage group which is recognized by its own totem (jamu), often a particular animal like lion, panther, dog, etc. Each lineage has also its own history and socially recognized status vis-à-vis other lineages (Henry, 1910:10). The preferred residence pattern is virilocal, but members of each lineage are often dispersed across several villages because of fission and resettlement. Lineage members regard themselves as bound by a tie of fraternity and kinship. They also respect the lineage's particular taboos and recognize a senior male descendant from the founder of the lineage as their chief.

Bambara kinship terminology is classificatory, but distinction is made between parallel and cross cousins. Terms used for own siblings are extended for paternal cousins but not for material cousins. Likewise, ego's paternal nieces and nephews are called “child,” while maternal counterparts are addressed differently. Lineage name is used in the ritual exchange of daily greetings.

Marriage is considered a very important 'investment'; through which legitimate offspring that would ensure the future households and lineages are obtained (Toulmin, 1992:229). Household heads are responsible for arranging marriage for all male members of their household, according to seniority, by finding the right girl, paying required bride-price and by organizing weddings. Individuals do not marry within their own lineage. Women keep their lineage name when they marry. Lineages with similar status usually maintain long established wife exchange relationships. Polygyny and widow inheritance are very common.

The Bambara household (gwa, literally a hearth) is the basic unit of production and consumption, farming a communal field and eating from a single granary. Bambara households tend to be much larger than those found in many other parts of Africa where extended households have been under increasing pressure to dissolve into smaller components. According to a 1981 study conducted in the Bambara village of Kala, for example, the average household consisted of more than 18 members (Toulmin, 1992:23). Household heads ensure the continuity of these large units by allowing ambitious members to obtain personal income through part time engagements in wage labor, market gardening, petty trading and crafts work. Household members usually keep their personal income for their own use, while household heads cover all other expenses relating to food, clothing, tax payments, and wedding expenses.

Household authority generally passes to the eldest living male who then becomes responsible for the collective household belongings including land, tools and grain stores. Mothers' fields are inherited either by sons or by the sons of co-wives if the former already had enough land to cultivate. With increasing expansion of commodity production, some junior men have sought fission so that they will be a dutigi (“household head”) by their own right using privately earned income (Becker, 1996:4).

Children in Bambara live in daily contact with parents, enjoying great freedom to play with other children in the neighborhood. Beginning from around age seven, however, boys and girls undergo different rites of passages that prepare them for gendered status and roles. Boys make friends with age mates who are going to be their fellow members in the age-set to be formally recognized when circumcised together. Girls are betrothed at a young age and will be expected to start learning the skills they need for their later life as women and wives by working for their mothers. Boys learn to trust one another and work together in farming, hunting, fishing, etc as members in age groups (Monteil, 1924).

The Bambara live in closely organized village communities where residents maintain wide ranging, and often overlapping, duties and expectations to one another as lineage members, age mates, neighbors and patron-clients. Each village has a chief, usually the senior noble man from the founding lineage, who exercises extensive moral and legal authority relating to land redistribution, inter-household relations, religion and ceremonials. Young men and women of each village are also linked through membership in age-based associations. All men circumcised at the same time form a single age-group. Within the age group each member has a special relationship of equality, trust, and mutual help with the others regardless of lineage status or household wealth. Likewise, women who marry in the same year form a mutual help association to support each other in cotton-spinning and pounding millet. In each village, young men belonging to different age-sets form a village-wide youth association (tón). The tón may also function as a work-group that is hired by well-off household heads. The group uses its earnings to cover expenses for a three-day annual festival. At the annual festival, which takes place prior to the cultivation season, porridge and meat is provided for the whole village.

Traditional Bambara society is hierarchically divided into three caste-like social groups. These are the nobles (horon) who fought and farmed, the slaves (jon) who worked for their masters, and the occupational castes (nyamakala) including blacksmith, pottery makers, tanners, carpenters, and griots who sang the nobles' praises. Following Mali's independence in 1960, the government enacted a law providing free access to land and water resources to all villagers regardless of their social backgrounds. But the actual implementation of this legislation by local officials has continued to be informed by traditionally political cultural concepts relating to the chief's powers over villagers and resources (Toulmin, 1992).

The village chief uses his culturally and constitutionally recognized authority to adjudicate disputes involving individuals and households. In doing so, the chief is often assisted by a council of elders composed of the heads of wards and extended families.

As noted above, household members do not share the same decision-making powers. Instead, the negotiation power of each member depends on seniority, gender and marital status. This inequality occasionally fuels intra-household conflicts. The cohesion of households is also threatened by the increasing importance of market gardens and wage labor for generating personal income (Becker, 1996). Junior men and women often seek to earn more cash from these money-earning strategies instead of devoting most of their time to cultivating the foroba (household farm). Beyond the household-level, the Bambara have historically waged a series of wars of conquest. Prior to the fall of the region under French colonial occupation in 1890, ambitious village chiefs often mobilized age-sets as an army for plundering and slave raiding.

Most Bambara claim to be Muslims. But many people still follow their traditional beliefs in spiritual forces relating to ancestors. In addition to prayers and offerings at the individual and household levels, spirits of dead ancestors are honored with elaborated community-wide ceremonies (Toulmin, 1992).

In addition to direct prayers, offerings and sacrifices, the Bambara also seek the service of several religious parishioners in appealing to spiritual forces. Each village chief is, for example, regarded by residents as a medium between the living and the dead by virtue of being the senior of all the descendants of the original founders of the village. He is requested to preside over rituals involving prayers and sacrifices to ancestors. Individual men and women may also seek to strengthen their respective spiritual force by joining organized religious societies called dyo. These societies are organized hierarchically and each level is associated with different degree of spiritual power. Members are said to have “conserved” more spiritual forces as they move from lower to higher levels (Paques, 1954:122). Other religious practitioners include Quran scholars (Marabous), and occupational castes that are believed to posses secrete knowledge of magic, poison, procedures for combating enemies and sorcers, etc.

The Bambara practice a wide variety of religious and cultural ceremonies. Ancestors are remembered and honored with prayers and sacrifices. Each year, villagers celebrate a community-wide festival involving sacrifices and rhythmic chants by masked dancers who symbolize the resurrection of dead ancestors. Villagers also organize rain rites with the help of ritual leaders. Periodically, they observe less elaborated celebrations in which men of each household join hands to collect refuse, burn it, ritually breathe in the fumes, and finally throw the ashes in the river. By doing so, the men hope to “accumulate forces” that would make them stronger (Paques, 1954:136). To this list of ceremonials, one can also add circumcision rites and the annual village-wide the ceremony organized by the village tón.

The Bambara use a wide variety of artistic objects (such as masks, sculptures, ceramics and paintings), music and literature. Each of these arts has clearly defined cultural, symbolic, and social functions relating to rituals, ceremonials and other life situations. Some of the artistic objects are produced by specialized caste groups. Masks and sculptures are, for example, done by male blacksmiths while women of the caste generally make pottery. Griots (praise singers) sing and play drums, harps and other instruments during divination, sacrificial rituals, magical rites and holidays. Painted murals and decorations are found on sanctuary walls, peoples' houses, calabash spoons and girls' hands. Religious drawings are made by priests, while other signs and decorations may be done by ordinary villagers (Paques, 1954).

Illness is traditionally associated with the powers of spiritual forces. The Bambara use a variety of chants, invocations, dances and musical instruments in healing the sick and in divining the causes of diseases. They also learn about the knowledge of making protective charms by joining religious societies. Through membership in secret cults, some men hope to learn how to make poisons, antidotes, and magical formulas.

Prior to their conquest by Tukolor Jihadists, Bambara burial practices involved hanging the body on a tree until it rotted and keeping the bones after that. Following the conquest, however, most of them converted to Islam and started burying the body. Instead of the body, they put a band of cotton on a tree to symbolize the immortality of the deceased person's tongue (words). Funeral rituals for chiefs and spiritual leaders are highly elaborated, often involving rifle shots, lamentations, offerings by relatives and friends, ritual cleaning and inhumation of the body, and final burial feasts. The souls of dead ancestors are believed to come alive in the body of masked dancers and this event is celebrated annually. Ancestors are regarded as “vital forces” in protecting the living and in making the land fertile (Paques, 1954:135).

Documents referred to in this section are included in eHRAF World Cultures and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The Bambara collection consists of 12 documents, including this culture summary, covering information on two main time periods: 1910-1950s and 1988-2003. Materials on the first period consist of four books translated from French. The earliest of these books are by a French Roman Catholic missionary (Henry, 1910, no.4) and a colonial administrator (Monteil, 1924, no. 2) who had lived among the Bambara from around 1900 to 1923. Henry (1910, no.4) discusses Bambara psychology and religion through broader explorations into their ideas on human life, taboos, animism, cults, sacrifices, and ceremonials relating to circumcision, marriage and funerals, while Monteil (1924, no. 2) focuses on history and administrative practices with particular emphasis on functions of age-groups, religious cults, secret societies and territorial lineages. Both of these authors occasionally characterize the Bambara using strongly negative stereotypes that seem highly colored by their own respective religious and political views. Comprehensive ethnographic information on Bambara culture and society will be found in the remaining two books, Dieterlen (1951, no.1) and Paques (1954, no. 3), both of them professional French ethnographers with extensive field work experience in the region. Materials on the second period focus on Bambara economy and household dynamics. Toulmin (1992, no.7) and Becker (1996, no.7) discuss the constraints and opportunities different household heads encounter in attempting to enhance their access to key productive resources (land, labor and capital in the form of cattle and cash). Wooten (2003, no.5), Becker (2000, no. 6) and Grosz Ngate (1988, no. 9 and 1989, no. 8) examine the impacts of increasing commoditization of rural economy on household food security, gender and intra-household relations.

DIAOLA (traveling merchants) - use RETAIL MARKETING (443)

DUTIGI (household heads - use HOUSEHOLD HEADS (592)

DYO (organized religious societies) – use CONGREGATIONS (794)

FA (lineage segments) – use LINEAGES (613)

FOROBA ('big field' jointly held by household members) – use REAL PROPERTY (423) or HOUSEHOLD (592), possibly with “LAND USE” (311) and FAMILY RELATIONSHIP (593)

GWA (literally a hearth) – use HOUSEHOLD (592)

JONFOROW (“personal fields”) – use REAL PROPERTY (423), possibly with “LAND USE” (311) and FAMILY RELATIONSHIP (593)

MARKET GARDENING (growing vegetables and fruits for sell) – use VEGETABLE PRODUCTION (244) and ARBORICULTURE (245), possibly with BUYING AND SELLING (432)

MUSOFOROW (“women's fields”) – use REAL PROPERTY (423) and GENDER STATUS (562)

OCCUPATIONAL CASTES – use OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALIZATION (463) and CASTES (564)

PLOW OXEN – use ANIMAL TRANSPORTATION (492) and OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL (471)

SEASONAL MIGRATION – use LABOR SUPPLY AND EMPLOYMENT (464)

TÓN (age sets of junior men) – use AGE STRATIFICATION (561) and SODALITIES (575) or COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATION (474)

VILLAGE CHIEF – use COMMUNITY HEADS (622) and LOCAL OFFICIALS (624)

WATER WELLS – use WATER SUPPLY (312) and (when rented) OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF CAPITAL (471)

Becker, Laurence C. (2000). “Garden Money Buys Grain: Food Procurement Patterns in a Malian Village”, Human Ecology, Vol, 28, No. 2.

Becker, Laurence C. (1996). “Access to Labor in Rural Mali.” Human Organization, Vol. 55. No.3.

Dieterlen, Germaine (1951). An Essay on the Religion of Bambara. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (Translated from the French for the Human Relations Area Files by Katia Wolf).

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr., ed. (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com (as accessed on 4/24/06).

Grosz-Ngaté, Maria (1989). “Hidden Meanings: Explorations into a Bamanan Construction of Gender.” Ethnology, Vol. 28, No. 2.

Grosz-Ngaté, Maria (1988). “Monetization of Bridewealth and the Abandonment of “Kin Roads” to Marriage in Sana, Mali”, American Anthropologist. Vol. 15, No.3.

Henry, Joseph (1910). The Soul of an African People. The Bambara: Their Psychic, Ethical, Religious and Social Life. Bibliotheque-Anthropos, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Translated from the French for the Human Relations Area Files by Anne Coleman).

Monteil, Charles (1924). The Bambara of Ségou and Kaarta: An Historical, Ethnographical and Literary Study of a of the French Sudan. Paris: Emile Larose (Translated from the French for the Human Relations Area Files by Kathryn A. Looney).

Paques, Viviana (1954). The Bambara. International African Institute, Ethnographic Survey of Africa, West Africa, French Series. Part I. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (Translated from the French for the Human Relations Area Files by Thomas Turner).

Toulmin, Camilla (1992). Cattle, Women, and Wells: Managing Household Survival in the Sahel. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Wooten, Stephen (2003). “Women, Men and Market Gardens: Gender Relations and Income Generation in Rural Mali”. Human Organization, Vol. 62, No. 2.