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304 CHAPTER 6can also exist between certain families, who are thus perceived as having acousin relationship. This is then extended towards members of other socialgroups with the same family name or jamu, who are therefore seen as actualfamily. The equality created between social groups through these joking relationsis seen as primarily preventing violence and bloodshed. Originally usedwithin social groups and between adjacent ethnic groups on a small scale,senankuya was now taken up to form the basis of inter-ethnic relationshipswithin the Malian nation-state at large. As a traditional denial of hierarchy andthe expression of equality, senankuya relations were highly functional in stressingthe equality of the nation’s members and member-groups. The most oftenquoted example to prove the existence of senankuya relations between ethnicgroups is that between the Bozo fishermen and the Dogon, whose elaboratesenankuya excludes both bloodshed and intermarriage. 95 All ethnic groups, itwas postulated, stood in senankuya relations, putting them on equal footingwithin the nation. Thus, senankuya is said to exist between the Kel Tamasheqand the Dogon, between the Fulbe and craftsmen in general (as an extensionbetween Fulbe and their own casted craftsmen), between the Bambara and theSomono (which are a kind of casted, but ethnified Bambara fishermen), etcetera. The equality between ethnic groups through senankuya relations,involving elaborate ritual insults and duties of mediation in dispute, wasinvoked to reconcile the disrupted nation which should include the Kel Tamasheq.On 30 May 1994, evaluating the progress in the implication of theNational Pact after a fresh round of negotiations with the MFUA, and warningagainst ethnic war after the creation of the Ganda Koy, President Konaré explicitlybrought senankuya relationships into play to stress national unity.If nothing else, we have to prove ourselves worthy of this rich and living history ofthe people who invented and instituted the “senankuya”, an alliance of totemicfraternity as sacred, if not more sacred, than consanguinity. 96After the end of the conflict in 1996, senankuya would play an importantrole in both explaining the conflict and in reconciliation. In 1999 the Maliandirector Cheik Oumar Sissoko released the magnificent movie La Genèse. The9596The idea that joking relationships could inform the relations between ethnic groupsin Mali was expressed in several interviews I had with members of the former Keitaand Traoré regimes. The idea that it manages relations between members of differentethnic groups was brought home to me during various formal and informal conversations.Literature on the subject seems to be non-existent. The debate on theissue of joking relations as a means to overcome ethnic antagonisms is extended byNdiaye, who argues that joking relations could serve as a basis for new pan-Africaninternational relations. Ndiaye, A.R. 1993.‘Le Président réaffirme la gestion nationale et équitable du pacte’, L’Essor, 30/05/1994.