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SENUFO 665
cifically applied to the majority of the people living in the city of Kong and to
those in the kingdom of Kenedougou during the latter half of the nineteenth
century.
Historically, the people called Senufo do not refer to themselves or their
language by this name. The exact etymology of the Mande term Senufo is
unknown. Sienamana is the vernacular name for the Senufo in the region around
Korhogo, and Senadi is the language spoken by the people. Supide is the language
and the name which the people use to refer to themselves in the region of
Kenedougou. The early Muslim migrants who settled among the Senufo kept
their cultural identity in that they remained in contact with other Mande peoples.
Thus, the Dyula who settled among the Senufo were able to build a communal
autonomy and cultural identity in which the Mande dialect was spoken as the
first language. Islamization of the Senufo can be closely attributed to the degree
of Mande Dyula influence in early times.
The Senufo may be divided into three broad subdivisions or branches: northern,
central and southern Senufo. The northern Senufo are the speakers of Supide,
the purest dialect of the language of Mali whose population numbers approximately
600,000. This group, often referred to as the people of Kenedougou, is
the least Islamized of the three branches. The northern Senufo, normally viewed
as being indigenous to the region, are a cultural syncretization of the people who
migrated northward from the area around Odienne along the route east of the
Bagoe River and west of the mountainous region of Fourou and who mixed with
other indigenous groups bordering the Kenedougou region, for example, the
Samogos, Gana and Minianka.
Islam first penetrated the northern Senufo with the settlement of the Dyula
Traores in Finkolo and the establishment of the kingdom of Kenedougou in the
nineteenth century. However, the Traores, who were of Mande origin, had been
"Senufo-ized" linguistically and culturally by the time Sikasso was established
as their administrative capital. Sikasso, originally a Senufo village, became the
capital of the kingdom of Kenedougou, the second largest empire in the western
Sudan by 1890. Tieba Traore, as king of Sikasso for approximately three decades,
limited the spread of Islam to his court, and during his reign the religion was
not accessible to his warriors or the masses of Senufo. However, Islam did
spread among the ruling elite and chiefs during the reign of Tieba's successor,
Babemba.
The southern Senufo were among the first groups in the Middle Volta to be
influenced by Islam. These Senufo, founders of Kong, permitted Dyula traders
to settle in the city and by the eighteenth century were consequently overthrown
by them. With the advent of the Dyula rulers, Kong became a thriving commercial
city and center of Islamic learning. Thus, this branch of the Senufo was greatly
influenced by the Manding and Dyula and the Qadiriyya Muslim order of northern
Ghana. During the nineteenth century, because of the political and economic
importance of the Dyula, many of the Senufo chiefs became affiliated with Islam.
In many instances Senufo families changed their patronymic and took on Dyula