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492 MAPPILLA
In Conflict and Harmony in Education in Tropical Africa, edited by Godfrey N.
Brown and Marvyn Hiskett. London: Allen and Unwin, 1975.
Schaffer, Matt, and Cooper, Christine. Mandinko: The Ethnography of a West African
Holy Land. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980.
Weil, Peter M. "Political Structure and Process Among the Gambian Mandinka: The
Village Parapolitical System." In Papers on the Manding, edited by Carleton T.
Hodge. New York: Humanities Press, 1971.
Wright, Donald R. The Early History ofNiumi: Settlement and Foundation of a Mandinka
State on the Gambia River. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1977.
. Oral Traditions from the Gambia, vol. 1, Mandinka Griots; vol. 2, Family
Elders. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979.
Articles
Jebate, Muhammed. "Traditional Mandinka Male Circumcision," translated by Abdoulie
Bayo. The Gambia Museum Bulletin 1 (1981): 1-7.
Klein, Martin A. "Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia."
Journal of African History 13 (1972): 419-441.
Nyandu, Alhaji Nfamara Omar. "Marabouts and Jujus," translated by Sheriffo Bojang.
The Gambia Museum Bulletin 1 (1981): 49-58.
Weil, Peter M. "The Masked Figure and Social Control: The Mandinka Case." Africa
41 (1971): 279-293.
Wright, Donald R. "The Western Manding: A Bibliographical Essay." Africana Journal
6 (1975): 291-302.
Unpublished Manuscripts
Howard, Allen M. "Big Men, Traders and Chiefs: Power, Commerce and Spacial Change
in the Sierra Leone-Guinea Plain." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin,
1972.
Weil, Peter M. "Mandinka Mansaya: The Role of the Mandinka in the Political System
of the Gambia." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1968.
Wright, Donald R. "Niumi: The History of a Western Mandinka State Through the
Eighteenth Century." Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1976.
Donald R. Wright
MAPPILLA The Muslims of Kerala along the Malabar coast in south India
are known as Mappilla, often transliterated into English as Moplah. The term
is variously interpreted, but is taken by Kerala Muslims as deriving from maha
pillai, great person, referring to the respected status of the early Muslim settlers.
The nearly 5.8 million Mappilla traditionally trace their origin in Kerala to the
ninth century A.D., when Arab traders brought Islam to the west coast of India.
The community has been characterized as consisting of those of pure Arab
ancestry, of the descendants of Arabs and Hindu women of the country and of
converts to Islam, mainly from among the lower castes.