Bainuk people

The Bainuk people (also called Banyuk, Banun, Banyun, Bainouk, Bainunk, Banyum, Bagnoun, Banhum, Banyung, Ñuñ, Elomay, or Elunay) are an ethnic group that today lives primarily in Senegal as well as in parts of Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.

Bainuk
Languages
Banyum language, French language
Religion
Islam, African traditional religion

Etymology

The name Banyun is attributed to the Portuguese, who derived the word from Mandinka and applied it as a collective name for a number of groups settled at strategic sites along waterways, portages, and trade paths between the Gambia and Cacheu rivers.... Possibly Banyun served as a generic term for "trader," much as dyula identifies Mande traders engaged in long-distance commerce (Map 9).[1]

Mandinka oral history from the Pakao area of the middle Casamance records that the name "Bainouk" was a pejorative term, first used after the Mandinka defeated them battle in the late 16th century, meaning "those who are chased away," from the Mandinka word "bai" meaning "chase away."[2]

History

The Bainuk are believed to have been the first inhabitants of the lower Casamance.

In the fifteenth century, there were at least five Bainuk states including Bichangor, Jase, Foni, and Buguando. The Bainuk were also a major component of the population of the Kasa kingdom.[3]

The Bainuk states dominated the riverine and coastal trade in the region, heavily restricting the activities of Portuguese traders and denying them access to inland trade routes. At the end of the 16th century they relaxed this policy as part of collaboration with the Portuguese against Kasa, but gradually clamped back down afterwards.[4]

In modern times the Bainuk have heavily adopted Mande and Jola cultural customs.[3]

Culture

Many Bainuk are adherents of Islam, a process that began around the 17th century due to the influence of Muslim Mande scholars and merchants settling in the region.[5] Some also practice their traditional animistic religion.[3]

The Bainuk are known as skilled dyers and weavers.[3]

Notes
  1. George E. Brooks, Landlords and strangers: Ecology, society, and trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630 (Westview Press, 1993; ISBN 0813312620), p. 87.
  2. Schaffer, Matt. “Bound to Africa: The Mandinka Legacy in the New World.” History in Africa, vol. 32, 2005, p 332. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20065748. Accessed 4 June 2023.
  3. Olson, James Stuart; Meur, Charles (1996). The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-313-27918-8.
  4. Brooks, George E. (August 1985). "Western Africa To c1860 A.D. A Provisional Historical Schema Based On Climate Periods" (PDF). Indiana University African Studies Program: 184. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  5. Drame, Aly (2009). "Migration, Marriage, and Ethnicity: The Early Development of Islam in Precolonial Middle Casamance". In Diouf, Mamadou; Leichtman, Mara (eds.). New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power, and Femininity. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 169–182. ISBN 978-0-230-60648-7.

Sources
  • Clark, Andrew F. and Lucie Colvin Phillips, Historical Dictionary of Senegal (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1994) p. 73, 179.
  • Barry, Boubacar. Senegambia and the Atlantic Salve Trade (Cambridge: University Press, 1998), p. 21


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