This chapter analyzes a process that, for want of a better name, has been called the “Mandingization” of Jola society (Thomas 1958/1959, Pélissier 1966, Linares 1981). In the literature on the Jola, emphasis has been placed on how “traditional” Jola culture has become transformed by the introduction of new norms and values borrowed from the Manding. Pélissier (1966: 799–800) has expressed this point of view in an impressionistic yet insightful way:

The implication of this statement is that the “Mandingized” Jola have wholeheartedly adopted Manding ethnic identity. In crossing ethnic boundaries, the Jola have undergone a systematic shift in the system of meanings through which they construct their identity. And, further, that this shift has brought with it fundamental changes in gender relations.

As Epstein (1978: 100) has ably argued, however, no one ever carries a single identity. Members of all societies simultaneously hold a whole range of identities in the same way as they occupy a number of statuses and play a variety of roles.