Peul

The Peul (also Pular, Fulani, Fulfulde) are a large ethnie group that reaches from Senegal to Chad along the high plateau of the Sahel. Their numbers are more than 40 million and are spread from the Sahara to the rainforest. Among the first West Africans to become Muslims, the Peul have lost many of their traditional practices and rituals, but they have become adept at Africanizing their Islamic practices. In many respects, the Peul, alongside the Wolof and Serer, have articulated a special relationship to Islam and Christianity. Their languages, probably influenced by and influencing Arabic in West Africa, have grown to show an affinity in expression and attitude.

According to some scholars, such as Moussa Lam, the origin of the Peul is ancient Egypt. His argument is that the Peul, because of chaos and disorder, found their way from East Africa, out of the Nile Valley, across the Sahel to Senegal. One only has to examine the towns and villages in a straight line from the Nile Valley region to the Senegal Valley to see the reality of the presence, [Page 527]the same presence, of the Peul in the nature of burial markings and place names along the way.

Most contemporary scholars place little confidence in the old reports that there were two groups of Peul, the blacks and the reds. They argue instead that the Peul contain people who are of many shades and complexions due to their interactions with many people in their pastoral lifestyle. Indeed, the Peul have always had a special regard for cattle, but this is not something unusual in Africa given that the Nuer, Dinka, and Maasai are also noted cattle raisers. The pastoral way of life does not preclude agriculture, and many of the Peul have mastered the agrarian lifestyle found in the rainforest regions of West Africa.

The Peul tend to be highly patrilineal. It is difficult to discover any hint of a matrilineal tradition among the Peul. Most of their societies are based on a patrilineal endogamous kinship pattern where each of the families is responsible for the administration of its share of the cattle inheritance. When they have found communities among the Tamashek or Serer that have influenced their pattern, the Peul have been able to settle and engage in agriculture and cattle-raising. They are known as pastoralists, but they are not all nomadic. Many of the Peul groups have found that they can be quite successful as agriculturalists, although it is safe to say that they have never found this style of life as rewarding as the pas-toralist traditions for which they are famous.

It is believed that although there is a strong patrilineal descent system, because of the influence of Islam, there are no ceremonial or religious rituals to ancestors. Some authors believe that Islam has almost completely eradicated any form of traditional pastoral religion among the Peul. Yet there are revivalist elements among Peul intellectuals who are searching for pre-Islamic traditions.