Serer

Serer is the name of the second largest ethnic group located in Senegal and the Gambia in West Africa. The word Serer, in ancient Egyptian, means “he who traces the temples.” Thus, although Serer are mainly found today in Senegal, they have a long history across Africa. Some Serer people are also found in the country of Mauretania. They are an ancient people whose history reaches deep into the past during various migrations from the North and East to their present home in West Africa. In fact, the Serer have several distinct languages, although they are viewed as one ethnic group. For example, the largest language among the Serer is called Serer-Sine, but there is also Serer-Noon, Serer-Ndut, Serer-Palor, Serer-Safen, and Serer-Lehar. These distinct languages are spoken in different parts of the countries of Senegal, Gambia, and Mauretania, and they represent the remnants of powerful ancient kingdoms, specifically the Kingdom of Sine and the Kingdom of Saloum. The latter kingdom counts more than 100 kings in its lineage, from the 11th century to the 21st century.

Religiously, the Serer follow the pattern of many West African people: They have a belief in one Supreme Deity, Roog. In their view, Roog created [Page 606]everything in the universe, but all of the ordinary things that have to do with daily life, relationships, land disputes, war, and death are left to the ancestors. Among the Serer, there are elaborate ceremonies surrounding their relationship with their clan and totemic ancestors. Names such as Faye, Sar, Fall, Diagne, and Diouf are considered totemic for the Serer.

The oral tradition of the Serer states that they traveled from the Upper Nile to West Africa. One of the reasons that Cheikh Anta Diop claimed that the Serer were able to reject Islam, being one of the few African groups in the West African Sahel region to do so successfully, might be because of their strong connection to their ancient religious past. Scholars have long believed that the route of the Serer from their ancient homeland in East Africa can be traced by upright stones found along the latitude they traveled from East to West, from Ethiopia to the region of Sine-Saloum.

Linked to the religious beliefs of the Serer is the fact that their ancestors came through the Sudanese village of Tundi-Daro and erected upright stones in the shape of a phallus and a female organ. It is believed that this was an agrarian practice that symbolized the ritual union of the sky and Earth as a way to give birth to vegetation, their daughter. The vegetation from this divine union was a cosmic trinity that harks back to the African trinity of Ausar-Auset-Heru. Thus, the ancestors to the Serer carved stones of two sexual organs to invite the divinities to couple and give them good harvests. It was the desire to ensure material existence that drove humans to this process of ritualizing the divine union.

The Serer people still retain the deity service to the upright stones. At one time during the 14th century, they planted pestles that were used as altars for libations, called dek-kur, by the Wolof who have mixed with many of the Serer. Indeed, the idea of dek-kur means anvil or receptacle. The ancient town of Tundi-Daro means, in Wolof, the hill of sexual union in a ritual sense, affirming much of the Serer oral tradition.

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