 The Senufo, about 1 million in number, live in four countries: the northern Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and the extreme south of Mali. From the linguistic point of view, they belong to the Voltaic group, as do the Kulango and the Lobi. Each village, linked to the others only through the poro association, remained autonomous until the seventeenth century on the level of political, administrative, and cultural structures. A single language was established, Sy6nia, which was the origin of the name Senufo that the French colonizers gave them.
From the sixteenth century on, some groups separated and emigrated to the south, which was rich in fertile land. In the seventeenth century, they had to flee from the Mandinke and the Baoule, who conquered and assimilated them, notably around Bouake. These three centuries there marked by migrations tied to economic, demographic, and political reasons, as well as to the Samory wars. From 1850 on, their partisans and the Baoule forced them to regroup in villages in order to defend themselves against massacres and pillaging. About thirty Senufo subgroups can be counted, of which four have settled in the Ivory Coast… Learn
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