Question 1.2

1.2 What was life like for your people, the Coniaguis, that small ethnic group from the north of Guinea?

The Coniaguis are a people made up almost exclusively of farmers and livestock breeders, who have managed to preserve their traditions. Where do they come from? According to some researchers, the Coni-aguis are related to the Yolas of Casamance, whose language is said to be almost identical to theirs. Now the Yolas, according to oral tradition, are the descendants of Guélowar Bamana. In fact, the Yolas or Biagares, whose territory extends to Koli and borders on the land of the Bassaris, live on the bank of the Geba River, opposite Bissau.

According to storytellers’ oral tradition, a young Coniagui girl, Guélowar Bamana, was at the origin of the Gabu or Kaabu dynasties, said to go back to the thirteenth century, and also of all the populations of the Sine region, that is, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, the Gambia, and the northwest of Guinea-Conakry. “In those days, the king’s son married a young woman who appeared mysteriously in the bush: she was descended from the spirits and did not speak Mandingue. They taught her to speak and eat in the manner of the Mandingues, that is, the Malinkés. Out of their union four girls were born, who married the kings of Djimana, Pinda, Sama, and Sine, respectively. Only male descendants can be emperors of Gabu, but through the matrilineal line.”

My ancestors were basically animists, faithful to the rituals and secular festivals that still set the tempo of their existence.

During my childhood, we lived in round, one-room brick huts covered by wattle and daub, surrounded by a “veranda” where we usually ate our meals. We owned one or two other small huts nearby where we stored rice, fonio, peanuts, millet, and other crops. We had fields and rice paddies; the earth’s yield served to feed the village families, and the surplus was sold at the market. It was a simple, humble, secure life without conflicts. Community living and caring for the needs of others were of the utmost importance.

Villagers organized themselves into groups of fifteen to twenty people to help each other with their work in the fields. During the growing and harvest seasons, each group set aside certain days to work the fields of each of its members in turn, according to a mutually agreed-on calendar. When a work cycle was complete, each having welcomed the group in his field, we started over again, until the end of the growing season. This solidarity allowed each member to receive effective aid from his group when it was his turn. Occasionally a family would invite a few extra villagers to help them work in the fields. The family would then offer some millet beer or mead and a midday meal to the friends who had joined them.