The Serer people originated in the Senegal River valley, at the border of present-day Senegal and Mauritania, and moved south in the 11th and 12th century. They migrated again in the 15th and 16th centuries as their villages were invaded and they were subjected to religious pressures from Islamic forces.[10][11][12] They have had a sedentary settled culture and have been known for their farming expertise and transhumant stock-raising.[11][13]
The Serer people have been historically noted as an ethnic group practicing elements of both matrilineality and patrilineality that long resisted the expansion of Islam.[14][15][16][17][18] They fought against jihads in the 19th century, and subsequently opposed the French colonial rule.[19][20][21]
In the 20th century, most of the Serer converted to Islam (Sufism[22]), but some are Christians or follow their traditional religion.[19] The Serer society, like other ethnic groups in Senegal, has had social stratification featuring endogamous castes and slaves.[23][24][25] Other historians, such as Thiaw, Richard and others, believe that the Serer did not maintain a slave culture, or at least not to the same extent as other ethnic groups in the region.[26][27][28]
^ abCIA World Factbook, Senegal (2023 estimates)
- archive [1]
^Natural Resources Research, UNESCO, Natural resources research, Volume 16, Unesco (1979), p. 265
^Kalis, Simone, Médecine traditionnelle religion et divination chez les Seereer Sine du Senegal, La connaissance de la nuit, L'Harmattan (1997), p. 299, ISBN2738451969
^Lamoise, LE P., Grammaire de la langue Serer (1873)
^Becker, Charles: Vestiges historiques, trémoins matériels du passé clans les pays sereer, Dakar (1993), CNRS-ORSTOM [3]
^Gastellu, Jean-Marc, Petit traité de matrilinarité. L'accumulation dans deux sociétés rurales d'Afrique de l'Ouest, Cahiers ORSTOM, série Sciences Humaines 4 (1985) [in] Gastellu, Jean-Marc, Matrilineages, Economic Groups and Differentiation in West Africa: A Note, O.R.S.T.O.M. Fonds Documentaire (1988), pp 1, 2–4 (pp 272–4), 7 (p 277) [4]
^Dupire, Marguerite, Sagesse sereer: Essais sur la pensée sereer ndut, KARTHALA Editions (1994). For tim and den yaay (see p. 116). The book also deals in depth about the Serer matriclans and means of succession through the matrilineal line. See pp. 38, 95–99, 104, 119–20, 123, 160, 172–74, ISBN2865374874[5]