Baga people

The Baga people are a West African ethnic group who live in the southern swampy lands of Guinea Atlantic coastline. Traditionally Animist through the pre-colonial times, they converted to Islam during the colonial era, but some continue to practice their traditional rituals.

Typically rural and known for the agricultural successes, particularly with rice farming, the Baga people speak a language of the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo family. They are also known for their historic animist pieces of artwork, which are on display for their beauty and sophistication at many major museums of the world. After independence, a totalitarian Islamic-Marxist government took over Guinea in 1958, whose forced seizure and program of "demystification" that lasted till 1984 destroyed their ritual arts of the Baga people.

The Baga people include a number of tribes that share cultural characteristics. The subgroups include the Mandori, the Sitemu, the Pukur, the Bulunits, the Kakissa (or Sobané), the Koba, and the Kalum. They are also closely related to the inland Landuma, to the Nalu of Guinea-Bissau and to the Temne of Sierra Leone with whom they share linguistic similarities.

The name Baga is derived from the Susu phrase bae raka, “people of the seaside.”

They speak the Baga languages, but many also speak the Mande language Susu because it has been the regional trade language. The Baga language exists in many dialects, and some of these have become extinct.

According to Baga oral tradition, the Baga originated in Guinea's interior highlands and were driven by aggressive neighbors westward to the coastal swamplands. Nevertheless they are considered "first-comers" along the many areas of the Upper Guinea coast, and accrued landlords rights in consequence of this. Here they constituted an acephalous society comprising a series of autonomous communities.

From the sixteenth century the development of Portuguese trade routes extending down from further north reached the region, which had simultaneously attracted trade routes from the hinterland. The Baga people, principally involved in the cultivation of rice and kola nut, and the production of salt, were a source for supplies to these traders. This new economic activity attracted new settlers to the area and led to the transformation of the society. Portuguese settlers, primarily Lancados, integrated into the evolving multi-ethnic society by marrying the daughters of Baga chiefs, some coming to assume the role of political leaders and establishing ruling dynasties. Thus for example there arose the Gomez and Fernandez Dynasties, and with them the start of the colonial era influence.

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