Saafi people

The Saafi people, also called Serer-Safene, Safene, etc., are an ethnic group found in Senegal. Ethnically, they are part of the Serer people but do not speak the Serer language nor a dialect of it. Their language Saafi is classed as one of the Cangin languages. In Senegal, they occupy Dakar and the Thies Region.

The Saafi mainly adhere to the tenets of Serer religion.

Shrines are of the utmost importance to the Saafi people. The characteristics of each shrine are different. There is a general discourse about the protecting power of the shrines and the spirits that inhabit them echoing the main themes of the ethnic boundary described earlier. Each Saafi village had at least one shrine; and the shrines, each of which had a name and specific characteristics, defined a public sphere of religious ritual that was common to the village. Bandia had the Koffki, Guinabour had Graam and a sacred well, Tchiki had Carit and Enge (an ancestral shrine), Kirène had Jayña, Ndiass (or Diass) had Sahee, Dobour had a spring with healing waters. Each shrine was controlled or administered by a particular matrilineal clan, and one clan, the Leemu, controlled most of the shrines. All the shrines served as focal points for the divination ceremonies held before the beginning of the rainy season. Most were sites of periodic sacrifice to the indwelling spirits, but the shrines had their own unique characteristics. In addition to possessing the one judging shrine that could kill, Bandia played a key role in the prayers to Koox (the atmospheric supreme God), that occurred only in serious times of drought that threatened the entire district. The shrines at Guinabour (Graam) and Diass (Sahee) could be described as wind spirits. They protected the villages by raising a wind that made them invisible to their enemies, particularly the Wolof. In more general terms, past migrations into the region and the founding of village shrines are essential features of Saafi identity and the system of defense that protected the independence of the region.

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