Tukar

Tukar (Serer : A Tukaar, other variations : Toukar or Toucar) a large village in Senegal. Attached to the rural community of Ngayokhem, it is located in the area of the pre-colonial Kingdom of Sine, west of Senegal. The population is overrun by the Serers. As of 2006 to 2007, the population was estimated at 3000. Ndokh, which was a colony of Tukar, is now a separate village.

According to Serer tradition Tukar was founded by Lamane Jegan Joof (French spelling in Senegal: Lamane Djigan Diouf). There are various versions of the tradition, but the basic story has a hero-migrant, Jegan Joof migrating from Lambaye looking for land to exploit. When he arrived at Tukar, it was nothing more than an inhospitable forest. In accordance with the complex land law system of the Serer people, he was the one who cleared the fields and founded Tukar. His paternal descendants (the Joof family) reigned there for several centuries.

In 1937, Biram Diouf (English spelling in the Gambia: Biram Joof), a descendant of Lamane Jegan Joof, was short of money and decided to pawn his family's estate (a form of mortgage known in the Serer language as taile) to Waly Sene, the Jaraff of Tukar (representative of the local king). The Joof family of Tukar almost lost their ancestral land. It took 50 years for a great-grandson of Biram Diouf called Djignak Diouf to eventually repay the descendants of Waly Sene and reclaimed his family's estate.

The name Tukar consists of two Serer words: tuuk ("shut up") and kar-kar ("just kidding"). According to Serer oral tradition, an adventurer by the name of Fassamane Thiaw (or Chaw) paid a visit to Lamane Jegan Joof during the harvest season. Lamane Jegan Joof was to have a very good harvest of millet that year and Fassamane Thiaw is reported to have exclaimed, "Ooh, you're going have quite bit of millet!" The Lamane was so surprised he immediately replied: "Tuuk!" - which means "shut up!" in Serer language. He then ordered Fassamane Thiaw to say "kar-kar" ("just kidding"). This is said to be the origin of the name Tukar.

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