ABSTRACT
Numbering some 600,000 people, the Diola (or Jóola) include the largest number of adherents of an indigenous religious tradition within the predominantly Muslim nation of Senegal. Central to the continued support for what is known as the awasena path has been the broad distribution of religious authority over the many different spirit shrines (ukine) in the forms of priesthoods and councils of elders, and a long-standing tradition of direct revelation from the Diola Supreme Being, Emitai. The latter individuals are often referred to as “prophets” by French or English-speaking Diola, but are described in the Diola language by the epithet “who was sent by God” (Emitai dabognol).1 There have been at least fi fty-six such individuals identifi ed in oral traditions, oral testimony about still living “prophets,” and from archival sources. I am in the process of writing a book on this topic, focusing on the intensifi cation of this prophetic tradition since the colonial occupation in the late nineteenth century, and its transformation from an exclusively male tradition of eleven prophets during the pre-colonial era into a predominantly female tradition during the colonial and independence periods.2 By far the best known of these messengers of Emitai, Aline Sitoé Diatta was born in southwestern Senegal in the township of Kabrousse, around 1921. This chapter focuses on the struggle over her legacy between those who see her as a leader of Diola resistance to French colonialism and for the preservation of Diola autonomy, and those who regard her as a heroine of Senegalese resistance against that same colonialism.
