DIOLA RELIGION. Numbering some four hundred thousand people, the Diola inhabit the well-watered coastal plain between the Gambia and São Domingo rivers of Senegambia and Guinea-Bissau. They are sedentary wet-rice farmers and usually described as a stateless people, governed by village councils. Despite a common ethnic label the various Diola subgroups speak distinct dialects and have somewhat divergent religious beliefs and political organizations.

The past two centuries of Diola religious history have been characterized by the increasing interaction of Diola religion with Islam and Christianity. While Muslims and Christians have been in contact with the Diola at least since the sixteenth century, few conversions occurred before the late nineteenth century. On the north shore of the Casamance River, where contact with Islam was both earliest and most violent, many Diola have embraced Islam and, to a lesser extent, Christianity. However, the growth of these new...