FULBE RELIGION. The Fulbe are groups of pastoralists, semipastoralists, farmers, and city dwellers who constitute large minorities in the Sahelian countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea (Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Sudan). Also called Fulani, Fellata, and Peul, these people (with an estimated population in the early twentieth century of around twenty-five million) have played a significant role in West African history and attracted the attention of European observers of African societies. While a majority had become Muslims from the eighteenth century, they possess a strong cattle-herding tradition that antedates their Islamic allegiance.

The Fulbe speak Fulfulde (also called Pulār), a language of the West Atlantic branch of Niger-Congo languages. The northern section of the West Atlantic branch includes Wolof, Serer, and Fulfulde, which are the dominant languages of Senegal but were in earlier...