Cités noires : les républiques villageoises du Fuuta Tooro (Vallée du fleuve Sénégal)

J. Schmitz — Black City-States : Village Republics in the Futa Tooro (Senegal River Valley). Midway in the Senegal River Valley, most Haalpulaar villages are headed by chiefs chosen, in some cases for several centuries now, from within one or two families by certain other lineages. Village and territory chiefs (respectively jom wuro and jom leydi) are not the only local office-holders. Other "noble" families belonging to four ethnie status groups provide persons for other village offices (imam at the mosque, tax-collector, chief of fishermen) whose holders may be appointed, elected or chosen as a function of seniority. Permutations make this pluralisme society work : no status group dominates ail domains. The anthropological model of the city-state (in the sense of the Ancient Greek polis) can help explain the political ingenuity of which the Haalpulaar have proven so capable.